AN IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR CUTTING OR SLICING FRUIT, VEGETABLES, AND OTHER SUBSTANCES
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Jean Nadal at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 22nd September 1877.
JEAN NADAL, of 94, Southampton Row, in the County of Middlesex, Engineer.
"AN IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR CUTTING OR SLICING FRUIT, VEGETABLES, AND
OTHER SUBSTANCES,"
By the apparatus about to be described fruit and vegetables can be cut into slices
of various thicknesses, as also into strips, as what is generally known as "julienne."
This same machine can also cut orange peel into strips of the required thickness for
making marmalade.
The machine is constructed as follows:-A metallic drum is fixed on a shaft
revolving in a bracket in a horizontal position, which can be made to revolve by
means of cog wheels put in action by a bandle. Along the upper surface of the
drum are placed four slots or apertures passing obliquely. In three of these aper-
tures are fixed 3 moveable blades working on the back edge as on a hinge to allow
the cutting edge to be elevated or depressed in order to cut the material at any
required thickness. The fourth blade has teeth like a comb, each tooth being a
cutting blade in itself, and is fixed in the same manner as the other three knives
above mentioned, being placed between two of them and diametrically opposite
the third. This blade, when set, the teeth will stand at right angles with the
upper surface of the cylinder. The three plain blades act together and cut slices
or strips of orange peel, &c., but when fruit or vegetable is required to be cut in
small strips, as for "julienne," the two knives near the comb blade are put out
of action; the third knife opposite the comb blade remains in its open position,
and the comb which has been kept out of action is at once raised and set to
work.
When the drum is put in motion the comb will make as many incisions into the
fruit or vegetable pressed against the drum as there are cutting teeth operating on
the material to be cut. The depth of these incisions will be equal to the pro-
jection of the teeth from the circumference of the drum. The knife opposite to
the comb blade will remain fixed to cut slices, and when revolving it will cut across
the previous incisions made by the teeth of the comb blade; strips of fruit or
vegetable will be thereupon produced.

page_text: The knives are set on the drum as follows:-They are made to work as on a
hinge on their back edge by means of 2 pivots on each end of the knives working
in two corresponding bearings in the cylinder. On each of the 3 knives equidistant
from the said pivot and near the cutting edge on the side which has to operate in
the slots herein-after mentioned is a pin. There is also a pin in a similar position
placed in the blade containing the comb. At the end of the drum on the same side
where the said pins are fixed in the knives is a disc or circular plate which can be
made to revolve. At the required distance from the centre and round the inner
surface of the said disc or circular plate are four slots in which the said pins fixed
in the knife will enter. These slots are made in an eccentric and concentric shape
for the purpose of setting the knives, that is to say, the 3 knives will rise or fall
equally and gradually, by reason of the 3 slots being made equally eccentric. The
4th, the comb-bladed knife, will remain fixed during this time, as the slot in which
its pin will act is a concentric one, but when the action of the comb blade is required
in order to cut "julienne," then in continuing to turn the disc or circular blade,
the slot becoming eccentric, the knife will rise at once, when the slot of the
plain knife directly opposite becoming concentric this knife will remain in its open
position, and the two other knives will at once be put out of action by their slots,
being eccentric in an opposite direction to that of the comb blade. By this arrange-
ment it will be seen that in turning the disc or circular plate the knives can be
put in any desired position without trouble or difficulty. During the operation of
cutting, the disc or circular plate is kept fixed by a catch spring dropping in
a Blot
A table is fixed in front of the drum to hold the material to be cut, which is
capable of being moved backwards and forwards to correspond with the cutting
parts of the blade. This action is obtained by means of a lever acting at the same
time as a catch spring, dropping into different slots which correspond with the
different thicknesses required of the material to be cut.
To cut orange peel, the table is made of 2 pieces, one placed on the top of the
other, and kept together by means of two india-rubber rings or other suitable
means to allow the upper table to work up and down, according to the thickness of
the peel placed between them. The peel is brought under the knife by a fixed
feeding roller put in action by a lever, to a ratchet moved alternately by these
pius fixed in the end of the drum. The disc or circular plate which is used to
adjust the knives may also by the application of a slide be used as a self-acting
adjuster adjusting it to its different required positions. The cut material will fall
into the drum which will be ejected from the side which is open. The side of the
cylinder opposite to the bracket supporting it is open to permit this cut material to
be ejected, but another disc can be placed on that end to operate as a rasp, which
can be either removed in order to let out the cut material, or be made in open
sections so that the materials can escape.