WO2024165304A1

WO2024165304A1 - Chopping board

Info

Publication number: WO2024165304A1
Application number: PCT/EP2024/051390
Authority: WO
Inventors: Sebastian Dr. MÜHLENBROCK
Original assignee: m:vention UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
Priority date: 2023-02-09
Filing date: 2024-01-22
Publication date: 2024-08-15
Also published as: DE202023100626U1

Abstract

The invention relates to a chopping board (20), comprising - a main board (22) on which material (26) to be chopped can be placed for chopping, and - connected to the main board (22), a support board (24) for the material (26) to be chopped. The support board (24) and the main board (22), when assembled, include an angle of approximately 70° to 120°, in particular approximately 90°.

Description

Cutting board

The invention relates to a cutting board for simplifying the slicing of bread and other items to be cut.

In particular, a loaf of bread is often cut by hand in the home using a knife. This often makes it difficult to cut the slices of bread evenly and to a constant thickness. This problem is particularly exacerbated when the bread to be cut is relatively small or only a small leftover piece is to be cut. Similar problems arise with various types of fruit or vegetables, which also often cannot be cut straight and evenly. Below a certain size, it is sometimes no longer possible to cut by hand at all. Particularly soft items to be cut, those with a hard crust/shell or those with a loose consistency that easily falls apart into smaller pieces, are also difficult to cut cleanly, straight and/or thinly. The softer the item to be cut, the more it deforms when cut, which can make a straight cut difficult or even impossible. Very unwieldy, short or small items to be cut are often difficult or impossible to cut by hand because they are difficult to hold when cutting.

There are various ways of making it easier to cut food. For example, electric machines can be used for this purpose, but these are expensive and often too large. Alternatively, various slicing aids are known, but these also do not achieve the desired result. In principle, all of these known slicing aids are based on guiding the user's knife. This is intended to ensure that a cut, for example vertically downwards or horizontally, always ensures the desired, and in particular consistent, thickness of the slices cut off.

For example, document US 1 729 624 shows a slicing aid consisting of several interconnected arms which are pressed onto a loaf of bread from above, the arrangement of the arms providing a guide for a knife. The document GB 2 452 608 A describes a slicing aid in which a base plate is designed with a knife guide. The cutting direction is horizontal, and a hinged stop is provided to hold the bread in the desired position at the side.

Further cutting aids are described, for example, in the documents US 2 043 175 A, GB 1 171 725 A, JP S 5 162 381 U, US 5 697 276 A, CN 102 310 424 A and GB 2 310 590 A.

The disadvantage of these known slicing aids is that the knife is guided throughout the entire cutting process. The slicing aid therefore specifies the dimensions of the material to be cut and cannot be influenced by the user during the cutting process. In addition, the knife slips out of the guide during normal cutting movements, which restricts the movement of the knife and makes the cutting process more difficult.

The object of the present invention is to provide a further slicing aid that enables the most flexible slicing of the material to be cut. The slicing aid should be as simple as possible in design and intuitive to use.

The invention is achieved by a cutting board, having a support plate on which the material to be cut can be placed for the cutting process, a support plate for the material to be cut connected to the support plate, wherein the support plate and the support plate in the assembled state enclose an angle of 70° to 120°, in particular approximately 90°.

In the following, the invention is described for use with a bread or loaf of bread. The term bread is to be understood as a synonym for any suitable cutting material, for example fruit or vegetables.

The cutting board according to the invention is extremely simple in design, but nevertheless has significant advantages over the state of the art. Using the cutting board, it is possible to cut a loaf of bread in a vertical direction To do this, the bread is placed on the support plate and pressed sideways against the upright support plate. The bread is then cut from top to bottom using a knife, with the upright support plate taking on several functions:

1. The bread is stabilized by the lateral support, which makes the cutting process much easier. This means that the bread deforms less or not at all when cutting and a straight cut is easier or even possible in the first place.

2. The support plate serves as a reference for a straight cut.

3. The bread is additionally held in place by the pressure on the support plate. This has two effects:

3.1. The bread no longer has to be held by the strength of one hand alone. This makes it easier to hold the bread. This is especially true for very awkward items to be cut (e.g. items that have a rounded end or are very wide).

3.2. The fingers no longer have to grasp the food to be cut so tightly. This in turn leads to two further advantages:

3.2.1. Short and/or small items (e.g. the end pieces of bread) that cannot normally be cut by hand (because holding the knife would put your fingers where the cutting takes place) can be held and cut in this way.

