Patent ID: 7484350

Claim:
A counter knife bank for a stationary knife assembly of a chopper assembly, the chopper assembly including a rotary member extending across a path of material flow through the chopper assembly and the stationary knife assembly including a knife mounting assembly positionable generally parallel to the rotary member to define a material flow passage therebetween and including a longitudinal, generally flat, upper plate with spaced slots extending laterally across the upper plate between the sides thereof and along the length of the plate, comprising a plurality of individual double-sided knife blades having cutting edges along their sides, a longitudinal spacing connector assembly joining and spacing said plurality of knife blades from one another in a columnar arrangement to form and define a ranked arrangement of said plurality of knife blades, the spacing between knife blades of said ranked arrangement corresponding to spacings between spaced slots of the upper plate of the knife mounting assembly, the cutting edges of said knife blades at one side of said ranked arrangement defining first cutting edges and the cutting edges of said knife blades at the other side of said ranked arrangement defining second cutting edges, said ranked arrangement attachable to and removable from the knife mounting assembly as a unit, said ranked arrangement attachable to the knife mounting assembly in a first orientation to expose said first cutting edges to active use and attachable to the knife mounting assembly in a second orientation to expose said second cutting edges to active use, wherein the knife mounting assembly includes end plates at the opposite ends of the upper plate and depending side wall portions generally at or near the sides of the upper plate and extending along at least a portion of the length of the upper plate between the end plates, and wherein said spacing connector assembly is attachable to at least one of the side wall portions of the knife mounting assembly, and wherein said knife blades each further include a base body portion having an aperture therethrough, wherein said apertures are aligned with one another in said ranked arrangement, and wherein said spacing connector assembly includes a spline connector that extends through the aligned apertures in the base body portions of the knife blades.