Electric knife

Last updated
An electric carving knife Krups Type 378 C-4574.jpg
An electric carving knife

An electric carving knife or electric knife is an electrical kitchen device used for slicing foods. The device consists of two serrated blades that are clipped together. When the appliance is switched on, the blades continuously move lengthways to provide the sawing action. They were popular in the United Kingdom in the 1970s.[ citation needed ]

Contents

Invention

The invention of the electric knife is usually attributed to Jerome L. Murray, [1] [2] but there are other claimants, such as Clem E. Kosterman, who filed a patent in 1939. [3] [4]

Electric knives can be corded or cordless.

Other uses

They are also sometimes used for other purposes, including sculpting polyurethane foam rubber, [5] [6] cutting wood, cutting metal, and other solid or semi-solid substances and materials.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knife</span> Tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade

A knife is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools. Originally made of wood, bone, and stone, over the centuries, in step with improvements in both metallurgy and manufacturing, knife blades have been made from copper, bronze, iron, steel, ceramic, and titanium. Most modern knives have either fixed or folding blades; blade patterns and styles vary by maker and country of origin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plotter</span> Computer output device that draws lines on paper by moving a pen

A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting plotter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circular saw</span> Power tool

A circular saw or a buzz saw, is a power-saw using a toothed or abrasive disc or blade to cut different materials using a rotary motion spinning around an arbor. A hole saw and ring saw also use a rotary motion but are different from a circular saw. Circular saws may also be loosely used for the blade itself. Circular saws were invented in the late 18th century and were in common use in sawmills in the United States by the middle of the 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chainsaw</span> Portable handheld power saw with a rotating chain

A chainsaw is a portable handheld power saw that cuts with a set of teeth attached to a rotating chain driven along a guide bar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blade</span> Sharp cutting part of a weapon or tool

A blade is the sharp, cutting portion of a tool, weapon, or machine, specifically designed to puncture, chop, slice, or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are intended to cut. This includes early examples made from flaked stones like flint or obsidian, evolving through the ages into metal forms like copper, bronze, and iron, and culminating in modern versions made from steel or ceramics. Serving as one of humanity's oldest tools, blades continue to have wide-ranging applications, including in combat, cooking, and various other everyday and specialized tasks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Table saw</span> Woodworking tool

A table saw is a woodworking tool, consisting of a circular saw blade, mounted on an arbor, that is driven by an electric motor. The drive mechanism is mounted below a table that provides support for the material, usually wood, being cut, with the blade protruding up through the table into the material.

A microtome is a cutting tool used to produce extremely thin slices of material known as sections, with the process being termed microsectioning. Important in science, microtomes are used in microscopy for the preparation of samples for observation under transmitted light or electron radiation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kitchen knife</span> Knives intended for use in the process of preparing food

A kitchen knife is any knife that is intended to be used in food preparation. While much of this work can be accomplished with a few general-purpose knives – notably a large chef's knife, a tough cleaver, a small paring knife and some sort of serrated blade – there are also many specialized knives that are designed for specific tasks. Kitchen knives can be made from several different materials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharpening</span> Creating or refining the edge of a cutting tool

Sharpening is the process of creating or refining the edge joining two non-coplanar faces into a converging apex, thereby creating an edge of appropriate shape on a tool or implement designed for cutting. Sharpening is done by removing material on an implement with an abrasive substance harder than the material of the implement, followed sometimes by processes to polish/hone the sharp surface to increase smoothness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paper cutter</span>

A paper cutter, also known as a paper guillotine or simply a guillotine, is a tool often found in offices and classrooms. It is designed to administer straight cuts to single sheets or large stacks of paper at once.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foam rubber</span> Rubber manufactured with a foaming agent

Foam rubber refers to rubber that has been manufactured with a foaming agent to create an air-filled matrix structure. Commercial foam rubbers are generally made of synthetic rubber, natural latex or polyurethane. Latex foam rubber, used in mattresses, is well known for its endurance. Polyurethane is a thermosetting polymer that comes from combination of Methyl di-isocyanate and polyethylene and some other chemical additives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cleaver</span> Big knife

