Electric kitchen knife

Details Electric kitchen knife Electric kitchen knife

1998-12-22

2001-01-23

Payer, Hwei-Siu (Department: 3724)

Cutlery

Cutting tools

With blade moving means

C030S298400, C030S296100, C083S762000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06176017

ABSTRACT:

This application is based on application No. 9-356956 filed in Japan on Dec. 25,1997, the content of which is incorporated hereinto by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an electric kitchen knife for cutting food such as bread or meat with reciprocating blades.
An electric kitchen knife has blades connected to the end of a main housing. The blades are moved back and forth by a driving mechanism in the main housing to quickly cut food. The blades which move back and forth are two knife blades layered together without a gap and having reciprocating motion in mutually opposing directions. Each of the two knife blades has a serrated food cutting edge serrated. The two serrated knife blades are moved in mutually opposing reciprocating motion to quickly cut foods such as bread or meat. In particular, this type of electric kitchen knife has the characteristic that it can cut food such as soft bread, without applying strong pressure, into well formed slices.
An electric kitchen knife used in this manner is provided with a hand grip on the upper surface of the main housing, and has long narrow blades connected to the main housing and projecting in a straight line from the front of the main housing.
Incidentally, an electric kitchen knife is convenient to use if it can be placed on a horizontal work stand in an upright or standing orientation. This is because when cutting food such as bread or meat, the electric kitchen knife is not always continuously held and is occasionally placed on the kitchen counter or table when temporarily not in use. Even when using a standard kitchen chopping knife to cut food, the knife is not held all the time. A standard kitchen knife is held when cutting food, but it is placed down when exchanging food to be cut or when changing the arrangement or orientation of the food. The electric kitchen knife is used in the same manner to cut food by sometimes holding the knife and sometimes placing it on the kitchen counter or table.
A related art electric kitchen knife is provided with a horizontal surface on the bottom of the main housing thereby allowing it to stand upright on a table. A main housing with a narrow horizontal surface cannot stand upright in a stable fashion. For this reason, the main housing is tapered so that it becomes wider towards the bottom to make the horizontal bottom surface wider.
This type of electric kitchen knife has the drawback that the blades connected to the end of the main housing are easily hit on the kitchen counter or table when the main housing is placed in an upright orientation on the counter or table. If the blades strike the kitchen counter or table, the surface of the counter or table becomes marred or the blades are damaged and become dull. In particular, since the blades are connected to the lower end of the main housing to allow the blades to completely cut through food, this type of electric kitchen knife has the drawback that the edges of the blades easily strike on the kitchen counter or table when placing the knife in an upright position. If the blades are connected to the upper end of the main housing, the blades do not strike the kitchen counter or table, but it becomes difficult to completely cut through food to separate it into pieces with the blades connected towards the top of the main housing.
Further, it is necessary to widen the bottom surface of the main housing for an electric kitchen knife which stands upright on a horizontal surface provided on the bottom of the main housing. Therefore, this configuration has the drawback that it is difficult to make an overall design with a neat good looking outward appearance.
Still further, as shown in the oblique view of
FIG. 1
, the electric kitchen knife is used in conjunction with a food holder
101
which holds food in a specific orientation.
FIG. 1
shows a food holder for slicing a bread type known as bagels into two pieces. This food holder
101
has guide slits which guide the blades
102
connected to the electric kitchen knife main housing
105
and vertical plates
104
which hold bread between the plates. If this food holder
101
is used, bread can be accurately and safely sliced into two pieces. When bread held in this type of food holder
101
is sliced with an electric kitchen knife, the reciprocal motion blades
102
cuts through to the bottom end of the guide slits
103
, and thus, damage to this region can occur.
The present invention was developed with the object of eliminating these types of drawbacks. Thus it is a primary object of the present invention to provide an electric kitchen knife with an extremely simple structure which can be placed in an upright standing position on a table, and further which can reliably prevent the blades from damaging the table or from the blades being damaged by the table when the knife is positioned on the table.
Another important object of the present invention is to provide an electric kitchen knife having a main housing with a clean good looking design, and also when used together with a food holder, damage to the food holder can be reliably prevented.
The above and further objects and features of the invention will more fully be apparent from the following detailed description with accompanying drawings.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The electric kitchen knife of the present invention has a main housing containing a driving mechanism for blades which cut food by reciprocal motion, and blades connected to the end of the main housing and moved in reciprocal motion by the driving mechanism contained in the main housing.
Further, the electric kitchen knife is provided with a stand leg projecting from the bottom surface of the main housing towards the blade end of the main housing away from the center of gravity to make the main housing stand in an upright position. This stand leg is configured to hold the front end of the main housing up in order to separate the blades from the table when the main housing is in an upright standing position.
The main housing of this type of electric kitchen knife can be placed on a table in a standing attitude by implementation of an extremely simple structure. In addition, this structure has the characteristic that when placed on a table, damage to the table by the blades connected to the main housing and damage to the blades by the table are reliably prevented. This is because this electric kitchen knife has a stand leg which projects out from the bottom surface of the main housing near the blade end of the main housing away from its center of gravity. The stand leg not only allows the main housing to stand alone in an upright position, but also raises the front end of the main housing when in the upright position on a table to separate the blades from the table.
Further, since the stand leg provided on the bottom surface of the main housing of this electric kitchen knife allows the main housing to stand alone in an upright position, there is no necessity to form a main housing with a wider base as in a related art electric kitchen knife. Therefore, the main housing can be designed in a clean good looking form.
Finally, when this electric kitchen knife cuts food held by a holder, it has the characteristic that damage to the holder by the blades can be effectively prevented. This is because the blades are prevented from traveling to the very bottom position of the holder by the stand leg on the main housing of the knife.


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