The mixer bowls of horizontal mixers tend to be quite large and therefore commonly have a bowl tilt feature so that mixed product such as dough can be emptied from the bowl (e.g., into a dough trough alongside the bowl). During tilt the bowl pivots on a horizontal axis relative to an overhead canopy that covers the open top of the bowl during mixing. Standard canopy sealing for single tilt (i.e., to only one side of the canopy) mixer bowls is with a straight compression seal across the front of the canopy (where the front is the tilt side) and a scraper on the rear of the canopy to scrape the downward facing surface of the canopy during the tilt. For two-way tilting (i.e., to either side of the canopy), seal bars that pneumatically are positioned and compressed against line of contact between the bowl and canopy have been used. However, the pneumatic sealing arrangement is complex and can create maintenance issues.
Bowl mounted seals are also known, but provide less than desirable results and may increase the possibility of seal mount components entering the food product.
It would be desirable to provide a simpler, but effective system for sealing the bowl relative to the canopy, particularly in the case of two-way tilting.