GB2291789A - Electric toaster - Google Patents

Description

2291789 ELECTRIC TOASTER The present invention relates to an electric

toaster.

In DE-C-36 03 848 there is disclosed a bread toaster in which support rods of an auxiliary bread roll toasting grate are connected with the toaster housing by pivot arms which are hinged at the housing cover wall and lie, in a rest setting, on the cover wall. The pivot arms are prolonged beyond the hinge points into the interior of the housing, where they co-operate with a pivot mechanism. In addition to the housing, which consists of sheet metal, the appliance has an outer plastics material housing which is cooled by air flowing between the two housings. The support rods, which in the rest setting lie beside the bread slots, obstruct the exit of the cooling air and thereby the cooling of the plastics material casing, in particular the rim region thereof around the bread slot. The mechanically complicated construction of the bread roll grate,and the pivot arms which lie on the cover wall and thus disrupt the overall aesthetic impression and make cleaning of the toaster more difficult, are also disadvantageous. A toaster, which has support rods of a bread roll grate which lie parallel to the longitudinal sides of a bread slot, is also known from 20 DE-C 32 18 570. The support rods are connected with pivot arms, which extend in the longitudinal direction of the bread slot and can be tilted up for the raising of the grate, so as to be pivotable about an axis extending transversely to the longitudinal direction of the slot. In the embodiment according to Fig. 4, the pivotal part has a stroke portion which is pivotably connected with the support rod, extends downwardly through an opening in a cover wall of the bread toaster and is connected in its lower end region with a pivot arm, which in turn is hinged in the housing below the cover wall to be pivotable about an axis extending transversely to the longitudinal direction of the slot. This construction has the disadvantage that separate pivot parts are required, which are articulatedly connected with the support rods and increase production costs. Moreover, the pivot parts can make a greater length of the toaster necessary. It can also be disadvantageous that the support rods, on moving up into their operative setting, do not change their position relative to the bread slot in transverse direction and, on setting-up of the grate, displace relative to the slot in longitudinal direction.

A toaster with a vertically displaceable bread roll grate, which in the region of one end face of a toasting chamber has a vertical rod passing through an opening in the cover wall of the housing and connected in the interior with a handle, is known from GB-PS 12 45 067. It is a disadvantage in this case that the grate is carried only in one end face region of the toaster and must extend freely over the entire length of the toasting chamber and is thereby relatively unstable. It is also a disadvantage that the grate must be firmly clamped in its operative setting. On setting-up of the grate, the disadvantage exists that the appliance is lifted if it is not held down with the other hand.

There is thus a need for a toaster which may avoid the disadvantages of the known constructions and, in particular, offer an aesthetically satisfactory overall impression in conjunction with an easily operated bread roll grate.

According to the present invention there is provided an electric toaster comprising a housing, which has at least one toasting chamber and a bread entry and exit slot thereabove in a cover wall of the housing, and at least two bow members of a bread roll grate, each of which has a support extending in longitudinal direction of the slot and pivot arms extending transversely to the longitudinal direction of the slot, by means of which arms the member is hinged at the housing to be pivotable about a pivot axis, which extends substantially parallelly to the longitudinal direction of the slot, bet a raised operative setting and a lowered rest setting, characterised in that the supports are connected with the pivot arms by way of downwardly sloping stroke portions extending through an opening in the cover wall.

Such a toaster.has the advantage that the pivot arms are arranged in the interior of the housing to be invisible. Moreover, more constructional freedom exists in respect of the arrangement and length of the pivot arms and the stroke portions in order to obtain a grate, which can be raised sufficiently high above the cover wall, with little production complication. The members with their support bars and the stroke portions and pivot arms arranged at both ends as well as bearing extensions adjoining thereto can each be bent in simple manner as a relatively rigid formation out of one wire length. The avoidance of articulatedly connected rod parts means lower production costs.

The stroke portions of the members can have the form of a circular arc about the associated pivot axes, whereby the passage openings in the cover wall can be kept small. This ensures a satisfactory appearance and lower risk to contamination of the interior of the housing.

At least two members forming a bread roll support above a bread slot can in the rest setting lie on the same longitudinal side of the slot, whilst the stroke portions of the members preferably extend in an end face region of the toaster through a common opening in the cover wall. In that case, a greater constructional freedom of the overall arrangement is achieved by comparison with toasters in which the supports in the rest setting lie at opposite longitudinal sides of the slot. In order, starting out from a rest setting in which the members are adjacent, to achieve positions in which the members are spaced apart in the operative setting, the members together forming the grate preferably have pivot arms of different lengths, so that the stroke portions rise out of the openings more steeply or follow a more curved path.

