CA1262608A - Fish processing machine - Google Patents

Abstract

ABSTRACT

A fish processing machine for production of skinfree herring fillets, and incorporating at one hand a filleting device comprising two circular knives and on the other hand a deskinning device , which consists of rotatable pulleys , equipped with grooves for a thin wire serving as a conveying member moving the fish to rotatable deskinning knives . The purpose is to provide a fully automatic fish processing machine, which treats the fish so cautious that also very thin-skinned fish can be filleted and skinned in a continuous sequence. This task has been solved in that the filleting device is consituted by two circular knives obliquely arranged at an acute angle relative to each other and a first guiding rail located in front of said circular knives, the beheaded and tail-less fish being slidingly conveyed upon its opened and gutted belly on said first guiding rail towards the area of the point of the angle of the circular knives, and in that tangentially to and behind the circular knives of the filleting device there is arranged a second guiding rail , situated at the extension of said first guiding rail and designed to guide the double fillet without bones and spine and held together by the skin only, to the perifery of a first pulley forming part of said deskinning device , and situated in the extension of the second guding rail .

Description

The present inventlon relates to a fish processlng machine for production of skinnec~ fillets of fish, particularly herring, and includiny a filletiny device comprising two circular knives and a deskinning device, which comprises rotatable pul-leys, having grooves for an endless pliable member, e.y. a thinwire arranged in an 8-shaped track, and serving as a conveyor for the fish up to one of said pulleys, which cooperates with rotat-able deskinning knives.

Automatic fish processing machines for whitefish, i.e.
codfish, haddock and liny are earlier known, in which the major part of the fish processing procedure (except for the introduc-tion of a fish in the machine and the decapitation thereof~ up to the skin free fillet is effected continuously without manual han-dling. Whitefish is rather big and firm-fleshed and has a very thick skin. It, therefore, stands rather harsh treatment, such as it is subjected to in a machine which is described in Swedish patent specification No. 202.778, where the tail portion of the fish is squeezed between a V-belt and a V-belt pulley with the fish located transversely to the pulley. Along a portion of the circumference o~ the pulley there are arranged treatment stations through which the fish is pulled with aid of guiding plates. A
first station produces an incision from the belly side towards the spine, whereupon ploughs are arranged for spreading apart the flanks of the fish. A second set of knives is arranged for cut-ting away the gut membranes and bones whereupon follows a further knife station for detachment of the flank portions along the spine till in the vicinity of the skin. A deskinning device of the type described hereabove is also connected to the circumfer-ence of the V-belt pulley. From earlier having been squeezed between the driving belt and the pulley, the double fillet, which is still held together by the skin, subsequently shall be con-veyed in the plane of the pulley by aid of guiding members. Even if it concerns whitefish, which has a very thick skin the fillet-ing machine operates without any larger difficulties, but thetransfer from this machine member to the deskinning device is, however, problematic, as the device is not entirely reliable.

Fish having very thin ski~, such as herring, will not stand the treatment caus~d ~hem hy these known fille~iny devices and if the herring furthermore is pretreated, e.g. salted, sea-soned or pickled it cannot stand any rouyh treatment.

Machines are known which only have the purpose of deskinning fish, whereby the filleted double fillet is placed manually upon a conveyor, which feeds the fish in correct posi-tion through the machine. The drawback with such a machine is, however, that it cannot be connected to the filleting machine.

Highly effective automatic filleting machines are known having a capacity which requires two deskinning machines, each being served by two persons. It has since long been a desire to be able to effect the deskinning by means of automatic transfer Erom the filleting machine without manual work after the fish has been fed into the machine.

The present invention provides a fully automatic fish processing machine which treats the fish so gently that fish hav-ing very thin skin, such as e.g. small herring can be filleted and deskinned in one continuous sequence. According to the pre-sent invention the filleting device comprises two circular knivesobliquely arranged at an acute angle to each other, and a first guiding rail located in front of said circular knives, the beheaded and tail-less fish being arranged to be slidingly con-veyed upon its opened and gutted belly on said first guiding rail towards the area of the point of the angle of the circular knives, and that there is arranged tangentlally to and behind the circular knives of the filleting device a second guiding rail, situated at the extension of said first guiding rail and adapted to guide the double fillet free from the bones and spine and held 3~ together only by the skin to the periphery of the first pulley when forms part of said deskinning device and is situated in the

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~ 3 extension of the second guiding rail.

