Ashlock Company

Ashlock Company, a Division of Vistan Corp.

Fred J Cimperman

A method and apparatus for pitting olives and then slicing the pitted olives. In a preferred embodiment, each olive is carried in a cup positioned between a coring knife and a pitting knife in a manner so that the longitudinal axes of the cup and the knives coincide. As the cup and knives rotate around a drive shaft along parallel circular paths, a system of cams extends and retracts the knives relative to the cup, in order to pit the olive. After the pitting operation, the cup (containing a pitted olive) continues to rotate along its circular path past a set of slicing knives or water jet cutters. The slicing elements are oriented substantially parallel to the plane of the cup's circular path, so that the slicing elements will sever the olive cleanly into slices as the cup translates past them. In the inventive method and apparatus, both the pitting and slicing operations are performed on each olive while the olive is held in a known orientation. The known orientation is not changed between the two operations, in order to enhance the uniformity of the resulting olive slices. The invention produces clean slices and reduces the amount of olive material destroyed during the slicing operation.

Method and apparatus for pitting and slicing olives

A method and apparatus for pitting olives and then slicing the pitted olives. In a preferred embodiment, each olive is carried in a cup positioned between a coring knife and a pitting knife in a manner so that the longitudinal axes of the cup and the knives coincide. As the cup and knives rotate around a drive shaft along parallel circular paths, a system of cams extends and retracts the knives relative to the cup, in order to pit the olive. After the pitting operation, the cup (containing a pitted olive) continues to rotate along its circular path past a set of slicing knives. The slicing knives are oriented substantially parallel to the plane of the cup's circular path, so that the slicing knives act as wedges to sever the olive cleanly into slices as the cup translates past the slicing knives. In the inventive method and apparatus, both the pitting and slicing operations are performed on each olive while the olive is held in a known orientation. The known orientation is not changed between the two operations, in order to enhance the uniformity of the resulting olive slices. The invention produces clean slices and reduces the amount of olive material destroyed during the slicing operation.

A method and apparatus for pitting olives, in which each olive is held between a pair of matching knives as the knives are rotated along parallel circular paths by a rotating drive shaft. The knives may both be coring knives or may both be pitting knives, and are aligned so that their longitudinal axes coincide and the common longitudinal axis is substantially perpendicular to the plane of the olive's circular path. As the knives rotate along parallel circular paths, they are translated by cams along their common longitudinal axis so as to penetrate opposite ends of the olive simultaneously and then to push the pit out through one end of the olive. The coring knife embodiment of the invention leaves a clean bore through the pitted olive after removal of the core (including the pit), and prevents the pit from tearing away an irregularly shaped olive portion during removal. The pitting knife embodiment of the invention, on the other hand, maximizes the weight of the pitted olive product by employing cross-shaped pitting knives to make incisions in the olive ends which define flaps. The flaps at one end of the olive are displaced as the pit is pushed out through that end. The flaps then close after the pit has been removed.

Method for pitting olives

A method and apparatus for aligning articles as the articles are translated in cups along a substantially circular path. In one embodiment, each cup is formed in the outer surface of a rotating cylindrical drum, and one or more slots, each oriented parallel to the substantially circular path, extend through each cup's bottom surface. A stationary, notch alignment strip is positioned in at least one of the slots. As the cups translate past the notched strip, the strip bumps the articles in the cups to urge them into a uniform alignment. In a preferred embodiment, the slots are spaced and dimensioned to receive parallel slicing knives. In an important application of the invention, the cups are dimensioned to carry pitted olives, and the slots are spaced and dimensioned to receive a set of parallel olive slicing knives.

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Castro Valley, CA, United States of America

Fred J Cimperman