Foods and beverages: apparatus – Cooking – Slice toaster or broiler
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-25
2001-08-28
Simone, Timothy F. (Department: 1761)
Foods and beverages: apparatus
Cooking
Slice toaster or broiler
C099S385000, C099S391000, C219S386000, C219S521000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06279466
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an upright electric toaster having slots for bread in its upper surface and including wire guards defining the widths of the slots. A toaster conventionally has a plurality of heating elements in substantially vertical spaced planes on either side of slots opening to its upper surface, for receiving bread or other material such as buns, sandwiches or crumpets to be toasted. Hereinafter the term “bread” will include such other materials including a holder for holding a sandwich to be toasted.
At each side of each slot, it is common to have a wire guard which prevents the bread from coming into direct contact with the heating elements. The wire guards thus effectively define the widths of the slots available to receive bread. Toasters are sold with slots of different widths in the casing and between the wire guards, for example narrow slots are designed particularly for commercial sliced bread and wide slots are designed for sandwiches, crumpets or self cut bread. Some toasters have one or more wide slots and one or more relatively narrow slots. because it is undesirable to toast a thin slice of bread in a wide slot since it will not be toasted evenly on each side.
PRIOR ART
It is known for toasters to have normally wide slots with wire guards which are spring urged towards one another on depression of an operating lever, which lever also initiates a toasting cycle. However, this is a relatively expensive option.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,590,849 shows in FIG. 3 a toaster with a single arm at one side of a wide slot, arranged to urge bread to the other side of the slot, so that with a thin slice one side will always be more toasted than the other side.
To overcome this the specification shows in FIGS. 6 to 9 shaped pieces provided at the narrow ends of each slot to help maintain bread in a central position. However, this has the disadvantage that the bread must contact both narrow ends and this requires a complicated tipping action with spring levers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,745,855 shows a toaster in which a plurality of unconnected frames are each pivotally mounted at the top or bottom of each long side of a slot, each frame being urged by a separate spring at the opposite end, i.e. at the bottom or top respectively, into the slot. This requires numerous springs to be provided and mounted to act on the separate frames.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an upright toaster with wire guards which are simple to manufacture and mount and which maintain bread pieces centrally in a slot.
Accordingly the present invention provides a toaster having one or more toaster slots for receiving bread, a heating element on each side of each slot, a plurality of wire guards effectively defining the widths of the toaster slots available for bread to be toasted, the width of one or more slots being relatively wide at the top and relatively narrow at the bottom, the guards defining such a slot being of substantially inverted U-section with diverging arms which arms are movable outwardly of the slot at the bottom of the slot to increase the width at the bottom of the slot, the natural spring of the material of each guard acting to restore each aim to its diverging condition.
In a preferred form the invention provides a toaster having a casing, a plurality of heating elements within the casing spaced from one another, a plurality of wire guards of inverted U-section having an upper portion and two diverging arms, the upper portion of each wire guard being located above a heating element with at least one arm projecting into a space between two heating elements, the wire guards being made from material which is flexible with a natural spring such as to restore them to an unstressed condition when they are moved from it, the arms of respective wire guards in a common space between two heating elements defining between them a slot for receiving bread to be toasted, which slots have an upper portion which is wider than a lower portion thereof; the arms being movable outwardly of the slots at the lower portions thereof to increase the width of the slots at the lower portions, the natural spring of the material of each guard acting to restore the guard to a position in which an arm thereof slopes downwardly and inwardly of a slot after it has been displaced from such position.
Each of the slots preferably includes an ejection mechanism at its base for lifting toast or a sandwich cage upwardly.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1893989 (1933-01-01), Galer
patent: 1931345 (1933-10-01), Fitzgerald
patent: 1939247 (1933-12-01), Avey
patent: 2387817 (1945-10-01), Wales
patent: 2631523 (1953-03-01), Olving
patent: 4038520 (1977-07-01), Boller et al.
patent: 4396825 (1983-08-01), Cox et al.
patent: 4590849 (1986-05-01), Uemura et al.
patent: 4745855 (1988-05-01), Younger
patent: 5304782 (1994-04-01), McNair et al.
patent: 5771780 (1998-06-01), Basora et al.
patent: 5802957 (1998-09-01), Wanat et al.
patent: 6014925 (2000-01-01), Basora et al.
patent: 631891 (1949-11-01), None
Bacon & Thomas PLLC
Dualit Limited
Simone Timothy F.
LandOfFree
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