Stacked Disc Finger Joint Cutter Assembly

Abstract

A stacked disc cutter assembly for producing finger joints including a plurality of discs, each of which has a plurality of cutter teeth secured to and projecting radially outwardly therefrom. The discs are of substantially similar outer diameter and when assembled and secured together in side-by-side, contiguous, concentric relationship they form a solid cylindrical core for the assembly. The cutter teeth projecting radially outwardly from the discs and so arranged on the discs that they are spaced apart both axially and circumferentially of the cutter assembly. SU This invention relates to a stacked disc cutter assembly for producing finger joint cuts in material, and more particularly to such a stacked disc finger joint cutter assembly wherein cutter teeth thereon are spaced apart both axially and circumferentially about the assembly. In the past, various types of cutter devices have been designed for producing finger joints in material such as wood. For the most part, such devices have had cutter teeth thereon which are closely spaced both circumferentially and axially of the device. Because of this, considerable problems have arisen due to portions of the material being cut (such as splinters) jamming between the cutter elements, this has resulted in problems such as having to shut down the machine to remove the jammed material. In some previous devices, there is a considerable amount of space extending radially inwardly from the cutter elements toward the center of rotation of the device, into which spaces material being cut may be drawn. The possibility of the workpiece being drawn into the space radially inwardly of the cutting device beyond a preselected point also can produce problems in production and maintenance of the equipment. A general object of the present invention is to provide a novel finger joint cutter assembly which overcomes the above set out disadvantages of previous devices in a simple and efficient manner. More specifically, an object of the invention is to provide a novel finger joint cutter assembly which includes a plurality of cutters, each of which includes a disc from which a plurality of circumferentially spaced cutter teeth project. When the cutters are assembled in face-to-face concentric relationship, the cutter teeth are so arranged that they are spaced apart both axially and circumferentially about the assembly. With the cutter teeth thus being spaced apart both axially and circumferentially about the assembly, there is substantially no chance for material being cut to catch in the spaces between the cutter teeth and jam the equipment. Further, the disc portions of the cutters when assembled provide a substantially solid core at the base of the cutter teeth which prevents the workpiece from being drawn radially inwardly of the assembly thus allowing the assembly to consistently produce desired joints without jamming of the equipment occurring. A further object of the invention is to provide a novel finger joint cutter assembly which comprises a plurality of stacked discs which are easily disassembled for maintenance and which can be simply replaced and interchanged to produce a variety of finger joint configurations. Yet another object of the present invention is to provide such a novel finger joint cutter assembly in which the cutter teeth are integrally joined to the disc portions of the cutters whereby there is no chance that they will spring away from the material to produce an inaccurate cut when a harder than usual portion of the material is encountered, as has occurred with cutter assemblies of some previous designs.

Patent Drawings (1 sheets)

Sheet 1