Patent ID: 6907744

Claim:
In an ice-making machine having a substantially vertical ice-forming mold for freezing cubes of ice, a water distributor for distributing water so as to cascade over a front surface of said ice-forming mold and a hinged water curtain with a bottom edge for directing said cascading water into a sump, the bottom edge of the water curtain extending under the ice-forming mold in a closed position, with the hinge allowing the water curtain to swing out of the way so that a slab of interconnected ice cubes harvested from the mold may fall past the sump and into an ice collecting bin, the improvement comprising: a) the water curtain having an inside surface adjacent to a front surface of the ice-forming mold configured such that as the slab of ice cubes is released from the mold during a harvest cycle, ice in the slab contacts said inside surface and forces the water curtain to open, before the slab is fully released, to a point where the bottom of the falling slab of ice cubes will not contact the bottom edge of the water curtain.