IMPROVED BACONWEIGHERABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSUREA combination bacon slicing, segregating and weighingmachine is provided. The slicing machine has a slicing blade andcontrols for determining the rate of feed of the bacon belly to-wards the slicing blade and, consequently, the slice thickness.Receiving and conveying structure is associated with the weigh-ing machine and receives the sliced product coming from theslicing machine. Control apparatus is designed for inter-ruption of the operation of the feeding mechanism by appropriatecontrols when the slices are at a weight less than the prescribeddraft weight. The apparatus then provides for weighing andregistering the weight of the accumulated light weight groupof sliced product and for counting the number of slices in thelighter group. The apparatus calculates by subtracting theweight of the group from a heavier draft target weight andmultiplying the weight difference by the ratio of the slicesin the lighter group to the weight of the lighter group todetermine the number of slices to be added to produce the targetweight without changing the slice thickness. The number of slicesrequired for the target weight rounded out to the nearestwhole integer is then calculated. Thereafter, the errorproduced by rounding off to the nearest whole integer iscorrected by multiplying the first feed rate by the ratio ofthe number of slices calculated to produce the target weightby the number of slices rounded off to the nearest integerto provide a new feed rite which will produce a number ofwhole slices at the right thickness in making up the addedweight to produce the draft target weight.
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