Cutting – With product handling means – Means to move – guide – or permit free fall or flight of product
Reexamination Certificate
1997-04-14
2001-05-08
Goodman, Charles (Department: 3724)
Cutting
With product handling means
Means to move, guide, or permit free fall or flight of product
C083S155100, C083S177000, C083S448000, C083S932000, C425S312000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06227087
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to rolled dough products. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus for cutting dough pieces from a rolled dough product in a dough processing line.
Food processing equipment, such as dough processors, are known. Similarly, conventional equipment exists for forming a rolled dough product. Such equipment typically provides a sheet of dough on a conveyor. Filling is applied to the sheet of dough and the dough is rolled with rolling equipment, such as Torpedo rollers. The rolled dough is provided as a continuous rolled dough cylinder, to a cutting apparatus which cuts the rolled dough cylinder to form a plurality of rolled dough pieces, each of which has filling rolled therein. The individual rolled dough pieces are then passed on to additional processing steps or are provided to a packaging apparatus which packages the rolled dough pieces in cans or other suitable packages.
Conventional cutting machines have included guillotine-type cutters. This type of cutter has a knife which is moved in a reciprocating manner as the dough cylinder travels beneath the knife. The knife cuts the dough into individual rolled dough pieces which are moved by an outfeed conveyor to the packaging machine.
The guillotine-type cutting apparatus is not suitable for use with many rolled dough products. The rolled dough products are simply too soft. The guillotine-type cutter smashes or crushes the dough pieces so that they are not easily packagable, and so that they are not easily used for their intended purposes. For instance, many such rolled dough products are intended to be put in a common household toaster. If they are crushed into irregular shapes, they tend to thicken and do not fit in such a toaster. In addition, guillotine-type cutters can tend to cause the cut dough pieces to be displaced on the take away conveyor. This requires manual handling or manipulation of the dough products to properly reposition them on the take away conveyor. However, since the dough products are so soft, manual handling of the dough products is very difficult, or impossible, if certain physical integrity of the dough product is to be maintained.
Further, in conventional dough processing equipment, the dough is moved continuously as it is cut. This can result in the dough pieces cut from the cylinder being wedge-shaped. In other words, since the dough is moving continuously, the guillotine cutter essentially cuts at an angle across the cylinder of dough resulting in a wedge-shaped piece. This wedge-shaped piece can present problems in packaging.
Also, in some conventional dough processing equipment, the guillotine cuts the dough on a flat, substantially horizontal surface (although some guillotine cutters cut horizontally). Thus, after the dough is cut into individual pieces, the pieces do not always lay down flat on the outfeed (or take away) conveyor. This can also cause problems during packaging. If the dough products are not lying flat on the outfeed conveyor, they must be manually repositioned on the conveyor so that they are lying flat. As discussed previously, this manual handling is undesirable.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A cutting apparatus cuts a rolled dough product. The apparatus includes a conveyor conveying a rolled dough cylinder along a dough travel path. A nozzle is coupled to a liquid source providing liquid under pressure and is directed toward the dough travel path. The nozzle is offset from a surface of the dough cylinder by an offset distance sufficient so the nozzle can direct liquid at the dough cylinder to cut a portion from the dough cylinder and still provide sufficient separation between the cut portion and the dough cylinder so the cut portion does not stick to the dough cylinder.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3205739 (1965-09-01), Meyer-Jagenberg
patent: 3524367 (1970-08-01), Franz
patent: 3759126 (1973-09-01), Burgess
patent: 3891157 (1975-06-01), Justus
patent: 4246838 (1981-01-01), Pulver et al.
patent: 4332538 (1982-06-01), Campbell
patent: 4459093 (1984-07-01), Asano
patent: 4492553 (1985-01-01), Giulio et al.
patent: 4526795 (1985-07-01), Wolf
patent: 4692109 (1987-09-01), Hayashi et al.
patent: 4735566 (1988-04-01), Squicciarini
patent: 4740149 (1988-04-01), Kristensen
patent: 4847954 (1989-07-01), Lapeyre et al.
patent: 4916992 (1990-04-01), Nasu
patent: 5077074 (1991-12-01), Van Lengerich
patent: 5290577 (1994-03-01), Tashiro
patent: 1187736 (1985-05-01), None
patent: 2550478 (1977-05-01), None
patent: WO 95/05746 (1985-03-01), None
patent: 233008A1 (1987-08-01), None
patent: 2 601 231 (1989-07-01), None
patent: 2647049 (1990-11-01), None
patent: WO 93/06010 (1993-04-01), None
“Hochdruckwasserstrahl als Schneidwerkzeug fur dreidimensionale Bearbeitung”, by H. Murau,Werkstattstechni, Feb., 1990, No. Berling, DE, pp. 99-101.
Mitchell Cheryl L.
Munasinghe Lochi D.
Thorson James S.
Goodman Charles
Kagan Binder PLLC
The Pillsbury Company
LandOfFree
Liquid jet cutter for cutting a rolled dough product does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Liquid jet cutter for cutting a rolled dough product, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Liquid jet cutter for cutting a rolled dough product will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2542373