3.2.2. Cutting becomes safer because the fingers are further away from the knife.

It is important that the thickness or strength of the slice of bread to be cut can be freely chosen and can also be varied when cutting several slices of bread without having to make further adjustments to the cutting board.

Advantageously, the bread can also be pressed diagonally against the upright support plate, for example to slice the bread diagonally.

The support plate and the support plate can be firmly connected to each other, but in a particularly advantageous design variant they are detachably connected to each other. This allows the cutting board to be stored in a space-saving manner before and after use. The support plate has Preferably, the groove has a width that essentially corresponds to the thickness of the support plate so that it can be quickly and easily inserted into the groove for use. The groove ensures that the support plate is arranged vertically, i.e. that it forms an angle of 90° with the support plate.

Advantageously, several grooves can also be provided, which are designed in such a way that the support plate used forms an angle other than 90° with the support plate. The user can then choose whether, for example, straight slices should be cut or whether the bread or the product to be sliced should be cut at an angle.

The cutting board can be made of any material, but wood or plastic has proven to be particularly suitable.

In a further advantageous embodiment, the cutting board has one or more magnets that are arranged and designed in such a way that they can hold one or more metal objects, in particular knives, on the cutting board. The magnet or magnets can be attached to the side of the support plate, for example, but they are particularly preferably incorporated into the interior of the support plate for optical reasons. Alternatively, the magnets can of course also be arranged elsewhere on the cutting board. Several magnets can also be provided in different places.

If there are one or more magnets on or in the pressure plate, they also act on the side facing the cutting area of the support plate (hereinafter referred to as the cutting side). To minimize or completely eliminate this effect, the magnets can be shielded by using one or more metal inserts with high magnetic permeability (magnetic conductivity). To do this, these metal inserts are installed between the magnets and the cutting side. The metal inserts can be installed at a distance from the magnets or touch them. Likewise, two or more magnets can be connected to one another with one or more metal inserts.

Alternatively or additionally, the cutting board may also have one or more slots for inserting one or more objects, in particular knife blades The slot thus acts as a knife sheath in which the knife can be held before and after use. It has been shown that the slot can preferably be arranged in the support plate, in particular in a front side wall of the support plate.

Alternatively, the cutting board can be designed in such a way that the function of the support plate is taken over by the side wall of an integrated knife block. The knife block can, for example, be designed with several slots for different knives, but other designs are also conceivable, for example with a flexible insert to hold the knife blades.

To ensure that the bread is cut safely, the support plate has anti-slip elements or feet on its underside. These increase the coefficient of friction on the surface, which prevents the cutting board from slipping during the cutting process or at least makes it more difficult. The feet can be made of a soft plastic, for example.

Since the cutting process when using the invention takes place directly in front of the support plate in most applications, the invention has a cutting surface insert in a further variant. The signs of wear caused by the use of a knife are therefore concentrated in a visually distinct area, which creates a better overall image despite signs of wear. In addition, the insert can be made of a harder material than the support plate so that fewer signs of wear are created. This material can in particular be a harder type of wood than that of the support plate, but also a completely different material, for example plastic. The cutting surface insert can be firmly connected to the support plate. In a particularly advantageous embodiment, it is designed so that it can be replaced. The cutting surface insert can be fixed to the support plate against slipping by a positive connection, for example a tongue and groove system. In a particularly advantageous embodiment, the cutting surface insert can adhere magnetically to the support plate. The geometry and size of the insert are not limited to the position immediately in front of the support plate, but can also be located elsewhere on the board. In another advantageous design variant, the support plate is slotted from below so that it can be elastically compressed in this area. In this way, it adapts like a spring to the width of the corresponding groove in the support plate, which may vary due to humidity and/or temperature fluctuations.

To support this effect, the slot can be filled with a material (e.g. rubber or cork). The material can be elastic in particular. In a particularly advantageous embodiment, the support plate in the slotted area expands (or shrinks) due to the filling material to the same or almost the same extent as the width of the associated groove changes due to changes in humidity and/or temperature. This ensures a uniform fit even with fluctuating changes in temperature and/or humidity. The filling material can be firmly connected to the support plate or can be designed to be replaceable.

In a particularly advantageous embodiment, the slot in the support plate does not extend to the ends or side edges of the support plate so that it is not visible from the outside when inserted. The support plate can be slightly narrower in the unprotected area and/or the groove in the support plate can be slightly wider at the corresponding points so that the fit has a larger play at these points.