Thus, according to the present invention khere is pro-vided a fish processing machine for production of skinned fille-ts of fish, particularly herring, and sald machine including a fil-leting device comprising a pair of circular knives obliquely arranged at an acute angle to each other and a first guidlng rail located in front of said circular knives, a beheaded and tail-less fish being arranged to be slidingly conveyed upon its opened and gutted belly on said first guiding rail kowards an area of the point of the angle of the circular knives, and a d~skinning device, which comprises rotatable pulleys, having grooves for an endless pliable member which conveys the fish up to one of said pulleys, which cooperates with rotatable deskinning knives, a second guiding rail, tangentially to and behind the circular knives of the filletin~ device and in connection to its angle point situated at the extension of said first guiding rail and adapted to guide the double fillet free from the bones and the spine and held together only by the skin to the periphery of first pulley forming part of said deskinning device and situated in the extension of the second guiding rail, and the fish being arranged to be conveyed through the filleting device between sub-stantially parallel portions of two endless parallel belts, extending to the said first pulley of the deskinning device.
Suitably the second, or as seen in the direction of transport, the rearmost guiding rail at its foremost end portion is V-shaped ad~acent the angle points of the oblique filleting knives and at its rearmost end portion is shaped to close conformity with the circumferential portion of the first pulley~ Desirably between the first and the second pulley and in the same vertical plane there is arranged a third pulley, which is situated close to the second pulley and arranged to give the pliable member, ~ust before the second pulley, a change of direction in the same ver-tical plane. Preferably a fork-like guide member is provided above the third pulley and is adapted to guide the dorsal fin of the fish against the circumferential groove of the second pulley.

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The present invention will be further illustrated by way of the accompanying drawings, in which:-Fig. 1 shows very schematically and in side view a por-tion of the fish processing machine according to one embodimentof the invention;
Fig. 2 shows the machine according to Fig. 1 ln a vlew from above;

Flg. 3 shows on a larger scale a section alone line III-III in Fig. 1 with a fish located therein, and whlch is guided against a fllleting device;

Fig. 4 shows a section along line IV-IV in Fig. 1 with a fish placed therein during the filleting;

Fig. 5 shows a section along line V-V in Fig. 1 with a fish placed -therein and moving out from khe filleting device;

Fig. 6 shows a view from above of a device for aligning the fish;

Fig. 7 shows a section along line VII-VII in Fig. 1 with the double fillet of the fish taking care of by the deskin-ning device;

Fig. 8 shows a section along line VIII-VIII in Fig. 1 with a fish on its way against the deskinning knives during the turning phase; and Fig. 9 is a section along line IX-IX in Fig. 1, showing the fish during the very deskinning operation.

The fish processing machine according to the invention preferably consists of conventional, rellable designs inasfar as - 3a ~

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these are available available. The ~ish processing machine thus lncorporates a (not shown) feeding table, on which the , ,~
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fishes 10 are oriented manually or automatically such that they are all located wLth the head and the belly in the same direction. In the first s-ta-tion (no-t shown) the head and tail are cut off whereupon the fishes fall down into a feediny gutter 7 and are conveyed be-tween two endless conveyor belts 11 wikh the belly turned downwards ko a gutting station ~ having kwo horizontally arranged somewhat overlapping circular knives 13, which cut off a slice of the belly of the fish, thus that a following rinsing wheel 14 can take away the ~uts. The endless conveyor belts 11 convey the fishes 10 further to a filletlng device 9, whereby in the opened fish belly is introduced a gulding rail 15, the opposite end of which is designed with an enlarged portion 16 mainly conforming the the space between two oblique circular knives 17, hereinafter called the filleting knives, which as shown in Fig. 4 cut out the spine of the fish and the portions of the belly where gut membranes and bones pro~ecting from the spine are located. By aid of a pressing device 18 the pressure on the knives 17 can be ad~usted whereby it is as~ertained that the filleting knives will not cut through the skin 19 of the fish. The cutting away of the spine 20 and bones of the fish is brought about within the area where the filleting knives 17 form an acute angle against each other, and further defined in the very point of the angle. During the entire filleting procedure the fish is guided, at the front of the filleting knives 17 by means of said front guiding rail 15 and on the rear side of the fillet knives, where the fish now consists of a double fillet, the fillet portions of which are interconnected via the dorsal skin, by means of a rearward guiding rail 21. This is V-shaped in cross-section and is arranged very near to the filleting knives 17, where these form said point of the angle. In order to facilitake the kransfer of the double fillet to the rear most guiding rail 21 this is at its front end beveled.

35The rearmost end of the guiding rail 21 is tangentially connected to a pulley 22 equlpped with a circumferential groove ',~

- 4 ~1 6(~3 23 for an endless pliable member 24 arranged in a ~-~haped track, e.g. a very fine steel wire. The two endless : ;

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con~eyor balts 11 extelld up to said pulleys 22, which means that tha double fillet will be fed up to them. ~he Y-shaped guiding rail 21 is formed in close contact to the circumferential portion of the pulley 22. thus that the double 05 fillet will 'ride straddl0d" upon the pulley and thereby also on the wire 2~. The pulley 22 forms part of the deskinning device 25, the sacond bigger pulley of which in the ~-formed track is designated 26.

