Hair blower with orifice control

Claim 1

In a hand held electric hair dryer having a barrel provided with an exhaust orifice, an electric heating element disposed in said dryer, a blower for directing a flow of air over said heating element and through said barrel and out of said orifice, and a pistol type hand grip for holding and manipulating the hair dryer to aim the orifice and the flow of heated air in a desired direction, the improvement comprising: (a) damper means downstream of the heating element and supported in the barrel in the vicinity of the orifice and pivotally movable between first and second positions providing maximum and minimum effective orifice openings for producing a dispersed and concentrated air flow, respectively; (c) resilient biasing means coupled to said damper means for normally biasing said damper means to said first position for normally providing a maximum effective orifice opening; (c) trigger means positioned immediately adjacent the pistol type hand grip for selective actuation between first and second limits by a digit of the hand holding said hair dryer by the hand grip during use of the hair dryer; and (d) means coupling said trigger means to said damper for selectively moving said damper against the bias of said biasing means from said first to said second position in response to the movement of said trigger means from said first to said second limit; and wherein (e) the angle formed between said damper means and the barrel wall, on the downstream side of the pivot point of said damper, is acute.