The invention is explained in more detail with reference to the following figures. These are not intended to be limiting, but merely show a preferred embodiment of the invention. In particular, the individual elements can also have other dimensions. They show:

Fig. 1 : a first embodiment of the invention in perspective view,

Fig. 2: the cutting board from Figure 1 in side view with bread placed on it,

Fig. 3: a second embodiment of the invention in perspective view, Fig. 4: the cutting board from Figure 3 in side view with bread placed on it,

Fig. 5: an embodiment of the invention with t-shaped profile groove,

Fig. 6: an embodiment of the invention with replaceable cutting surface insert.

Fig. 7: another embodiment of the invention with replaceable cutting surface insert.

Fig. 8: the cutting board with integrated knife block, the side wall facing the cutting surface takes over the function of the support plate,

Fig. 9: the support plate with a continuous slot on its underside to achieve a spring effect when plugging it together with the support plate.

Fig. 10: the support plate with a shorter slot.

The figures show two different cutting boards 20. These are each made up of a support plate 22 that can be placed on a surface and a support plate 24 attached to it. The item 26 to be cut, for example a loaf of bread, can be placed on the support plate 22 and pressed laterally against the support plate 24 (compare figures 2 and 4). A knife (not shown) is guided from top to bottom to cut the bread, with the support plate 24 supporting the bread laterally on the one hand and serving as a reference for a straight cut on the other.

To ensure the desired straight cut, the support plate 24 and the support plate 22 in the embodiment shown enclose an angle of 90°.

The support plate 24 is held in a groove 28 which is made in the support plate 22. In a particularly advantageous embodiment, the support plate 22 and the support plate 24 are detachably connected to one another, but they can also be glued to one another. In a particularly advantageous embodiment, the groove 28 is designed as a profile groove 28 with a T-shaped cross section, into which the support plate 24 can be inserted laterally (see Fig. 5). The support plate 24 has a cross section corresponding to the T-shaped groove 28, for example formed by two grooves (not shown) running parallel in the edge region of the support plate 24, into which projections 25 can be inserted, which protrude into the groove 28 and reduce the width of the groove. Instead of a T-shaped groove, other groove shapes can also be used which bring about the desired connection.

There are also other options for connecting the support plate 24 to the support plate 22, for example via a screw or nail connection. In a particularly advantageous design variant, the connection is made using a folding hinge, which connects the two elements to one another and allows for space-saving storage when folded over.

In the embodiment according to Figure 1, recesses 23 are made in an upper side facing the material 26 to be cut, which on the one hand serve to catch bread crumbs, for example, and on the other hand also have a decorative effect.

Furthermore, the design variants according to Figures 1 and 2 show a slot 30 in the support plate 24, into which a knife blade can preferably be inserted. The knife is thus always kept ready for use in the same place. Alternatively or additionally, one or more magnets can be arranged on or in the support plate 24 (not shown, as they are incorporated into the support plate 24), which hold the knife magnetically via the metal knife blade. In particular, a combination of the two variants is possible if, for example, several knives or objects are to be attached to the cutting board 20. Also not visible are metal inserts with high magnetic permeability (magnetic conductivity), which shield the magnets in the direction of the cutting side. These are attached between the magnets and the cutting side. Fig. 3 shows an additional hole 31 in the support plate 24, which on the one hand has a decorative effect, but also makes it easier to grip the support plate 24, for example when separating it from the support plate 22.

Furthermore, Fig. 3 shows a cutting surface insert 40, which is arranged in the area immediately in front of the support plate 24. The signs of wear caused by using a knife are concentrated on a visually distinct area by using the cutting surface insert 40, which can also be made of a more resistant material than the rest of the cutting board 20, which creates a better overall appearance despite the signs of wear.

The support plate has non-slip feet 36 on its underside, which make it difficult or impossible for the cutting board 20 to slip during the cutting process.

Fig. 6 shows an exchangeable version of the cutting surface insert 40 with a tongue and groove system. The cutting surface insert 40 can be inserted into a recess 42 in the support plate 22 so that a completely flat surface or usable surface of the support plate 22 is formed when the cutting surface insert 40 is placed on it. The fixing of the cutting surface insert 40 against slipping is not limited to the holding groove 44 and retaining spring 46 shown, but can also be achieved with any other form-fitting elements. For example, a magnet and a metal element can be incorporated into or attached to the cutting surface insert 40 and the support plate 22 in order to cause the cutting surface insert 40 to adhere to the support plate 22. The magnet can be located in both the cutting surface insert 40 and the support plate 22. Two magnets can also be used instead of a magnet and a metal element. Likewise, positive-locking elements can be used to prevent the cutting surface insert 40 from becoming detached from the support plate 22, for example snap hooks and eyes. All of these elements can also be used in combination.

