Importance

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Abstract

Apparatus for removing the peel from a pineapple comprises a tubular knife provided with a toothed cutting edge designed to cut through a pineapple and fixed elongated guide means telescopically positioned within the tubular knife and adapted to direct the toothed cutting edge toward a pineapple that is interposed between the guide means and a cutting pad positioned in opposing relationship to the toothed cutting edge. The mechanism for moving the tubular knife towards the cutting pad and through the body of a pineapple includes leveraged means designed to reduce the force required to move the tubular knife through the pineapple. The elongated guide means is adapted to accommodate quickly interchangeable caps which increase the effective diameter of the guide means and which cooperate with annular spacer elements mounted on the inside wall of a tubular knife. This allows the apparatus to be used with different diameter tubular knives for different size pineapples. The apparatus is also provided with a removable core tube slidably disposed in a passageway extending through the elongated guide means and designed to cut through the central core of a pineapple. The core tube and the tubular knife are coupled together by a removable connecting pin and are moved in concert by a force applied to the leveraged means. The cutting pad is provided with suitable structural features designed to accommodate the respective cutting tips of the core tube and tubular knife while at the same time presenting adequate surface areas for opposing the body of a pineapple pressed against it.

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First Claim