According to one preferred embodiment, the toaster has two parallel toasting chambers each with a respective slot, wherein the supports associated with the slots are,in the rest setting, arranged between the two slots. Consequently, a closed field of supports is present, in their rest setting, between the slots, which represents a harmonious solution in respect of shaping. In that case, all stroke portions at one end face region of the toaster can pass through a common opening in the cover wall. A substantial advantage of this arrangement is that, in the rest setting, no supports are arranged in the longitudinal side regions of the cover wall; cooling air can therefore issue unhindered at these places from a synthetic material casing surrounding a sheet metal housing.

Expediently, the pivot arms are pivotably connected to the housin by their end portions remote from the stroke portions, which results in a simple construction.

When the supports forming the grate are arranged at one side of the slot, their pivot arms can extend, in the operative setting, preferably in about the same direction relative to the pivot axes and their pivotal movement between the rest setting and the operative setting can be in the same direction of rotation. In conjunction with the feature of different lengths of the pivot arms, there results a particularly advantageous ---5 - combination of features independently of the advantage of the stroke portions passing through the cover wall.

The hinged points of the pivot arms are preferably arranged in the region of the cover wall of the housing, for preference closely below the cover wall, which results in favourable conditions in respect of attaining a substantial stroke length.

An appropriately wide bread slot in the cover wall of the housing can serve as the opening for the passage of the stroke portions, whereby on the one hand additional passage openings are avoided and appearance is improved and on the other hand an arrangement of the support bars in the rest setting lowered into the bread slot is possible, which further improves appearance. Since the support bar is brought more or less arcuately into its operative setting and, with the use of short pivot arms, moves almost parallelly to the cover wall in the last stroke segment, it is possible to construct the support bar as a support grate in its own right. Such a grate can extend in an area between the associated stroke portions and, in the rest setting, enter at least partly into the housing through an opening of the cover wall, for example the bread slot. Since this entry takes place over a steep path, only a 4-0 narrow opening is required for this purpose. The support bar constructed as a grate provides a secure support for small items to be toasted.

A translating mechanism, preferably with a rotary cam between the handle and the bread roll grate, can be provided to translate a lowering movement of the handle into a stroke movement of the members into the operative setting. This avoids lifting of the toaster during the setting- up of the bread roll grate, particularly a grate which may be somewhat more difficult to move. During this activating movement, which - 6 may take place more abruptly due to less patience on the part of the user, the toaster can bear on the support surface during lowering of the handle. Lowering of the handle for setting-up of the grate into the operative setting also has the advantage that since placing of bread into the toaster and consequent switching-on of heating usually also take place through a downward movement, the activating movements are expediently in the same direction and thus avoid irritation. A rotary cam or a rotary latch has the advantage that a bearing point thereof at a pivot arm, with which it expediently co-operates, can be so disposed in the operative setting that a connecting line between it and the rotational axis of the cam may form a right angle with the pivot arm; consequently, no pivotal impulses can be transmitted to the rotary cam by way of the members of the grate and a secure latching is thus provided. With the rotary cam or the rotary latch, the translation of a downwardly directed movement of the handle into a setting-up movement of the members can be realised in a constructionally simple manner.

In a further embodiment, the toaster comprises an actuating mechanism providing a resilient bias of the members into both the rest setting and the operative setting and having a dead centre which lies therebetween and must be overcome during resetting. In this case, too, a translating mechanism which translates a lowering movement of the handle into setting-up of the grate can be easily realised, wherein the handle preferably acts on a spring and draws it over the dead centre. The action by way of a spring demands a lower precision of the mechanism and thereby reduces production costs.

Embodiments of the present invention will now be more particularly described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, 7 in which:

Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9 is a longitudinal side elevation of a first electric toaster embodying the invention, the toaster having two bread slots; is a plan view, to enlarged scale, of part of the toaster of Fig. 1; is part cross-section, substantially along the line III-III in Figs. 1, 2 and 5, showing a bread roll grate of the toaster in a rest setting; is part cross-section corresponding to that of Fig. 3, but showing the grate in an operative setting; is a part cross-section substantially along the line V-V in Figs. 2 and 4, again showing the grate in the operative setting; is a part cross-section corresponding to that of Fig. 3, but of a second toaster embodying the invention, the toaster having a single shot; is a part cross-section corresponding to that of Figs. 3 and 6, but of a third toaster embodying the invention, the toaster again having a single slot; is a plan view of part of the toaster of Fig. 7; and is a part crosssection corresponding to that of Fig. 4, but of a fourth toaster embodying the invention.