A cleaver is a large knife that varies in its shape but usually resembles a rectangular-bladed hatchet. It is largely used as a kitchen or butcher knife and is mostly intended for splitting up large pieces of soft bones and slashing through thick pieces of meat. The knife's broad side can also be used for crushing in food preparation and can also be used to scoop up chopped items.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wire saw</span> Saw that uses abrasive metal wire or cable

A wire saw is a saw that uses a metal wire or cable for mechanical cutting of bulk solid material such as stone, wood, glass, ferrites, concrete, metals, crystals etc.. Industrial wire saws are usually powered. There are also hand-powered survivalist wire saws suitable for cutting tree branches. Wire saws are classified as continuous or oscillating. Sometimes the wire itself is referred to as a "blade".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riving knife</span> Safety device installed on woodworking saws

A riving knife is a safety device installed on a table saw, circular saw, or radial arm saw used for woodworking. Attached to the saw's arbor, it is fixed relative to the blade and moves with it as blade depth is adjusted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roll slitting</span> Shearing operation

Roll slitting is a shearing operation that cuts a large roll of material into narrower rolls. There are two types of slitting: log slitting and rewind slitting. In log slitting the roll of material is treated as a whole and one or more slices are taken from it without an unrolling/re-reeling process. In rewind slitting the web is unwound and run through the machine, passing through knives or lasers, before being rewound on one or more shafts to form narrower rolls. The multiple narrower strips of material may be known as mults or pancakes if their diameter is much more than their width. For rewind slitting the machine used is called a slitter rewinder, a slitter or a slitting machine – these names are used interchangeably for the same machines. For particularly narrow and thin products, the pancakes become unstable, and then the rewind may be onto a bobbin-wound reel: the rewind bobbins are much wider than the slit width and the web oscillates across the reel as it is rewound. Apart from the stability benefit it is also then possible to put very long lengths,, onto one bobbin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheese knife</span> Type of knife used for cutting or serving cheese

A cheese knife is a type of kitchen knife specialized for the cutting of cheese. Different cheeses require different knives, according primarily to hardness. There are also a number of other kitchen tools designed for cutting or slicing cheese, especially the harder types. These include the cheese cutter, cheese slicer, cheese plane, cheese scoop for soft cheese and others, collectively known as cheese servers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of United States inventions (1890–1945)</span> Chronological list of advances

A timeline of United States inventions (1890–1945) encompasses the ingenuity and innovative advancements of the United States within a historical context, dating from the Progressive Era to the end of World War II, which have been achieved by inventors who are either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Copyright protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fillet knife</span> Flexible knife used in the preparation of filets

A fillet knife is a kitchen knife used for filleting. It gives good control and aids in filleting. It is a very flexible member of the boning knife family that is used to filet and prepare fish. Fillet knife blades are typically 15 to 28 cm long. This allows them to move easily along the backbone and under the skin of meat.

The splitting band knife is a kind of knife used in several fields including: tannery, EVA/rubber, foam, cork, shoe and leather goods, paper, carpet and other soft sheet materials. It is a power tool which is very similar in operation to a band saw, with an endless loop blade; the material to be cut is supported by a flat table.

References

  1. Agis Salpukas, "Jerome Murray, 85, a Many-Faceted Inventor", obituary, New York Times, 11 February 1998.
  2. Carl W. Hall, A Biographical Dictionary, p.158, Purdue University Press, 2007 ISBN   1557534594.
  3. "With the inventors", Popular Science Monthly, volume 36, no.2, p.22, March 1940 ISSN   0161-7370
  4. C. E. Kosterman, "Power operated knife" [ dead link ], US patent 2180244, 14 November 1939.
  5. "Tip No. 080 A Method for Cutting Open Cell Polyurethane Foams NASA Materials Engineering Branch" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-08-02. Retrieved 2007-12-14.
  6. Sylvia Moss. Costumes and Chemistry: A Comprehensive Guide to Materials and Applications, Quite Specific Media Group Ltd, 2001. ISBN   0-89676-214-9 p317