AU629865B2 - Fish scaling tool - Google Patents

Description

629865 COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Patents Act 1952 Name of Applicant 0 a a o Address of Applicant 4 A a Actual Inventors CHRISTOPHE CHUNG and FRANCOIS LI UEVA 74 Kitchener Road, Ascot, Queensland, 4007, Australia and 24 Michelle Drive, Pt Vernon, Hervey Bay, Queensland, 4655 respectively CHRISTOPHE CHUNG FRANCOIS LI UEVA GRANT ADAMS COMPAN-, Patent Trade Mark Attorneys, Level 9 NATIONAL MUTUAL CENTRE 144 Edward Street, BRISBANE. QUEENSLAND. 4000

AUSTRALIA.

Address for Service a, a 4 B a COMPLETE SPECIFICATION FOR THE INVENTION ENTITLED: "FISH SCALING TOOL" The following statement is a full description of the invention including the best method of performing it known to the applicant.

k?3j5I6qc 4 1- r~ -_i THIS INVENTION relates to a power operated fish scaling tool.

At present, fish are scaled by hand and this is a slow, laborious process.

A power driven fish scaling device has been disclosed in AU-70104/74 (Maurice Green Leonard Marston). This device had a rotary shaft journalled in a handle, driven by an external flexible drive from a remote power source. A plurality of rigid, tapered vanes extended radially from the shaft and alternate vanes were toothed or serrated. This device proved unsuitable and the vanes tended to damage or rip the flesh and did not cleanly remove all of the scales. As the vanes were rigid, it was necessary to make a number of passes over each side of a fish to follow all the contours.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a powered fish scaling tool which has an E.:."improved performance, removing scales without damage to 20 the flesh.

Other objects and various advantages of the "l ft 0- •present invention will become apparent from the following description.

*1*s In a broad aspect the present invention resides in a fish scaling tool for hand held, powered operation comprising: a handle; a shaft mounted rotatably to the handle; and a scaling head mounted on the shaft for 30 rotation thereby for effecting, in use, the cleaning of fish; the scaling head being provided with one or more fingers projected therefrom; the fingers are substantially rigid with, in the sense of rotation of the head, a leading edge of a leading surface which leading edge is axially extended 2 03 k with the leading surface angled rearwardly relative to the direction of travel of the leading edge to lift the scales off fish being cleaned; the shaft being adapted for connection to a power source to enable its rotation.

The shaft may be connected to an external power source by a flexible drive. Alternatively, an electric or pneumatic motor may be mounted in the handle and connected to a remote electricity or compressed air supply.

To enable the invention to be fully understood, preferred embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a type of tool to which the present invention is applied shown from below (this is not an embodiment of the present invention); FIG. 2 is an end view of the tool of FIG. 1; i, 4 FIGS. 3 and 4 illustrate an embodiment of the 20 invention; and FIGS. 5, 7 and 8 illustrate variations of the i: unit of FIG. 4 in accordance with the invention. FIG.

does not.

In FIGS. 1 and 2 the tool 10 has a handle 11 in which is journalled a shaft (not shown.) connected to an external power source via a flexible drive assembly S12.

A scaling head 13 has a central hub 14 releasably mountable on the shaft in a driving *i 30 relationship. A plurality of flexible fingers 15 extend substantially tangentially from the hub 14 from a suitable plastics material polypropylene, polyethylene) and are arranged at equal spacings in rows along the hub 14. The fingers of each. row are off-set.

relative to the fingers of the adjacent rows.

I I I a A cover 16 is mounted on the handle 11 and overlies the scaling head 13, the cover having t 4 t i 't downwardly inclined side wings 17. A hook 18 on the cover 16 enables the tool to be stored when not in use.

The cover offers protection to the user's fingers and controls ejection of scales.

In use, the operator grips the handle 11 and switches on the scaling head via a switch (not shown) on the handle. As the tool is passed over the fish, the fingers "flip" up the scales from along the upper side of the fish. The flexible fingers follow the contour of the fish but do not damage or dig into the flesh.

Because the fingers are spaced apart in each row, only a very low load is applied to the hub of the scaling head.

FIG. 3 shows an isometric view of a work head in accordance with the invention wherein a plurality of fingers 21 are provided to perform the de-scaling function. FIG. 4 is a sectional view through one unit comprised of three fingers, such as units 22 or 23 to of FIG. 3. The scaling fingers are mechanically equivalent in their arrangement to those of FIG. 2 S: 20 except that each finger such as 26 comprises appropriate scale engaging faces and two such faces 27 and 28 might be provided on each side of the finger 26 so that the tool may be run in either direction so as to be suited to either of left or right handed operation. The work S: 25 head 20 is used in the same way as is set out in regard to FIG. 1. It may have a cover and could be powered by a any suitable means including a battery operated electric motor in an independently operable hand held unit.