Referring now to the drawings there is shown in Figs. 1 to 5 a twoslot electric bread toaster comprising a housing 2 of sheet metal, in which two toasting chambers 4 are formed centrally one parallelly beside the other. In addition, divided off by transverse walls 6 and 7 therefrom are an end face time control chamber 10 and, at the other end face, a bread roll grate control chamber 12. A time-setting knob 14 and a bread support actuating key 18, which is guided to be displaceable in a vertical slot 16 of the housing, project out of the chamber 10. The chamber 12 has in its end wall 20 a vertically extending slot 22, in which a handle 24 is guided to be displaceable. The housing 2 has a cover wall 26, in which two bread entry and exit slots 28 and 40 are each formed over a respective one of the toasting chambers 4 and 5.

The toaster furthermore comprises a bread roll grate 32, which is formed by four bow members or rods 34, 36, 38 and 40. Each of the rods 34 to 40 has a support bar 42, 44, 46 or 48, which serves as a support part of the grate and extends above the cover wall 26 parallelly to the slots 28 and 30. The support bars 42 to 48 in the rest setting of the grate lie parallelly one beside the other closely above the cover wall between the two slots 28 and 30. This arrangement has the advantage that no supports have to be accommodated in the rest setting in the outer longitudinal side region of the housing and thereby cannot obstruct the ventilation of the intermediate space betweeen the housing and an outer plastics material casing when the latter is present, such as indicated by dashed lines 49 in Fig. 3 for an alternative embodiment.

The middle support bars 44 and 46 are somewhat longer than the outer support bars 42 and 48, in particular by an amount equal to somewhat more than twice the thickness of the wire from which the rods are made. The rods 34 to 40 have stroke portions 50, 52, 54 and 56, which adjoin the support bars 42 to 48, respectively, and are bent over downwardly through 900 about vertically when in the rest setting and which pass through two arcuate openings 58 in the cover wall 26 into the grate control chamber 12 or the time control chamber 10. The transverse wall 8 has two hinge points, which are respectively adjacent the longitudinal side walls 60 and 62 and lie on a horizontal line adjacent to the cover wall 26 and which are formed as convex outer protrusions 64 and 66 projecting into the control chamber and each having, in its centre, a bearing opening.

Spaced therefrom a little towards the middle, are two less pronounced convex inner protrusions 68 and 70 each similarly having a central bearing opening. The outer and the inner protrusions differ in depth by somewhat more than the thickness of the wire of the rods. The outer rods 34 and 40 have straight pivot arms 72 and 78, which are arranged in the grate control housing and are mounted by end portions 80 and 82 bent over at right angles and engaged in the bearing openings of the outer protrusions 64 and 66, whereby the pivot axes of the rods are defined. The pivot arms 72 and 78 in the rest setting (Figs. 1, 2 and 3) extend obliquely inwards downwardly from the pivot axes and are connected with the lower ends of the stroke portions 52 and 54, which extend in circularly arcuate shape around the pivot axes. The inner rods 36 and 38 have shorter, straight pivot arms 74 and 76, which are mounted by end portions 84 and 86, which are bent over in longitudinal direction of the toasting chambers and towards these, in the bearing openings of the inner protrusions 68 and 70 of the partition wall 8. The pivot arms 74 and 76 extend inwardly downwards from the pivot axes formed thereby more steeply than the pivot arms 72 and 78, and pass over into the lower ends of the stroke arms 50 and 56 extending in circularly arcuate shape around the associated pivot axes.

Two axles 90 and 92, which extend horizontally a little way into the toasting control chamber 12, are fastened to the partition wall 8 at a spacing below the lateral end regions of the opening 58 in the cover wall 26. These axles lie at equal height in about the lowest region to which the rods 34 to 40 extend in their rest setting in the housing. The axles and 92 serve as bearings for two double-armed rotary latches 94 to 96, respectively, which are rotatably mounted on the axles by means of bearing sleeves 98. The rotary latches have first arms 100 and 102, which each extend upwardly inwards at an angle of about 450 from this hinge point in the rest setting of the grate and in the upper end region are each constructed in fork shape with an elongate hole 104 to 106 extending in longitudinal direction, wherein two horizontally extending round entraining axles 108 to 109 of the handle 24 engage into these elongate holes, respectively. In addition, the rotary latches 94 and 96 each have a second arm 110 and 112 extending about horizontally outwards.

