Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a device for the Eilletting of
Eish, ln particular of fish of the Gadidae family, comprising
saddle-shaped conveying means for the fish, each including a
supporting element formed with a groove for supporting and
conveyingly engaging the fish in their belly cavity, for
conveying the fish along filletting tools, the groove being
Eormed by side walls with supporting edges provided with
teeth.
2. Description of Prior Art
With the mechanical processing of fish, in particular
with the aim of producing muscle flesh in the form of fillets,
it is of essential interest to achieve as high a profit as
possible in the form of this product by high throughput, it
being desirable at the same time that the fillets are produced
boneless. Furthermore, these demands should be obtainable
with as little expense as possible. In particular, in view of
the two last mentioned requirements, for conveying purposes
conveying means of the type mentioned above also called push-
ing saddles, have been found favourable in the processing of
fish of medium size or larger. This is based on the fact that
an alignment of the saddled fish according to the position oE
the lower edge of the backbone (vertebral column) ensues by
these conveying means and simultaneously the position of the
belly cavity end is definitely determined by the end of the
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pushing saddle. The latter unction in particular has the
advantage that a reference point is fixed for the operation of
the filletting tools, which point can be detected by the
conveyor in a simple manner by monitoring the respective
position of the pushing saddle during its passage. As this
association is independent of the respective fish sizes, the
controlling of such machines is very simple. In this way, it
is guaranteed that, for example, the flank cut to cut free the
ribs with the effect of high yield with simultaneous bone
freedom can be made at exactly the right place. The definite
alignment of the fish with regard to the position of its
symmetrical plane cannot ~e safeguarded however with the known
design of the pushing saddle. This becomes obvious from
German Patent 12 39 827, which shows a machine with a convey-
ing means of such kind. The pushing saddle termed a trough
shaped supporting element here has supporting edges with
teeth, which supporting edges with regard to the width of the
trough are formed to support the fish skeleton next to the
backbone i.e. on the lateral vertebral appendages. Since fish
of non-uniform sizes come to be processed, this means, that
only such fish are guided correctly laterally whose backbones
show a diameter which corresponds to -the clear inside dimen-
~sion oE the trough. Furthermore, lt has proved difficul-t to
process "distorted" Eish satisfactorily since such a support-
ing can lead to the symmetrical plane not always corresponding
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with the deflection plane of the conveyor. Such an imperfect
position cannot be balanced out for certain by outer convey-
ing means. As a result of this, the knives of the filletting
tools, for example, the knives cutting free the belly and
back spokes cannot be adjusted so narrowly, as would be
possible according to the anatomy of the fish without the
danger of cutting into the bones.
3. Object of the Invention
It i5 an essenti.al of the invention therefore
to suggest a suppor-ting element which ensures a perfect
lateral alignment of the skeleton. It is another object
to leave freedom for the alignment of the symmetrical plane
in the deflection plane of the conveyor through outer guiding
means.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the present invention, there is
provided a device for processing fish of different size
varying between a smallest fish and a largest fish to be
processed, in particular of fish of the Gadidae family,
which fish have a belly cavity and a vertebral column inclu-
ding a plurality of vertebrae defining the diameter of said
vertebral column, said device comprising a plurality of
carrier saddles for conveying the fish in a conveying direc-
tion through a conveying path along filleting tools of
a fish processing machine, each of said carrier saddles
comprising an elongated supporting element extending longi-
tudinally in said convey.ing direction for supporting sa:id
fish in said belly cavity and engaging them therein to con-
vey them, sai~ supporting element having a top ~urface
and a pair of spaced side walls upstanding from said top
surface and forming a groove therebetween, each of said
A side walls having a top supporting edge provided with tee-th,
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the space between the -top suppor-ting edges of said side
walls being smaller than said diameter of said vertebrae
of the part of said vertebral column extending along said
belly cavity of said smallest fish to be processed, whereby
said vertebral column rests upon said top supporting edges,
regardless of the size of the fish being processed.
The advantages thus achievable in particular
reside in that the belly and back filletting knives can
be adjusted in the region of about half a millimeter narro-
wer, which amounts to an increase in yield of fillet fleshof up to around 1.5%, for example with a cod fish of about
40 cm in length. It is further to be observed in the use
of scraping knives for scraping off the fillets flesh from
the ribs resp. vertebral appendages that the fillet flesh
positioned in the bend between the projections of the verte-
bral apprendages on the backbone and the back spokes is
scraped out cleaner so that the fillets so gained optically
appear to be of be-tter quality.
Preferably, the side walls extend in a converg-
ing manner with respect to each other towards the leadingendOf said supporting element in said conveying direction.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Other and further objects of the present inven-
tion will be apparent from the following description andclalms and are
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illustrated in the accompanying drawings, which by way of
illustration schematically show preferred embodiments of the
present invention and the principles thereof and what now are
considered to be the best modes contemplated for applying
these principles. Other embodiments of the invention embody-
ing the same or equivalent principles may be used and struc-
tural changes may be made as desired by those skilled in the
art without departing from the present :invention and the scope
of the appended claims. In the drawings
Fig. 1 shows a transparently depicted fish rump mounted
on the supporting element;
Fig. 2 shows a top view of the supporting element;
Fig. 3 shows a cross section through a fish skeleton in
the region of the belly cavity and the supporting element
supporting it.
~ supporting element 1 as shown is a component of a con-
veyor driven in a suitable way to rotate continuously, which
conveyor is a known per se part of fish filletting machines
and thus not shown in detail. The conveyor is e~uipped with
further similar supporting organs arranged at equal pitch.
Each supporting element 1 comprises a carrying web 2 of rela-
tively small thickness, which is provided at its upper edge
with a groove 3 running in the longitudinal direction of the
carrying we~ 2 and Eormed of two upwardly extending side walls
4. The side walls ~ are e~uipped with teeth 5 on their upper
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edges over their whole longitudinal extension and they extend
beyond the carrying web 2 in a manner that their distance to
each other diminishes in the conveying directlon so that the
groove 3 ends in a preceeding horn 6.
The operation of the device is as Eollows and represented
by way of the passage of a fish:
A fish rump 7 opened at its belly and qutted is held
ready with its tail end 8 in the conveying direction indicated
by the arrow in Fig. l and with its belly pointing downwardly
over the path of the supporting elements 1. On the approach-
ing of a supporting element 1, the fish rump 7 is lowered
first of all with preference to the tail end 8 and moving
together with the supporting element 1 so that the supporting
element 1 penetrates into the belly cavity 9 of the fish and
finally comes to rest on the backbone 11 in the region of the
belly cavity end 10. By reduction of the co-movement speed it
is taken care that the horn 6 of the supporting element l is
brought to rest at that end 10 of the belly cavity 9. At this
moment the fish rump 7 is released so that by this time the
whole length of the belly cavity 9 comes to rest on the
supporting element 1, the support being achieved ln such a way
that the upper edges of the side walls 4 forming the groove 3
engage the single vertebrae 13 beneath the starting points of
the lateral vertebral appendages 12. In this way, on the one
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hand, it is achieved that the a~is of the vertebral column 11
lies centrally over the groove 3 of the supporting element 1
under definite lateral guiding and, on the other hand, freedom
exists for the alignment of the symmetrical plane of the
skeleton by pairs of outer, centrally symmetrically synchro-
nised guides.
