Food-product slicers having a double-beveled blade arrangement, and features usable therewith
AssigneeEdlund Company, LLC
InventorRyan S. Whitney
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A food-product slicer having a blade set designed and configured to be skewed and tilted, i.e., double-beveled, relative to a thrust axis of the slicer along which cutting action occurs during a slicing operation. In some embodiments, the blade sets of the present disclosure can be integrated into a blade cartridge that is readily engageable and disengageable with the slicer. In certain configurations, a double-beveling of blade set can reduce binding of food-product slices within the blade set and/or create desirable discharging of food-product slices from the corresponding food-product slicer.
Claims10
A food-product slicer for slicing a food product, comprising:
- a base;
- a blade set supported by said base, said blade set designed and configured for slicing the food-product into a plurality of slices, and
- a product pusher supported by said base, said product pusher designed and configured to resistingly engage the food-product during a slicing operation when one, the other, or both of said product pusher and said blade set are moved in a manner that causes said blade set to slice the food product into the plurality of slices;
- wherein:
- said food-product slicer has a thrust axis along which slicing of the food product occurs by the blade set;
- said blade set has a stacking direction and comprises a plurality of blades spaced along said stacking direction, each of said plurality of blades having:
- a cutting edge;
- a length;
- a width;
- a thickness;
- a central plane extending along said width and said length and being parallel to said thrust axis;
- and
- a cutting-edge plane extending along said cutting edge and being perpendicular to said central plane;
- at least some of said cutting-edge planes are spaced from one another;
- and
- said plurality of blades has a first end blade and a second end blade opposite said first end blade in said blade set, wherein:
- said cutting-edge planes are spaced to form a stair-step arrangement of said plurality of blades;
- said first end blade is a bottom blade and said second end blade is a top blade, wherein said cutting edge of said bottom blade and said cutting edge of said top blade define a tilted plane having a positive tilt such that when a food product is disposed adjacent the product pusher in preparation for a slicing operation and no portion of the product pusher is intersected by the cutting-edge plane of the bottom blade, the product pusher is closer to the cutting-edge plane of the bottom blade than to the cutting-edge plane of the top blade;
- and
- each said cutting edge forms a skew angle with said thrust axis of about 30° to about 75° such that when a food product is disposed adjacent the product pusher in preparation for a slicing operation and no portion of the product pusher is intersected by the cutting-edge plane of the bottom blade, a first longitudinal end of the bottom blade is closer to the product pusher than a second longitudinal end of the bottom blade, wherein the first longitudinal end and second longitudinal end are separated by the length of the bottom blade.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.