The first and second arms of the rotary latches 94 and 96 extend substantially in a plane which lies further away from the partition wall 8 than the pivot arms and stroke portions of the rods 34 to 40. A respective entraining lobe 114 and 116, which is bent over at right angles, extends from the underside of each of the second arms 110 and 112 below the pivot arms and stroke portions towards the partition wall 8.

In the rest setting of the grate 32, these lobes 114 and 116 extend almost horizontally and lie by their upper sides against the lower connecting points between the pivot arms 74 and 76 and the stroke portions 50 and 56 of the outer rods 34 and 40, as is to be seen in Fig.

When the handle is displaced downwardly from its upper setting, which is indicated in Fig. 3,by the entraining pins 108 and 109 into the lower setting illustrated in the Figs. 4 and 5, this entrains the rotary latches 94 and 96 by way of the elongate holes 104 and 106.In that case the second arms 110 and 112 pivot upwardly with the entraining lobes 114 and 116 and initially raise the outer rods 34 and 40 until the lobes 94 and 96 engage by their outer edges 118 and 120, which are remote from the axles 90 and 92, at all pivot arms 72 to 78 and finally raise the pivot arms into the horizontal position illustrated in Fig. 4. The entraining lobes 114 and 118 then stand by their edges 118 and 120 substantially vertically above the axles 90 and 92 and at right angles to the pivot arms and block these, and thereby the rods 34 to 40, in the operative setting. On raising of the handle 24, this sequence of movement is 10 reversed and the grate 32 returns into its rest setting. In the preceding description, the stroke portions and the pivot arms of the rods 32 and 34 arranged in the region of the control chamber 12 were described in connection with the control mechanism. The other end portions of the rods are formed in mirror symmetry to the aforedescribed 15 end portions and are mounted in the partition wall 6. Each rod i s preferably formed from a bent wire length which should be dimensioned to be adequately stiff so that the support bars yield only a little when loaded in their end regions not provided with a control. However, since the rods are also supported in this end region by a mount, they need not be dimensioned to be unduly strong. The handle 24 consists, as is to be seen in Fig. 2, of a lefthand single handle 130 with the entraining pin 108 for the actuation of the rods 34 and 36 associated with the lefthand bread slot 5 and of a righthand single handle 132 with the entraining pin 109 for the actuation 25 of the rods 38 and 40 associated with the bread slot 4. The single handles 130 and 132 are arranged one beside the other to be easily gripped by one hand and can be actuated selectably together or 12 - individually. Consequently, it is possible to provide one bread slot with a bread roll grate, whilst the other remains available for the toasting of bread. A connecting clip 134 of resilient fine steel plate is arranged on the handle 130 and is displaceable partially over the other handle 132 from a retracted setting into the latched setting indicated by broken lines 136. In this setting, the clip 134 connects the handles so that they are actuable only together in order to move all rods 34 to 40 at once. A detent nub 138 formed in the clip 134 cooperates with a corresponding detent recess in the lefthand handle 130 in both the settings of the clip.

Due to the different lengths of the pivot arms of the two rods 34 and 36 or 38 and 40, which together form a bread roll grate, the support bars lie closely one beside the other in the rest state, move apart on different circular arcs during the pivoting-up into the operative setting and in this setting lie substantially above the longitudinal sides of the bread slot. Fig. 6 shows a single-slot bread toaster having an inner sheet-metal housing 602 and a plastics material housing 650 surrounding this at a spacing. An end face wall 608 of the housing serves as a partition wall 20 and has protrusions 664 and 666, which project laterally towards the side walls of the housing 650 and in which are bearing openings defining horizontal pivot axes for the mounting of two rods 636 and 638. The rods 636 and 638 together form a bread roll grate 632 and have support bars 644 and 646, which extend in longitudinal direction of the toaster and the bread slot 605 and which in the rest setting extend on a cover wall of the housing 602 at both sides of the slot 605. The cover wall extends beyond the partition wall 608 towards the facing end and has control chambers 612, 658 and 659 in the end face region. The rods 636 and 638 are formed symmetrically and have stroke portions 652 and 654, which downwardly adjoin the support bars 644 and 646 and are led in circular arcs around the bearing points 664 and 666. Connected to the stroke portions are pivot arms 672 and 678, which are horizontal in the operative setting and extend below the cover wall as illustrated in Fig.

