ELECTRIC
HAIR
TRIMMERS
I don't claim to be an authority on hair trimmers; I'm just a
dissatisfied customer who bought several lousy ones before I figured
out what to look for. I'm hoping to save others some of this
grief.
All hair trimmers have similar cutting operation: A stationary
blade with a row of teeth is drawn through the hair while another blade
with a similar row of teeth oscillates side to side across it.
The moving teeth sliding across the stationary teeth act as a dozen
little pairs of scissors, neatly snipping each hair that they
encounter. All but the cheapest trimmers have a lever on one side
that allows you to relocate the moving blade forward or rearward a
little, which affects how closely the trimmer will cut.
Within the body of the trimmer is the mechanism that drives the moving
blade. There are two types, which for lack of better nomenclature
I shall call "vibrating" and "motorized".
In the vibrating type, a stationary electromagnet is positioned close
to a small block of iron on a flexible mount. The cyclic nature
of the 60Hz electricity from the wall outlet causes this block of iron
to vibrate on its mount. A linkage attaches this vibrating chunk
of metal directly to the moving blade. This type of trimmer has
what looks like a plastic slotted screw head in the side of the
body. The instructions say to adjust this screw by turning it
counterclockwise until the trimmer gets really noisy, and then back to
the clockwise direction just until the racket drops off and it resumes
a regular buzzing sound. The kit includes a plastic screwdriver
on the back end of the little brush for cleaning the cutters.
Not to put too fine a point on it,
these
types of trimmers aren't worth a crap. They rely on
resonance to generate enough travel in the moving blade -- that's what
you're adjusting with the screwdriver. But the resonance changes
as soon as the blade encounters hair! 90% of the time, the moving
blade is barely moving, not far enough for good scissor action, and you
end up pushing the trimmer over the same place several times wondering
if it'll ever cut. Do yourself a favor and return that POS to
wherever you bought it and demand your money back.
The good trimmers actually have an electric motor inside, meaning
something with bearings and a rotating shaft. The rotating shaft
typically turns an eccentric that drives the blade back and
forth. As long as the motor is running, that blade will make a
full sweep back and forth, neatly scissoring hair. Even if you
manage to load the motor down so it was only running at half speed, it
would still be taking a full cut with each movement of the blade.
Atrociously expensive? Apparently not! I found a very nice
one at Walmart for about $20. It's made by Andis. Walmart
actually carries several models of Andis "home haircutting kit", but as
far as I can tell they all use the same motorized trimmer. The
difference lies in the attachments and accessories -- and in the paint
job, one of the more expensive ones looks like it's gold plated!
Now, while you're in Walmart, notice the Conair models. Right on
the box it says "electric motor" and has a little illustration of what
clearly is intended to convey a rotating motor -- but it lies, the
Conair is a vibrating type! Blatantly false advertising.
The dead giveaway is that screw adjustment on the side. The Andis
doesn't have one; there's nothing to adjust on an electric motor.
If the trimmer you're looking at has that slotted adjuster on the side,
my advice is don't buy it. Period. I don't care what
company makes it or how much it costs.