Invisible hinge means for lid and hood of a canister vacuum cleaner

Abstract

A vacuum cleaner structure having an invisible hinge structure hingedly mounting a hood to the vacuum cleaner body and a lid to the hood. The body defines an arcuate guide slidably receiving an arcuate slide-track for hingedly mounting the hood to the body. A track portion of the slide-track, in turn, slidably carries an arcuate slide on the lid for hingedly mounting the lid to the slide-track and thereby hingedly mounting the lid indirectly to the body. The body guide, the hood slide-track, and the lid slide are each arcuately centered on a common axis disposed rearwardly of a rear wall defining the filter bag space of the vacuum cleaner with the common axis being disposed outside the confines of the vacuum cleaner body to facilitate interference-free opening and closing of the hood and lid. The hood slide-track and lid slide are received within the body rearwardly of the rear wall so as to define an invisible hinge mounting of the hood and lid to the body. In the illustrated embodiment, the slide is formed integrally with the lid and the slide-track is formed integrally with the hood.