UTILITY KNIFE WITH BLADE MAGAZINE

摘要

A utility knife has a blade magazine (18) removably mounted in a manually holdable housing (12) and rotatable about an axis parallel to a longitudinal axis of the housing (12). The blade magazine (18) has a series of radially and longitudinally extending circumferentially spaced blade-receiving slots (20) for separately receiving thin blades (22) having a cutting edge (24) at at least one end thereof, each slot (20) having an open front end to enable a blade (22) therein to be removed from the magazine (18) by forward movement through the front end of the slot (20). The housing (12) also carries a slidable transpo rt mechanism (42) having a manually engageable actuator (44) projecting from the housing (12) and slidable in a longitudinal direction between front and rear positions, the transport mechanism (42) also having a blade-engaging arm (112) within the housing (12). Positioning of the actuator (44) at the forward position causes a blade (22) carried by the arm (112) to project from the front end of the housing (12) in an operative position, and movement of the actuator (44) from the forward position to the rear position causes the blade (22) to be retracted from the operative position into the housing (12) and into an empty slot (20) in the magazine (18). The magazine (18) is rotatable to movethe retracted blade (22) from the arm (112) of the transport mechanism (42) and to position a new blade from another slot onto the arm for subsequent movement by the actuator to an operative position.