Patent Application
20120279371
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the quick and efficient cutting of meat into cubes and the subsequent placement of these cubes onto kebobs and/or skewers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are a few meat cutting devices in the prior art, on a non-industrial scale, that facilitate the cubing of meat and subsequently placing the cubes onto kebobs. Most relevant to the present invention is the Panaritis patent from 1977, U.S. Pat. No. 4,056,026. It discloses a device which guides the cutting of meat with a handheld knife along two axes. Thus, if meat placed within the device is already cut into roughly equal slabs and these slabs are laid upon their side one on top of the other, the device can create meat cubes via two equal and vertical series of cuts at a 90° angle from each other. Furthermore, apertures placed at the top of the device can be utilized for the placement of kebobs that will skewer all the meat cubes within a local vertical axis. Other relevant handheld knife cutting guides include: U.S. Pat. No. 3,817,138, U.S. Pat. No. 3,452,795, U.S. Pat. No. 2,679,274 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,398,192. In addition, there is one industrial scale meat cubing device, U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,447 that employs multiple slits for guiding the cutting of meat.
The prior art exhibits several limitations: (1) the guides permit for only one or two cutting axes provided the food item is not manually rearranged; (2) using simple slits within otherwise solid planes, particularly while cutting meat of uneven consistency, can create significant friction between the cutting knife and the sides of the slit; (3) the use of thin slits impair the cutter's ability to see the food item and exactly where the cutter has already made cuts; and (4) the prior art does not demonstrate a means by which a meat cubing device can be quickly and easily broken down so as not to occupy valuable kitchen space.
The present invention provides an efficient means of guiding the cutting of meat into cubes and then placing these cubes onto kebobs or skewers. Additionally, the design provides for easy cleaning and low volume storage of the device.
The device is composed of six sides which when fastened together form a generally cubical shape. The top side possesses apertures through which kebobs or skewers can be inserted. The four vertical sides are comprised of a series of mounted elongated rods or rollers that incorporate flexible bearing materials to allow for a wide range of cutting instrument spine thickness. The rods or rollers are spaced in such a way as to form an obvious pairing in which each roller is spaced very closely to one additional roller. This narrow spacing between any given pair of rollers serves as an auto-aligning cutting guide for a handheld knife. The larger gap between roller pairs allows the user to see what they are doing, view the movement and condition of the item they are cutting, and keep track of where they have already cut. The use of rollers also reduces cutting friction, minimizes the chance of damage to the roller surfaces caused by serrated cutting knives, and also prevents shedding of guide roller surfaces due to rotational motion and tangential contact with the cutting knife.
The four vertical sides are hinged together so as to permit a 0° to 180° range of movement. This enables the four vertical sides, when decoupled from the top and bottom sides, to be flattened into a plane. This plane would be composed of two layers abutting one another and each layer would be composed of two sides. The quick coupling and decoupling of the vertical sides to the top and bottom sides is accomplished through the use of locking guide pins. Finally, if it is necessary to prevent the lateral motion of the meat during the placement action, there is a divider mechanism that can be inserted in between the rollers pairs of any given cutting guide pair and this plane like mechanism is long enough to be inserted into the analogous cutting guide pair on the opposite side thus permitting a solid anchoring for the divider. The divider incorporates internal slits which permits smaller quantities of food materials to be prepared using only a portion of the internal storage area. Finally, the divider allows for the simultaneous preparation of Kebobs containing multiple types of food materials during the same loading/cutting sequence.
An embodiment of the present invention will now be described by way of an example and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
An elevated view of the meat cutting device, as shown in
Each of the four vertical sides 5 are comprised of a series of cutting guides 7. Each cutting guide 7 is a pair of closely spaced rods or rollers 8. The space 9 in between these rods or rollers 8 guides the cutting action and the use of elongated rollers is preferred as they minimize friction during the cutting action of a handheld blade. The rods or rollers 8 are mounted in place with guide pins 10 that are anchored within upper and lower brackets 11. The rods or rollers 8 are tapered 12 at the ends so as to permit the insertion of large knife blades where the rods or rollers 8 are at their stiffest. The ends of each roller also incorporate a flexible bearing 13 that allows for a wider range of spine thickness for cutting instruments as well as a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) sleeve bearing 14 that further reduces rotational friction. The upper and lower brackets 11 are held firmly together at the ends with metallic strips 15 that are mounted to the brackets with screws 16. The cutting guides 7 are spaced sufficiently apart 17 so as to allow the cutter to visualize both the food item being cut and the cutting itself. By creating more spacing between the cutting guides rather than between the rods or rollers 8 that make up the cutting guide itself 7, it is easier for the cutter to keep track of where they have already cut.
