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Ralph, I don’t know if this is helpful, but I have a copy of Consumers’ Research Bulletin for September 1950 which tests sixteen refrigerators. For the Kelvinator, the copy says “Plastic baffle, located about 1 in. below frozen-food compartment, on which moisture was collected and drained during...

Pretty sure Sparton was not a subsidiary of Magnavox. Sparton was in business until fairly recently making sonobuoys for the Navy. That doesn’t preclude them making similar-looking sets, of course.

An aunt and uncle built a new house in the early 1960s and for whatever reason had everything possible by Westinghouse -- wall oven, cooktop, fridge, washer, dryer, heat pump. If you ever asked them, they would say they'd always had good luck with Westinghouse. A few years ago, my aunt bought...

One of the fun things about this site over the years has been getting to read vintage appliance owners’ manuals. There was one for an electric skillet, maybe a Sunbeam, that had all kinds of unexpected (to me) uses, such as baking potatoes and even a pineapple upside down cake. Kind of mean to...

Trader Joe has a pretty good chicken pot pie, although I would not be tempted until colder weather comes. Right now I don't want to turn on the oven at all. Franks and beans are pretty easy to make without buying a frozen dinner, aren't they? Speaking of Joe, nice to see you back, twintubdexter!

As I recall, the "uh-oh" was often followed by a throaty chuckle. I wouldn't call it birdlike chirping. There's probably no connection, but the actress Barbara Pepper comes to mind. She was a hefty character actress who appeared on ILL and Perry Mason, among others. You may remember her from...

Just for fun (I have a strange idea of fun) I’ve been using a bit of 1968ish Tide XK to wash dishes. The XK was Tide’s first enzyme detergent, but I assume the enzymes are inactive after 50 years, so it shouldn’t be harder on hands than regular Tide of the day. Yes, the phosphates make...

It's a Gibson. They used that inane "Freez'r Locker" spelling. (Also, you can see "Gibson" on the door handle.)

That's a pretty stout little compressor, to operate on only a couple of ounces of oil! I hope there wasn't any bearing damage. Another great video, David.

I’m thinking this is a Fedders-built model. The later Chrysler-built models seem to have had the pentastar and a “Chrysler Corporation” label on the front.

It’s like the old joke about the pet store that had a puppy in the window priced at $1,000,000. A customer says “You must not sell many puppies.” The owner replied: “I only have to sell ONE.”

It occurs to me that one thing you might try is adding some STPP to soften the water, if you're in a hard water area. This usually causes an increase in sudsing, and it might improve cleaning power, too. Alternatively, you could look for a box of vintage detergent on Ebay, although they're...

Vinegar pie What are the “yelks” of eggs? Is this just a jokey misspelling of yolk?

Thank you for doing this work, David. Instead of doing a lot of handwringing, you've used a real engineering approach to show that there are workable replacements for banned refrigerants that will keep these machines going into their second century! Doing some googling, I notice that one site...

Thanks, Robert. From the washer brochure, I can see the model we had was a W-2G2. It must have been purchased sometime around the fall of 1969, as we moved into a new house at Christmas 1968 and had an old Westy slantfront for a time. It kept breaking down (in addition to leaking and walking...

I figured a Jam Handy film would turn into a Chevrolet commercial! Neat to see the ultramodern streamlined home and all the appliances. But did electric kettles really eject their cords like that? Seems dangerous, especially when plugged into a range outlet like this one.

The owner's manual of my 2015 GE fridge actually has some language about how cleaning the coils isn't necessary. I don't remember the exact wording. I expect it won't last long enough to be an issue.

Wonder why they dated it as a 1936 when the condenser seems to be labeled 37?

As I understand it, range clocks were made either by GE/Telechron or by a company called International Register. I don’t know which would be in a Westinghouse stove. If the clock parts indicate it is a Telechron, I would search this forum for posts advising how to revive them. In the...

Some other low-sudsing detergents were AD from Colgate-Palmolive, Spin, Vim (tablets) from Lever Bros., and Salvo tablets from P&G. The tests from consumer magazines I remember seeing usually ranked the low-sudsing detergents behind the top-rated high-sudsers, like Tide. Maybe someone will...