The Bladed Lemon Reamer: Six Blades That Cut and Spread the Fruit

"The extremities of the blades are rounded, and terminate at the center of their axis or stock B, and said blades are beveled off along one side, as indicated at C C, &c., leaving the edge square with one side of the blades, while on the other side it is beveled." "In operating this implement the half lemon or orange is held in one hand over a vessel to receive the juice, while the blades are forced into the lemon and turned in the direction of the arrow, fig. 2, so as to tear the pulp and open its cells, and squeeze out the juice contained in them."

**Blank.** Saw 12 cm off a hardwood block about 45 mm square and clamp it in the vice. Mark a handle 7 cm long at one end. **Egg.** With the rasp, shape the other 5 cm into an egg as deep as half a lemon, blunt at the end, with a shoulder 2 cm wide where it meets the handle: Himmer's stops for the lemon's cut edge. Rasp the handle round. **Blades.** Pencil six lines along the egg, evenly spaced round it. File a V-groove midway between each pair of lines so six ridges about 5 mm high stand up. File each ridge square on one side and bevelled on the other, as Himmer did. Sand it smooth and wash it. **Test.** Weigh three lemons and halve them. Press down on the kitchen scale until it reads 3 kg, to feel a 30 N push. Push one half onto the reamer with about that force and turn it 10 times over the jug; weigh the juice. Squeeze a half of equal weight by hand and weigh that juice.

**Vitalis Himmer** of New York received US 101,128, dated 22 March 1870. He drew six blades but did not confine himself to that number, and wrote that blades and stock "may be of glass, India rubber, or other material", with a socket for a handle of wood if made separately. **Honest limits.** Here the six blades are ridges left between filed grooves in one piece of hardwood, not thin blades. The notebook treats the push as carried only by the blade edges; its push, lemon and edge sizes are examples. Your juice weights are the result.