A variable interference anvil and knife combination is provided to selectively sever elastics in a laminate and preferably not sever the nonwoven portions of the laminate. The distance between the anvil and the knife can be programmatically altered to provide for smaller or larger gaps as processing speeds are changed.

An input conveyor, output conveyor, and knife assembly with a blade between the input and output conveyors all reciprocate back and forth as a blade moves perpendicular to the conveyors to cut portioned sized of product, such as ground meat. The cut cycle allows the product feed to keep moving in a continuous manner on conveyors. For ground meat, this system can allow production rates of 150 pieces or more per minute per conveyor line and can improve the accuracy of portioning. The blade is actuated by a profiled cam set that pulls the blade down, and then returns it with a spring to an upper position. The knife assembly can accelerate just after cutting to reduce the potential for sticking to the cut product.

An apparatus for transverse cutting of a web has a frame straddling the web path, a side frame on each side of the web path and an upper frame between the two side frames, a circular saw blade suspended in a pendulum arm pivotably connected to the upper frame, a swinging drive for controlling the swinging movement of the saw blade, wherein the pendulum arm is pivotably mounted in a vertically movable sub-frame of the upper frame, and the vertical movement of the sub-frame relative to the upper frame is managed by a lifting drive that is coordinated with the swinging drive. Also disclosed is a method for transverse cutting a web.

An object is to provide a method of cutting a laminate film by a circular cutter having a blade around its peripheral edge portion, including rotating the circular cutter at a blade peripheral speed of Vr by a rotational device in a forward rotational direction relative to the cutting direction, while, at the same time, moving the circular cutter at a moving speed of Vc, thereby cutting the laminate film, wherein the relative cutting speed V calculated by subtracting the blade peripheral speed Vr from the moving speed Vc falls within a range of not less than 50 m/min to not more than 30 m/min.

A variable interference anvil and knife combination is provided to selectively sever elastics in a laminate and preferably not sever the nonwoven portions of the laminate. The distance between the anvil and the knife can be programmatically altered to provide for smaller or larger gaps as processing speeds are changed.