Abstract: The head of a fish is severed from the fish body in a two-stage operation, in the first stage the root of the fish head beneath the gill covers being cut partway through and in the second stage the severance of the fish head from the fish body being completed. The first stage cutting operation is effected by cooperating disk cutters converging toward the fish head at an acute angle, means for sensing the thickness of a fish, and means for adjusting the spacing of the disk cutters in accordance with the thickness of the fish sensed. The fish are transported unidirectionally, and the spacing of the cutting disks is adjusted while the cutters are being reciprocated in the same direction of the travel as the fish is transported, and the disk cutters are then reciprocated in the direction opposite the direction of transport of the fish to effect the first stage cutting operation.

Abstract: An accessory for a fish-cleaning machine of the rotary bull ring type having rotary brushes adjacent to the peripheries of the bull rings, includes a nozzle projecting a flat fan-shaped glancing water spray into the nip between a rotary brush and the bull rings and, subsequently, two abreast nozzles adjacent to a spreader bar for spreading apart the belly cavity walls of a fish carried by the bull rings project two coplanar flat fan-shaped partially edgewise overlapping sprays. Such two abreast nozzles, a fixed contour brush and a wide angle spray nozzle are carried by geniculate mounting means spring-pressed toward the bull rings.

Abstract: A food packing machine employing a piston for compressing and preparing a cake of food for canning. The piston rides reciprocally in a carrier which is cam driven toward and away from a cake-forming cavity, wherein the piston acts against food particles. Operation of the carrier and piston, as the latter moves initially into the cavity's entrance, is characterized by nonyieldable biasing, or driving, of the piston into the cavity. Immediately thereafter, a spring which is interposed between the carrier and piston promotes continued, but now yieldable, drive of the piston into the cavity.

Abstract: Cooked shrimp to be peeled are distributed successively to tiers of sets of peeler rolls and cooperative reciprocative bars. The claimed invention permits coordinated adjustments of nip spacing and taper angle in the roll-bar tiers independently at corresponding ends of the sets and in each tier independently of the other permit optimum shucking in the first tier and polishing in the second tier suited to type and condition of shrimp. Cams are engaged by cam follower rollers connected to the peeler rolls to control nip distance between the bar and rolls at both ends as a function of relative vertical positioning of each bar and its associated peeler rolls.