One of the most dreaded tasks of the family unit has always been washing the dishes. It's bad enough sorting through all the sticky plates and pots and pans, but the silverware or daily flatware has got to be the worst!

This stuff has been in other people's mouths! And it's frequently still covered with some unidentifiable food substance. And it has sharp places just waiting to shred the unwary!

And yet, we must line them up in the dishwasher utensil tray, and hope they get clean, and later sort them into a separate tray for storage.

Why not have the dishwasher do the sorting? Powerful jets of water suspend individual utensils during the wash phase, and any of a number of suitable utensil identification techniques (laser imaging, vibration resonance matching, etc.) cause the knives, forks, spoons, and serving utensils to be sorted in their tray. After the drying phase, once can simply remove the utensil tray, and place it in the silverware drawer. Multiple trays are kept, so that a fresh one is always ready for the dishwasher.

Bon lave-vaisselle automatique!
-- csea, Jan 14 2006

If they can make machinery that separates nickels from pennies and nuts from shells and machinery that can separate the plastic, rubber, glass and steel from old cars then certainly they can make machinery to sort your silverware.
-- Jscotty, Jan 14 2006



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