6. The end portions 680 and 682 of the arms are bent over in longitudinal direction of the appliance and engage into the bearing protrusions 664 and 666. A central entraining pin 699, which is connected with a handle (not shown), directly engages the undersides of the pivot arms 680 and 682 and is retained in an upper operative setting by detent means. By virtue of the long pivot arms 680 and 682, the support bars 644 and 646 rise very steeply out of their rest setting into the operative setting and remain substantially on the same side of the bread slot as in the rest setting.

Figs. 7 and 8 show a single-slot bread toaster having a sheet metal housing 702, which is surrounded by a plastics material shell casing 750.

The housing 702 has a cover wall 726, in which a bread slot 705 is formed and framed by a wall 707, which projects downwardly a short distance from the cover wal 1 726. A bread roll grate 732 comprises two rods 736 and 738. The rods have support bars 744 and 746, which extend in longitudinal direction of the toasting chamber and which in their lowered rest setting are arranged in the slot 705 near the wall 707 and just below the top of the cover wall 726. This arrangement in the rest setting is aesthetically appealing and does not disturb air flow which forms between the inner housing 722 and the casing 725 and is formed by a larger portion, which lies above the slot 705, of the casing 750. The rods 736 and 738 have stroke portions 752 and 754, which are rigidly connected to the support bars 744 and 746 and which cross over in the illustrated operative setting as seen in the longitudinal direction of the toaster. The lower ends of the stroke portions are rigidly connected with relatively short pivot arms 772 and 778, respectively, extending within the slot 705. One pivot arm 778 is mounted by a bearing portion 780, which is bent over towards the observer in Fig. 7, in a bearing opening of the wall 707. The other pivot arm 772 is mounted by a bearing portion 782, which extends rearwardly out of the plane of the drawing, in an opening of a mounting extension 783 projecting inwardly from the longitudinal side wall of the wall 707. The opposite end regions of the rods 736 and 738 are constructed in mirror symmetry to the illustrated end regions and mounted in the same manner, but do not co-operate with a control. This applies also to both the afore-described embodiments. The pivot arms 772 and 778 or their junctions with the stroke portions 752 and 754 co-operate with an entraining plate 799, which is connected with a handle displaceable vertically at one end face of the toaster. A detent device fixes the plate 799 in its operative setting. The rods 736 and 738 each have an additional support bar 745 and 747, which is parallel to the support bar 744 or 746 and is inserted between the two stroke portions connected with the ends of the support bar. By virtue of the short pivot arms and the strongly curved stroke arms, which extend as circular arcs about the hinge points, the additional support bars 745 and 747 lie, in the operative setting of the grate 732, only slightly below the height of the support bars 744 and 746, which offer the advantage of a centring of the item to be toasted. The additional support bars 745 and 747 make the grate tighter, which facilitates a secure support of the item to be toasted, for example a bread roll or bread slice.

Corresponding additional supports can also be used in the construction according to the Figs. 1 to 5. The housing cover wall then has, for their reception in the rest setting of the grate, passage slots for their entry. Alternatively, the bread slots can reach into the region of the two outer supports and receive them.

In a bread toaster shown in Fig. 9, which in respect of the lifting mechanism represents a modification of the embodiment according to Figs. 1 to 5, the parts agreeing with the latter embodiment are denoted by the same reference numerals. The grate 832 differs from the grate 32 by a rod 834 modified by comparison with the rod 34. The rod 834 has a pivot arm 876, at the underside of which a downward entraining projection 79 is provided and which has, at a small spacing from the bearing point 70, an actuating projection 871 projecting vertically downwards in the operative setting. The actuating projection 871 has a lower bearing portion 873 bent away at right angles from the toasting chamber. An expanding bow spring 875 in the form of a V-shaped leaf spring engages around the bearing portion 873 by one free end portion 877, whilst its other free end portion 875 engages around a bearing pin 881 fastened 20 thereunder at a transverse wall 808. The entraining pin 108 of the handle 24 engages in the region of a connecting web 883 of the spring. When the spring 875 is pivoted around the stationary bearing pin 881 by raising of the entraining pin 108, it pushes the actuating projection 871 of the shorter pivot arm 876 to the left in clockwise sense around 25 the bearing point 70, whilst the spring 875, which is urged apart and produces a bias, is compressed somewhat during the transition and then relieved again. The bearing pin 881 is so arranged that it lies on a chain-dotted line 891, which extends through the bearing point 70 and bisects the arc described by the bearing portion 873 of the rod 834 during the resetting. Thus, an over-dead-centre device is created, which biases the grate 832 into the operative setting or the rest setting. At the other ends, remote from this control, of the rods 834 and 836, these have simple pivot arms and stroke portions which are in mirror symmetry to those illustrated, but have no entrainment or control extensions and are mounted in openings of the partition wall 6.

