Improvements Connected with Meat, Vegetable, and Herb Chopping or Reducing Machines.
Year: 1886

page_text: Date of Application, 20th May, 1886.
Complete Left, 21st Feb., 1887.
Complete Accepted, 5th Apr., 1887.
Improvements Connected with Meat, Vegetable, and Herb Chopping
or Reducing Machines.
I ELLEN GRADDON of Ravensbourne Road, Catford, Kent, Engineeress do hereby
declare the nature of my said invention to be as follows:-
The object of this invention is to so construct a machine for chopping or reducing
meat, vegetables, herbs, fruits, or other material of an edible or other character and
consists essentially of a bowl or platter fitted to be rotated within a frame by outside
gear from a hand winch or otherwise. The chopping knife or knives have the usual
motion from crank or eccentric and in addition I use forks scraping blades or
appliances that have an oscillatory and an up and down movement with a sliding or
scraping action upon or above the surface of the platter as to turn the meat or other
material under operation over upon itself in bulk and so shift the position of every
particle that the knives so to speak cross cut the material, the forks or their
equivalent effecting a movement to the ingredient similar to that given by an
attendant while chopping so as to, what is technically termed, chop up fine.
By this invention material not hitherto chopped up by ordinary chopping machines
such as Suet, Parsley, Mint, Carrots for Soup, Plums or Currants or Candied Peel
for Cakes and Puddings or the like or other material can be chopped with advantage
to any degree of fineness and with perfect ease.
The scraping reciprocating up and down motion of the forks or their equivalent,
(which form the essential feature of my invention as a combination with knives of
an ordinary chopping machine such as is constructed for family use) can be produced
from the upper shaft by a short eccentric lever, a differential crank lever, a heart
shaped gear or otherwise which may be timed to work the forks or their equivalent
at the same rate of speed as that of the chopping knives or at any other speed such
as would be necessary for say gathering the material as well as turning it over to
the knives.

page_text: Said forks or their equivalent may be of any suitable shape or move in any
convenient manner such as to present the greatest bulk of the material to the centres
of the knives this being effected successively during the rotation of the platter every
particle of the ingredient or ingredients under operation could be brought, if in a
dry state, almost to a state of powder an advantage not obtainable with the present
construction of step by step movement of the knives and rotating platter one of
which is timed to move fixed distances to the motion of the other thus in ordinary
machines the knives nearly always enter the previously made cuts and leave the
material in shreds which necessitate hand labour for cross chopping.
The 20th day of May 1886.

page_text: Improvements Connected with Meat, Vegetable, and Herb Chopping
or Reducing Machines.
I ELLEN GRADDON of Ravensbourne Road, Catford, Kent, Engineeress, do hereby
declare the nature of my said invention and in what manner the same is to be
performed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:
The object of this invention is to construct a machine for chopping or reducing
meat, vegetables, Herbs, Fruits or other material of an edible or other character,
and consists essentially of a bowl or platter a fitted to be rotated continuously or
intermittently within a frame b by gear c from a hand wheel or winch d or otherwise.
The chopping knife (or knives) e have the usual motion from a crank for eccentric
by the travel of the band over the pulleys d d¹ and in addition I use a fork g or
a number of forks, scraping blades or appliances that have an oscillatory and an up
and down movement with a sliding or scraping action upon or above the surface of
the platter so as to turn the meat or other material under operation over upon itself
in bulk and so shift the position of every particle that the knife or knives, so to
speak, cross cut the material, the fork or forks or their equivalent effecting a
movement to the ingredient similar to that given by an attendant while chopping,
so as to, what is technically termed, chop up fine.
By this invention material not hitherto chopped up by ordinary chopping machines
such as Suet, Parsley, Mint Carrots for Soup, Plums or Currants, or Candied Peel
for Cakes or Puddings, or the like or other material can be chopped with advantage
to any degree of fineness and with perfect case.
The scraping reciprocating up and down motion of the forks or their equivalent
(which form the essential feature of my invention as a combination with knives of
an ordinary chopping machine such as is constructed for family use) can be produced
from a short upper shaft by a disc j and eccentric lever k carrying the fork y or
by a differential crank lever, a heart shaped cam gear or otherwise which may be
timed to work the forks or their equivalent at the same rate of speed as that of the
chopping knives or at any other speed such as would be necessary for say gathering
the material as well.as turning it over to the knives.
Figure 1 of the annexed drawings shows the gear for operating the knife e and
fork or scraper g and Figure 2 is an elevation of the machine showing the position
of the fork g with regard to the knife e and also the means of rotating the platter a.
This is done by a friction pinion c working on the ledge of the block m and is
actuated by the hand winch d or in any convenient manner.
The friction wheel may be eccentric so that only one part of the circumference
shall bite on the wheel or block m; or the wheel or block m may be notched or
toothed and the pinion c provided with two or more teeth or notches to take into
the notches on the block m to produce an intermittent rotary motion of the platter a.

page_text: The forks or their equivalent may be of any suitable shape or move in any
convenient manner such as to present the greatest bulk of the material to the centres
of the knives, this. being effected successively during the rotation of the platter, every
part of the ingredient or ingredients under operation could be brought, if in a dry
state, almost to a state of powder, an advantage not obtainable with the present
construction of step by step movement of the knives and rotating platter, one of
which is timed to move fixed distances to the motion of the other, thus in ordinary
machines the knives nearly always enter the previously made cuts and leave the
material in shreds which necessitates hand labour for cross chopping.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what I claim is
1 The chopping machine hereinbefore described in which a fork or scraping blade
is operated in the manner and for the purposes set forth with reference to the
annexed drawings.
2 The employment of a fork or its equivalent to a chopping machine for drawing
the material under operation to the knives as and for the purpose described.
The 21st day of February 1887.
H. GARDNER,
166, Fleet Street, London,
Agent for the said Ellen Graddon.
H. GARDNER,
166, Flect Street, London,
Agent for the said Ellen Graddon.