Patent ID: 8182061

Claim:
An inkjet recording apparatus, comprising: an inkjet head having a nozzle face and a side face adjacent to the nozzle face; and a first wiping member configured to slide on the nozzle face in a given direction that is perpendicular to a long side direction of the nozzle face and that is parallel to a short side direction of the nozzle face, while in contact with the nozzle face, to remove ink from the nozzle face and accumulate the ink to one side of the nozzle face, said first wiping member having a removing start edge, a removing end edge, and a fluid removing face that is in contact with the nozzle face, a long side direction of the fluid removing face being arranged substantially along the long side direction of the nozzle face, the fluid removing face being slanted at an angle less than 90° relative to the given direction in which the first wiping member slides on the nozzle face, and a portion of the fluid removing face at the removing start edge being ahead of a portion of the fluid removing face at the removing end edge in the given direction in which the first wiping member slides on the nozzle face; and a second wiping member, disposed rearward of the first wiping member with respect to the given direction, and configured to move in a specific direction corresponding to the given direction that is parallel to the short side direction of the nozzle face, to contact the side face of the inkjet head and remove the ink accumulated by the first wiping member, a portion of said second wiping member contacting an edge at which the short side of the nozzle face and the side face of the inkjet head come together, wherein the second wiping member slides on the side face of the inkjet head along the short side direction of the nozzle face in the specific direction corresponding to the given direction to remove the ink from the short side of the nozzle face, and wherein the fluid removing face of the first wiping member contacts the nozzle face at a first contact angle at the removing start edge and at a second contact angle at the removing end edge, an effect of elastic deformation causing the first contact angle to be greater than the second contact angle, the ink is removed from the nozzle face and moved to and accumulated at the removing end edge of the first wiping member, and the ink accumulated by the first wiping member is removed by the second wiping member.