Alternately, drive shaft 29 may be interconnected with a 30 flexible drive to a remote power source.

As shown in FIG. 4, fingers such as 26 may be provided on a hub 30 which is bored at 31 for sliding c- 4 r V i 4 i I *ra onto a supporting shaft with a keyway 32 provided to engage the hub non-rotatively with the shaft. Clearly other means exist for this purpose and a hexagonal, square, etc. shaft might engage with a complementary bore in the hub. A single unit such as 22 may be produced in number and they are loaded on a shaft, alternately oriented on the shaft, each unit turned around so as to produce the pattern of FIG. 3. Each unit may be a sliding fit on the support shaft so that after wear following extensive use, the work head might be dismantled and assembled the other way around. In this manner, if the work head has been run one way only so that face 27 of FIG. 4 is worn out, by reassembling the work head with the units such as 22 flipped over, then face 28 comes into play to double the life of the unit.

The elements 22 may be produced from a suitable material such as plastic by any suitable means such as machining, moulding or the element might be extruded in a length to be cut to size. Upon the units 22 being slid on their shaft they can be held thereon by a capping piece 33 held in place by a screw 34 into the support shaft. Capping piece 33 may be provided with tapered faces 35 mated to those of its adjoining unit 25. The units 22 to 25 may be spaced apart by a suitable spacer such as 36 between elements 24 and Whilst four elements 22 to 25 are shown, this may be varied depending upon application as will also be the number of fingers per unit, the overall diameter of the work head and its length.

In FIGS. 5 and 6 are seen two variations of the unit of FIG. 4. These units are elongate in the same sense as in FIG. 4 and may be utilised the same way being mounted to a shaft as in FIG. 3. These units may be moulded or extruded and cut to size. Central bore 41 passes over shaft 29 as in FIG. 3 and keyway 40 can be U U

U.

r- -L- -7 used to lock the unit to its shaft against relative rotation. In FIG. 6, the fingers 38 are stood off hub 37 orthogonally. The fingers are planar and their planar extent matches the length of the hub 37. In FIG.

5, the fingers 39 are angled relative to the hub with tip 42 cut back to create a wedge shaped leading edge.

An angle of 45' is shown in FIG. 5 but it will be clear that the fingers 39 might be forwardly angled in the sense of anticlockwise rotation at angles other than 45'. Again, in FIG. 5, the fingers 39 are planar, their plane extending orthogonally to the drawing being parallel to the axis of the shaft that passes through 0 bore 41.

ab In FIG. 7 two units 43 and 44 are shown as they would be positioned relative to each other in use.

These fingers such as 45 may have an arcuate periphery 46 with a leading edge 47 at the intersection with concave surface 48. The units may be loaded onto a shaft passed through their centres with keyways or other means to fix them thereto without rotation.

In FIG. 8 hub 49 is provided with forwardly ooa S curved fingers 50 and the unit is provided with a bore oo°° 51 and keyway as above.

Various changes and modifications may be made to the embodiments described without departing from the 25to the embodiments described without departing from the 0 0I a~ 0* t 0 present invention.

Claims (5)

1. 2. A fish scaling tool as claimed in Claim 1 20 wherein: o.i the scaling head is made up from a plurality of units, each unit comprising a sleeve through which the shaft passes, each having mounted thereon three fingers angularly spaced thereabout, the sleeve having a keyway therein to lock with a key fitted in a keyway in °said. shaft.
2. 3. A fish scaling tool as claimed in Claim 2 wherein: the scaling head comprises a plurality of said units wherein the keyway and fingers are so aligned. that alternate units of a series on said shaft when mounted back to front have their fingers angularly displaced relative to those of the neighbouring units in the series.
3. 4. A fish scaling tool as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein: the fingers stand radially off the shaft with an extended periphery between angularly spaced, at axially parallel straight edges which each have a side surface at an acute angle to the periphery at their respective straight edge to define a leading edge in either direction of travel. A fish scaling tool as claimed in Claim 1 wherein: the fingers are planar in form, standing off the shaft with their planar extent parallel to said axis.
4. 6. A fish scaling tool as claimed in Claim wherein: the fingers are angled at 45" to the radial direction at the outer surface of a. sleeve fitted to the shaft.
5. 7. A fish scaling tool substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the drawings. S. 20 DATED this fourteenth day of August. 1992. CHRISTOPHE CHUNG and FRANCOIS LI UEVA, by their Patent Attorneys, GRANT ADAMS COMPANY. p to 4: *to e 0 ft