The present invention relates to cutting apparatus, and particularly to cutting apparatus for dicing food items, i.e., for cutting the food into relatively small cubes.

A number of cutting devices, both manually operated and electrically driven, are available for cutting food items into slices or cubes. Such devices work generally satisfactorily when the food items to be cut are relatively hard, such as potatoes. However, insofar as we are aware there is no apparatus which has found widespread commercial use for dicing relatively soft food items, such as tomatoes, and this is probably because of the difficulty in cutting soft items, and/or the complicated mechanism involved in the apparatus heretofore proposed for this purpose.

An object of the present invention is to provide cutting apparatus having advantages in the above respects. More particularly, an object of the invention is to provide cutting apparatus which can be constructed of relatively few simple parts and which can be used for dicing relatively soft food items.

According to the present invention, there is provided cutting apparatus particularly useful for cutting food items, comprising: a first set of parallel cutting

blades; a second set of parallel cutting blades adjacent to and aligned with said first set, the blades of said second set extending along axes which are perpendicular to those of the first set; and a drive for reciprocating said first and second sets of blades parallel to their respective axes; said drive including a pivotally-mounted bell-crank having two arms extending substantially perpendicularly to each other, one of said arms being coupled to said first set of blades, and the other of said arms being coupled to said second set of blades; said drive further including means for oscillating said bell-crank about its pivotal axis.

According to further features in the preferred embodiment of the invention described below, the means for oscillating the bell-crank about its pivotal axis comprises: a rotary motor; a motion converter for converting the rotary motion of the motor to a reciproca able motion; and a reciprocatable link coupled at one end to the motion converter so as to be reciprocated thereby, and at the opposite end to one of the arms of the bell-crank to oscillate it about its pivotal axis.

In the described preferred embodiment, the motion converter is an eccentric device.

The described preferred embodiment includes further features, including a rotary blade ajacent to and aligned with the two sets of parallel cutting blades to cut the items into cubes, the rotary blade being rotated by the

drive.

As will be readily apparent from the description below, cutting apparatus may be constructed in accordance with the foregoing features to include a few simple parts which can be produced and sold at low cost and in volume. Further features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description below.

The invention is herein described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Fig. 1 illustrates one form of apparatus constructed in accordance with the present invention; and

Fig. 2 illustrates the drive included in the apparatus of Fig. 1. The apparatus illustrated in Fig. 1 of the drawings is particularly useful for dicing food items, especially soft food such as tomatoes, cucumbers and the like. The illustrated apparatus includes a housing 2 having a feed tube 4 for feeding the items to be cut to a cutting compartment 6 containing an assembly of cutting elements, generally designated 8, which cut the food items into small cubes. The small cubes so-produced fall by gravity onto an exit chute 10 for removal from the housing. A manually-operated or motor-operated ram 12 may be used for pushing the food items through the cutting compartment 6 and onto the exit chute 10.

The blade assembly 8 located in the cutting compartment 6 includes three types of cutting blades each type cuts the food items along one of the three orthogonal axes to produce the cubes. Thus, the cutting assembly 8 includes a first plurality of parallel cutting blades 16, each having sharpened edges 18 facing the feed chute 12; a second set of parallel cutting blades 20 each having sharpened edges 22 also facing the feed tube 12 adjacent to and aligned with the first set of blades 20; and a single rotary cutting blade 24 adjacent to and aligned with cutting blades 20. The first set of cutting blades 16 are reciprocated along one othogonal axis, namely the axis into and out of the paper in Fig. 1. The second set of cutting blades 20 underlie cutting blades 16 and are reciprocated in the second orthogonal axis, namely the horizontal axis of Fig. 1. The single rotary cutting blade 24 is a sickle-shaped, or disc-shaped blade underlying blades 20 and rotated about the third orthogonal axis, namely the vertical axis defined by shaft 26 in Fig. 1. It will be seen that when the food items are introduced into the feed tube 4 and are pressed by the ram 12 through the cutting compartment 8, the reciprocation of the two sets of blades 16 and 20 about their respective axes, and the rotation of the sickle-shaped blade 24 about the axis of shaft 26, will cut the food items into cubes.

The two sets of cutting blades 16 and 20 are reciprocated about their respective axes by a drive, schematically indicated by box 30 in Fig. 1. The same drive 30 also rotates shaft 26 to rotate blade 24. Drive 30 is more particularly illustrated in Fig. 2.

Thus, as shown in Fig. 2, drive 30 includes a rotary motor 32 which rotates a belt 34 wound around a pulley coupled to the motor output shaft, and two further pulleys 36, 38. Pulley wheel 36 is coupled to an eccentric roller 38 rotatable in one end of a crank arm 40 such that rotation of roller 36 reciprocates the crank arm in the direction as shown by the arrow in Fig. 2. This crank arm reciprocates the two sets of blades 16 and 20 via a bell- crank 42. Pulley 38 is coupled to the rotary shaft 26 (Fig. 1 ) to rotate the sickle-shaped blade 24.

As shown in Fig. 2, the set of blades 16 are held by a common blade holder 44 such that reciprocation of the blade holder will simultaneously reciprocate all the blades 16 along their respective axes; whereas the set of blades 20 are held by a common blade holder 46 such that the reciprocation of that blade holder will reciprocate all the blades 20 along their respective axes.

Bell-crank 42 is pivotally mounted about a pin 50 and has two legs 52, 54 extending at right angles to each other on opposite sides of the pin. One leg, namely leg 54, is pivotally coupled by a pin 56 to one end of the crank arm

40 such that the reciprocation of the crank arm will oscillate the bell-crank 42 about its pivotal axis 50, first in one direction then in the opposite direction. Arm 52 of the bell-crank is pivotally coupled by pin 58 to an end of the blade holder 44, and the end of arm 54 is pivotally coupled by pin 60 to the end of blade holder 46, such that the oscillations of the bell-crank about its pivotal axis 50 by crank arm 40 will reciprocate the two sets of blades 16 and 20 about their respective axes. The operation of the apparatus illustrated in the drawings will be apparent from the above description. The food items to be diced are introduced into the feed tube 4 and are pressed by ram 12 against the blades in the blade compartment 8. Motor 32 is energized, which rotates belt 34 to rotate the pulley wheels 36 and 38. Rotatation of pulley wheel 36 reciprocates crank lever 40 in the directions of the arrow in Fig. 2 to thereby oscillate bell-crank 42 about its pivotal axis 50. Arm 52 of the bell-crank thereby reciprocates blade holder 44 and the blades 16 held thereby about one orthogonal axis (vertically in Fig. 2), whereas arm 54 of the bell-crank reciprocates blade holder 46 and the blades 20 held thereby about the second orthogonal axis (horizontally in Fig. 2). The rotation of pulley wheel 38 by belt 34 rotates shaft 26 and the sickle-shaped blade 24 about the third orthogonal axis (namely the vertical axis in Fig. 1).

It will thus be seen that the food item is cut by the above assembly of blades into small cubes. These cubes fall by gravity onto the exit chute 10 (Fig. 1) for easy removal from the apparatus.

While the invention has been described with respect to one preferred embodiment, it will be appreciated that this is set forth merely for purposes of example, and that many other variations, modifications and applications of the invention may be made.