Redicovering the ClipperVac

Hi everybody. :)

Sorry I have been away for a while, I am trying to get the writing bug back again.

So, today I am going to share a funny thing that happened.

Over 20 years ago I invested in a very large, 4 station ClipperVac unit.

It actually took me a couple of  years to pay it off.

I bought one, because I was having my first child and the baby was going to be at the shop.

I did not want any hair flying around the shop and getting on the baby.

It took a little getting used to, but I liked it.

We used that ClipperVac for years and burned through one motor.

My shop made a couple of moves and the Vac went with us.

When I downsized, 14 years ago, and went Mobile, I also had a ClipperVac Mini in my van.

As I said, I liked my ClipperVac.

I loved skimming with it, and it was great for really cleaning up legs on short cuts, and saving a lot of scissoring on those short shave downs.

I loved how it cleaned faces and feet, and kept the blades cool.

When my 'surprise' child came along, and I moved back into shop, the new shop was really too small for such a large ClipperVac unit, but I put it back up anyway.

Then we moved one last time, and I set it up again, but I was not using it as much.

I had bought new clippers at the time (Andis AG) and did not want to permanently glue the clippervac attachment to my new clipper. (That is what you used to have to do then with those clippers)

I had also bought a Wahl Arco cordless clipper that I really loved and could not use with the ClipperVac at the time.

So I slowly got away from using my ClipperVac.

It kind of became a glorified vacuum cleaner for my grooming table.

Once my daughter became a full time groomer, I needed more room in our groom room.

So I moved the large ClipperVac out.

I still don't have any room for that big ClipperVac to come back into the groom room, but I miss using it.

I have also recently checked out ClipperVacs website and have noticed that you no longer have to glue the attachment on your clipper.

What to do, what to do?

Well, believe it or not, I still have my van.

Yes, I still have it sitting in my driveway.

Up until this year I was still using the grooming van off and on for special needs dogs that I felt shouldn't come to a shop environment.

I know that I should sell it, but I just have not been able to let it go.

Plus, right now it needs some repairs.

We have the worst trouble with squirrels and mice getting into our engines and chewing hoses..grrrrr.

Anyway, I got the bright idea to take the mini ClipperVac out of my van and take it to work.

It does not take up much space and I can put it right by my table.

So that is what I did today.

I got it to the shop, set it up, and cleaned it up. (there were signs that mice had been all over the vac.

I turned it on and everything seemed okay....or so I thought.

I had to dig out my old pair of Oster A5 clippers, that still had the original clippervac attachment still on them.

They were so dusty, but they still work.

They are just slower than what I am used to now.

This was the little lady that I was going  to use the ClipperVac on first.

I used to hand scissor her very short, but the owner wanted me to take her as short as I could....shave her!

The owner even wanted me to shave her legs as close as I could get them.

So I got everything ready and started to clip.

This is how far I got when the ClipperVac just stopped running. :(

I asked my son to remove all the screws from the top of the ClipperVac so that I could check the brushes.

I thought that that might be the reason for the it suddenly shutting down.

There was also one other thing that I thought might possibly be stopping the ClipperVac from running.

Mice......

Well, it wasn't the brushes.

 There were no mice.

But, they had certainly been in the ClipperVac.

There was a massive nest smack dab on top of the motor!!

I am surprised that it ran at all.

There were even half eaten egg corns and corn kernels there in the motor.

My son cleaned everything out, and the ClipperVac was no worse for ware.

Of course, by the time all the cleaning was done I had already finished the dog.

  Yes, even though the owner wanted her shaved, this is the way she likes her head left. :)

She was my only short clip of the day.

Everyone else was hand scissored.

Tomorrow I will try to use the ClipperVac again.

I will also be buying new attachments for my current clippers. :)

I am looking forward to using the ClipperVac again for a lot of my grooming.

✂ Happy Grooming, MFF ✂