Claims (22)

1. An electric toaster comprising a housing provided with at least one toasting chamber and with a bread entry and exit slot therefor in a cover wall of the housing, and a plurality of bow members which each comprise a support bar extending in the longitudinal direction of the slot and connecting portions extending downwardly from the bar and through opening means in the cover wall and which are each connected to pivot arms to be pivotable about a pivot axis substantially parallel to said direction between a lowered rest postion and a raised support position in which the support bar is co-operable with the or each other support bar to form a grating for support of a bakery product above the chamber, each of the arms extending transversely to said direction and being connected to the support bar of the respective member by way of a connecting portion of that member.

2. A toaster as claimed in claim 1, wherein each of the connecting portions extends arcuately about the associated pivot axis.

3. A toaster as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the support bars of the members or at least two of the members are disposed at the same longitudinal side of the slot in the lowered setting of the members and the connecting portions of those members extend through common openings in the cover wall.

4. A toaster as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the support bars of the members or at least two of the members are disposed at the same longitudinal side of the slot and the pivot arms associated 18 with one of those members are different in length from the pivot arms associated with the other of those members.

5. A toaster as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the housing is provided with two parallel chambers each with a respective such slot and the support bars in the rest positions of the members are disposed between the slots.

6. A toaster as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein each of the members and the associated pivot arms are formed from a bent length of wire.

7. A toaster as claimed in claim 6, wherein each of the pivot arms includes a bearing extension.

8. A toaster as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the pivot arms of each member in the raised position thereof extend transversely through the chamber or an associated such chamber or through a notional continuation thereof.

9. A toaster as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the support bars of the members or at least two of the members are arranged at one side of the slot and the pivot arms thereof extend in the same direction towards the respective pivot axes and pivot in the same rotational direction on movement of the members between the lowered and raised positions.

10. A toaster as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 8, wherein the support bars of the members or at least two of the members are arranged one on each side of the slot and the pivot arms thereof extend in opposite directions towards the respective pivot axes.

11. A toaster as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the pivot arms are pivotably mounted in the region of the cover wall.

12. A toaster as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the connecting portions of the members are movable through the slot.

13. A toaster as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the support bar of at least one of the members is defined by a plurality of spacedapart elements connected to the connecting portions of that member.

14. A toaster as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, comprising a handle movable downwardly and upwardly relative to the slot and translating means to translate movement of the handle into movement of the members between the raised and lowered positions.

15. A toaster as claimed in claim 14, the translating means comprising a rotary cam.

16. A toaster as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 13, comprising spring means to bias at least one of the members into each of the lowered position thereof and the raised position thereof, the spring means being arranged in the housing and movable through a dead centre setting during movement of that member between said positions.

17. A toaster as claimed in claim 16, comprising a handle acting on the spring means and operable to cause said at least one member to move between said positions.

18. A toaster as claimed in claim 16 or clami 17, wherein the spring means comprises a bow spring which is pivotably connected at one end thereof to a pivot arm of said at least one member at a first pivot point spaced from the pivot axis of the arm and downwardly from the cover wall and at the other end thereof to the housing at a second pivot point arranged at a spacing below the first pivot point and which has a middle portion projecting away from the first and second pivot points, and the handle extends into the housing to engage the middle portion of the spring and is displaceable upwardly and downwardly to move the spring through said dead centre setting.

19. A toaster substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Figs. 1 to 5 of the accompanying drawings.

20. A toaster substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Fig. 6 of the accompanying drawings.

21. A toaster substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Figs. 7 and 8 of the accompanying drawings.

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22. A toaster substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Fig. 9 of the accompanying drawings.