Patent ID: 7437865
Filing Date: 2008-10-21
Classification: A01D

Abstract:
1. A mower comprising: a cutting blade housing that opens downward and has a forward direction, and has a top plate and a front vertical wall that depends from the top plate, said cutting blade housing being provided with a cut-grass discharge port; rotating cutting blades that are arranged in a transverse direction of said cutting blade housing and each of which is capable of rotating about a vertical axis inside the cutting blade housing; and a front baffle plate disposed forwardly of a rotation zone of said rotating cutting blades so as to guide a flow of cut grass towards said cut-grass discharge port from said rotating cutting blades; wherein said front baffle plate comprises: an upstream-side cutting blade plate portion having a curved guide surface that conforms to a rotation trajectory of an upstream-side cutting blade that is one of a pair of adjacent rotating cutting blades and is disposed upstream with respect to a cut grass flow direction, a portion of the upstream-side cutting blade plate portion that extends up to a boundary point defining an end thereof being shaped to curve toward the axis of the upstream-side cutting blade; and a downstream-side cutting blade plate portion extending from the upstream-side cutting blade plate portion at the boundary point and having a concave curved guide surface that corresponds to a rotation zone of a downstream-side cutting blade that is the other of said pair of adjacent rotating cutting blades and is disposed downstream with respect to a cut grass flow direction; and wherein the front baffle plate is configured such that the distance between a rotation zone of said upstream-side cutting blade and the boundary point between said upstream-side cutting blade plate portion and said downstream-side cutting blade plate portion in said baffle plates is greater than the distance between said boundary point and a rotation zone of said downstream-side cutting blade; and the distance between a rotation zone of said upstream-side cutting blade and a portion of the upstream-side cutting blade plate portion from a vicinity of a position in which a rotation trajectory of said upstream-side cutting blade intersects with an imaginary line that extends perpendicular to said forward direction and through a center axis of said upstream-side cutting blade to said boundary point gradually increases toward said boundary.