Hair cutting appliance

Claim 1

A hair cutting appliance for use with a means for drawing a vacuum, said appliance including: A. a hair handling device including a tunnel providing a longitudinally extending hair handling passageway including an uncut hair passageway, said tunnel having a forward intake portion and a rearward exit portion, the uncut hair passageway being partially defined by mutually parallel top tunnel wall and bottom tunnel wall portions located between forward intake portion and the rearward exit portion of the tunnel, with a downstream edge of the bottom tunnel wall portion terminating intermediate the intake and exit portions of the hair handling passageway on a line normal to the longitudinal axis of the hair handling passageway; B. a hair cutting shear fixedly positioned with respect to the hair handling device to have a plurality of its shear blade cutting teeth generally linearly disposed in a straight line parallel to and immediately adjacent the line of termination of the flat bottom tunnel wall portion, said cutting teeth extending from outside the hair handling passageway through the plane of the bottom tunnel wall portion into said passageway; C. said hair cutting appliance having a body providing a first cut hair receiving port downstream of the line of the shear blade cutting teeth and open to the rearward exit portion of said tunnel and a second cut hair discharge port spaced from the first port, the appliance body being provided with a cut hair collecting passageway open between said ports; D. means for attaching said means for drawing a vacuum to said cut hair discharge port; E. wherein said hair handling device includes a hair deflector pivotally mounted at its first innermost end portion in the tunnel on an axis parallel to the linear line of the shear blades and in adjacent relation to said top tunnel wall portion, said deflector means being partially defined by a forwardly facing deflector surface, a rearwardly facing deflector surface and a connecting surface extending between the forwardly and rearwardly facing surfaces at a second outermost end portion of the hair deflector, the deflector being movable between a first position wherein it lies in clearing relation to the line of cutting teeth of the shear blades and a second position wherein the deflector connecting surface and the outermost end portion of the forwardly facing surface of the deflector are in sufficiently close relationship with respect to the line of shear blades to cause uncut hair in the uncut hair passageway to be deflected into the operating path of the shear cutting blades; and F. drive means to move said deflector between said first and second positions and to drive said shear when said means for drawing a vacuum is operable to draw air through said hair handling passageway and said cut hair collecting passageway.