Fig. 7 shows an alternative connection of the cutting surface insert 40 with the support plate 22. The cutting surface insert 40 and the support plate 22 are designed in such a way that the cutting surface insert 40 can be inserted laterally into a provided recess 48. The geometry of the recess 46 in the support plate 22 and the cutting surface insert 40 ensure a positive connection and prevent them from coming loose from one another. The geometry can also be designed differently than shown in the illustration.

Fig. 8 shows the cutting board 20 with integrated knife block 50 with slots 30, the side wall 52 facing the support plate 22 taking over the function of the support plate 24.

Fig. 9 shows the support plate 24 with a slot 54 on its underside in order to achieve a spring effect when plugging it together with the support plate 22 in the groove 28. The slot 54 can be open or filled with a filling material. The slot 54 runs parallel to the longitudinal extension of the groove 28, can be completely continuous, or can be interrupted at one or more points, in particular at the ends. The unprotected areas 56 can be narrower than the slotted area and/or the corresponding areas of the groove 28 can be wider at these points.

Fig. 9 shows a variant with a slot 54 which extends continuously over the entire width of the support plate 24, Fig. 10 shows a variant with a slot 54 which is shorter than the width of the support plate 24.

The invention is not limited to the embodiments shown; in particular, the features described can also be combined with one another in any way.

Claims

Patent claims

1. Cutting board (20), comprising

- a support plate (22) on which a material to be cut (26) can be placed for the cutting process,

- a support plate (24) for the material to be cut (26) connected to the support plate (22), wherein the support plate (24) and the support plate (22) in the assembled state enclose an angle of approximately 70° to 120°, in particular approximately 90°.

2. Cutting board (20) according to claim 1, characterized in that the support plate (22) and the support plate (24) are detachably connected to one another.

3. Cutting board (20) according to claim 2, characterized in that the support plate (22) has a groove (28) into which the support plate (24) can be inserted such that it is held in this during use of the cutting board (20).

4. Cutting board (20) according to claim 3, characterized in that the support plate (24) has on its side facing the groove (28) in the assembled state at least one slot (54) running parallel to the longitudinal extension of the groove (28).

5. Cutting board (20) according to claim 4, characterized in that the slot has at least partially a preferably elastic filling.

6. Cutting board (20) according to claim 5, characterized in that the filling is designed to be replaceable.

7. Cutting board (20) according to one of claims 4 to 6, characterized in that the support plate (24) in the slotted area has a smaller thickness than in the unprotected area (56) and/or the groove (28) in the When plugged together, the slotted area is wider than the unprotected area (56).

8. Cutting board (20) according to one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that the cutting board (20) has at least one magnet (32) which is arranged and designed such that it holds a metallic object, in particular a knife, on the cutting board (20).

9. Cutting board (20) according to claim 8, characterized in that the magnet (32) is arranged on the support plate (24), in particular in the support plate (24).

10. Cutting board (20) according to claim 9, characterized in that the at least one magnet is shielded by means of a material of high magnetic permeability in contact with the cutting area of the support plate (22) or at a distance therefrom.

11. Cutting board (20) according to claim 10, characterized in that two or more magnets are connected to one another by means of a material of high magnetic permeability on the side facing the cutting area of the support plate (22).

12. Cutting board (20) according to one of claims 1 to 11, characterized in that the cutting board (20) has at least one slot (30) for receiving an object, in particular a knife.

13. Cutting board (20) according to claim 12, characterized in that the slot (30) is arranged in the support plate (24), in particular in a front side wall (34) of the support plate (24).

14. Cutting board according to one of claims 1 to 13, characterized in that the support plate (22) has a cutting surface insert (40) which is made of a different material than the support plate (22).

15. Cutting board according to claim 14, characterized in that the cutting surface insert (40) is positively and replaceably connected to the support plate (22).

16. Cutting board (20) according to one of claims 1 to 15, characterized in that the support plate (24) is formed by a knife block (50), wherein a side wall (52) facing the support plate (22) takes over the function of the support plate (24)