Of importance at the transfer of the double fillet to the big pulley 26 has hitherto been the exact guidad feeding of the dorsal fin of the fish in relation to the rather shallow groove 29 in the circumference of the big pulley 26, wherein the wire 24 is located. As the size as well as the position of the dorsal fin of the fishes vary, and also the location of the double filLet upon the wire 24, the dorsal fin will urge the wire 2S out of the groove resulting in a break-down, if the fin is not exactly centered relative to the groove 29, or if it is so situated that it comes entirely outside the pulley. An exact guiding of the fin is howevere not possible, and the deskinning device 25 therefore must be so designed that it can tolerate deviations from the ideal feeding. This ~roblem has been solved by aid of an ad~itional pulley 28 provided in front of and very close to the big pulley 26 and which has for its primary purpose to prevent the wire from leaving the groove 29, even if it is exposed to a lateral force from the dorsal fin. The pulley 2a also assists in guiding the dorsal fin by giving the wire 2~ a faint directional change in the plain of the pulleys 23,26,28, whereby is obtained that the dorsal fin of the fish is risen before the double fillet portion around the dorsal fin is squeezed between the wire 2~ and the circumferential groove 29 of the big pulley 26. The guiding of the dorsal fin of the fish is effacted by aid of a guiding device 30 consisting of a fork-like member 31, the fork teath 32 of which are tapering and which catch the dorsal fin 33 when this projecting upwards thus that the dorsal fin will obtain its correct position in relation to the groove 29 of the big pulley 26. The guiding member 31 is pivotable ab~ut rearward shaft ~ournals 3~ and it P13fi~Pt~-~nLaP ~

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is provided with a weight 3S which provides a certain pressure against the back of the flsh.

As mentioned above the dorsal portion of the double fillet will be squeezed between the wlre 2~ and the pulley 26, which means that half the fillet will hang vertically downwards such as shown in Fig. 7. About half of the circumference of the big pulley 26 is surrounded by a turnlng member 36, which at its lower end is formed by a vertically located gulding rail 37, lo which at higher level is shaped to a gutter 3~, such as shown in Flg. 8. The purpose of the gutter is to turn the fillet sides lOa and lOb of the double fillet thus that they at the upper part of the pulley 26 will be located with the skin side engaging the pulley 2~. The two circular skinning knives 27 are arranged at such as short distance, one of each side of the pulley 2~, which corresponds to the thickness of -the skin such as shown in Fig. 9.
At the rearmost end of the gutter-shaped turning member 36 there are provided faintly elastic pressure members 40, which press the fillets lOa,lOb to engagement against the pulley 26. Below the deskinning knives 27 on both sides of the pulley 26, there is arranged a gutter 41 for the deskinned fillets, whereas on the down-moving portion of the wire 24 from the pulley 26 is arranged a scraping device 42 for the skin.

The deskinning device 25 is further provided with a wire tensioning device 45 and between the pulleys 22 and 28 and ~ust above the wire 24 is provided a level sensor 43. If the double fillet has been located in a wrong manner upon the wire, this is sensed as an unpermissible level change and an e~ecting device 44 is activated to throw out the double fillet from the wire.

The inventive fish processing machine can also be used in a semi-automatic rinsing and filleting process for fish, which has been pretreated in an earlier stage and where only the filleting and deskinning shall take place.

Claims (4)

THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION IN WHICH AN EXCLUSIVE
PROPERTY OR PRIVILEGE IS CLAIMED ARE DEFINED AS FOLLOWS:

1. A fish processing machine for production of skinned fillets of fish, particularly herring, and said machine including a filleting device comprising a pair of circular knives obliquely arranged at an acute angle to each other and a first guiding rail located in front of said circular knives, a beheaded and tail-less fish being arranged to be slidingly conveyed upon its opened and gutted belly on said first guiding rail towards an area of the point of the angle of the circular knives, and a deskinning device, which comprises rotatable pulleys, having grooves for an endless pliable member which conveys the fish up to one of said pulleys, which cooperates with rotatable deskinning knives, a second guiding rail, tangentially to and behind the circular knives of the filleting device and in connection to its angle point situated at the extension of said first guiding rail and adapted to guide the double fillet free from the bones and the spine and held together only by the skin to the periphery of first pulley forming part of said deskinning device and situated in the extension of the second guiding rail, and the fish being arranged to be conveyed through the filleting device between sub-stantially parallel portions of two endless parallel belts, extending to the said first pulley of the deskinning devise.

2. A fish processing machine as claimed in claim 1, in which the second, or as seen in the direction of transport, the rearmost guiding rail at its foremost end portion is V-shaped adjacent the angle points of the oblique filleting knives and at its rearmost end portion is shaped to close conformity with the circumferential portion of the first pulley.

3. A fish processing machine as claimed in claim 1, in which between the first and the second pulley and in the same vertical plane there is arranged a third pulley, which is situ-ated close to the second pulley and arranged to give the pliable member, just before the second pulley, a change of direction in the same vertical plane.

4. A fish processing machine as claimed in claim 3, in which a fork-like guide member is provided above the third pulley and is adapted to guide the dorsal fin of the fish against the circumferential groove of the second pulley.