Patent ID: 7756461

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a rotatable image bearing member; a transferring member disposed above said image bearing member; a transfer-material transport line arranged to pass through between said image bearing member and said transferring member; a cleaning unit disposed below said transport line and on a rotationally downstream side of said image bearing member relative to said transferring member, said cleaning unit including a cleaning blade and a polishing roller disposed substantially adjacent to a surface of said image bearing member and being configured to polish the surface of said image bearing member; and rotation-direction selector means for selectively changing a rotation direction of said polishing roller, wherein: said polishing roller is disposed above said cleaning blade and on a rotationally upstream side of said image bearing member relative to said cleaning blade; and said rotation-direction selector means is operable to allow said polishing roller to be selectively rotated in a same direction as a rotation direction of said image bearing member during a polishing mode for polishing the surface of said image bearing member, and in a reverse direction to the rotation direction of said image bearing member during a period other than said polishing mode; and said polishing mode is set at a timing when no toner image is formed on said image bearing member.