Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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,
-- 1 --
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
- 2 -
.
~ 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.
- 3 ~
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 ~
~2~
these are available available. The ~ish processing machine thus
lncorporates a (not shown) feeding table, on which the
,
,~
- 3b -
I
a3~
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
: ;
~ . ~
- 4a -
"
;
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 ~
~ q3~
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.
-- 6 --
