Knife

Details Knife Knife

1998-12-29

2001-03-06

Rachuba, M. (Department: 3724)

Cutlery

Handles and blade connections

C342S357490

Reexamination Certificate

active

06195899

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a knife, and more particularly, to a knife which is especially suitable for professional use and which has improved durability and ease-of-use features.
2. Related Art
A knife for domestic or professional use, such as utility knife or chef's knife, is typically comprised of a blade, a tang formed integrally with the blade and extending backward therefrom, and a wooden handle having handle halves riveted on opposite side faces of the tang. The wooden handle is poor in durability and permits the breeding of harmful bacterium to tend to impair the cleanliness of the knife.
The overall weight balance of a knife, especially in the case of a knife for professional use which is ordinarily used for many hours, greatly affects the degree of fatigue of a user, and also affects the sharpness or ease-of-cutting ability of the knife. A conventional knife having the aforementioned construction is poor in the degree of freedom in adjusting the balance of weight, and makes it difficult to attain an optimum weight balance.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a knife which is excellent in durability and ease of use.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a knife which is excellent in overall weight balance.
A knife according to the present invention comprises a metal blade having an end edge, and a metal handle having an end edge confronting the blade. The handle is formed with a hollow portion for adjustment of weight distribution mainly in a lengthwise direction of the handle. The handle is made of a metallic material of a kind which is the same or different from a metallic material for the blade. The blade and the handle are butt-joined at their endedges intoonepiece. Preferably, the blade and the handle are butt-welded at their end edges.
According to the knife having the metal blade and the hollow metal handle which are formed into one piece, the handle is not decayed and does not permit the breeding of bacterium unlike the case of a conventional knife having a wooden handle. Thus, the knife according to the present invention has improved durability and cleanliness. The weight distribution mainly in the lengthwise direction of the handle is made proper by forming the hollow portion of the handle to have an appropriate volume, whereby a suitable overall weight balance of the knife can be attained. Further, this invention is advantageous in that the recycling of knives can be easily made.
Preferably, the blade is made of stainless steel, e.g., hard stainless steel. More preferably, the blade is made of stainless steel to which molybdenum and vanadium are added. The handle is made of stainless steel of a kind which is the same as or different from the stainless steel of which the blade is made.
According to this preferred construction, the blade is excellent in toughness and hardness and is permitted to be appropriately formed with a sharpened blade edge. Further, the handle and the blade are permitted to be properly welded together, and are prevented from being rusted.
Preferably, the handle has side faces thereof each formed with a nonskid structure comprised of an array of dents.
With this preferred construction, the knife is prevented from slipping in the user's hand, so that the knife is easy to use.
Preferably, the handle is comprised of two handle halves which are butt-joined at their joining faces. These handle halves define therebetween the hollow portion of the handle. Preferably, the handle halves are but-welded at their joining faces.
With this preferred construction, the weight distribution mainly in the lengthwise direction of the handle is optimized by using the handle halves obtained from a metal plate having an appropriate thickness, whereby the handle having an optimum weight distribution can be relatively easily obtained, and the overall weight balance of the knife can be optimized.
Preferably, the knife further comprises weight balancing means provided in the hollow portion of the handle. More preferably, the weight balancing means includes a filler filled within the hollow portion of the handle. The filler is preferably filled tightly in the hollow portion. The filler is comprised of river sand or a mixture of river sand and cement or steel spheres.
With this preferred arrangement, the overall weight balance of the knife can be optimized, so that the degree of fatigue of the user using the knife for many hours can be reduced, and the ease-of-cutting ability of the knife can be enhanced.
Further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.


REFERENCES:
patent: 209649 (1878-11-01), Brown et al.
patent: 4147918 (1979-04-01), Ritter et al.
patent: 4389777 (1983-06-01), Landsberger
patent: 4470327 (1984-09-01), Gerber, Jr. et al.
patent: 5042804 (1991-08-01), Uke et al.
patent: 5689890 (1997-11-01), Glesser
patent: 0523713 (1993-01-01), None
patent: 1509310 (1978-05-01), None

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