Ever since Robert hit me over the head with BEAM transmissions I've been trying to find the patents that covered that design. I've been looking for years and found nothing, then yesterday BOOM ! In desperation I typed in "fluid drive washing machine" in "guglepatents". I had been typing Beam Manufacturing, fluid clutch, liquid clutch, doodlebug scooter, all came up DEAD 0 !
To my huge surprise the patent that did come up for "fluid drive washing machine" was from GE, - NOT BEAM !! And it was the complete mechanism that Beam used. So this brought a slurry of questions to mind.
I knew from what Robert had told me that the early Hotpoint were "Beam" machines. And we always knew Hotpoint washers were not made on the same assembly line as the GE Filter Flo's until late in the 60's.
So Hotpoint had to be made somewhere else.
So I kept digging linking one patent to another and finally got down to what appears as the bottom, the first patent for the Hotpoint, Speed Queen, Easy, One Minute design washer.
Its a convoluted tale and it will take some more digging to get the actual answers but from what I learned from the Frigidaire patents history this one seems to parallel that one.
It starts with a man named A.J. Patch in 1931 who invented the 210° arc-cuate drive for wringer washers in Ripon Wisconsin. He also invented the engagement clutch used to engage the agitate shaft. This whole mechanism will form the base of the "Beam" machine. Interesting he lived in Ripon WI where Speed Queen would be found.
I have some early wringer parts books that show his transmission in Speed Queen wringers, so there is a connection I'm sure. His claim is very interesting and I think leads to the Speed Queen moniker, he claims that 180° washing won't effectively turn the clothes over so the machine has to operate for an extended amount of time, so that his transmission which really turns through 220° will turn the clothes over much faster saving washing time at the wringer for the Madame. Hence the commercial name "Speed Queen".
His patent is 1,964,440 Oct 27, 1931 you can view it at "gugglepatents".
Next a patent citing Patch's work shows up in Aug 14, 1946 by a G.P. Castner who works for a company called Solar in Milwaukee WI. His design incorporates the transmission into a semi automatic with a "bowl shaped tub" but adds the snubber plate design, the 1 point suspension, an early version of the fluid drive, the yoke support for the whole mechanism and the centering springs and an early version of "jet-circle" filling of the tub. Interestingly - which I never knew - he points out the advantage that the fluid clutch will actually slip and slow down the tub on unbalanced loads.
His patent is 2,513,844 8/14/1946.
After this is where GE/Hotpoint comes into the picture, all these patents are then cited by GE, which is common in patent law BUT GE also included the entire design elements in their patents - something you couldn't do unless you owned them. So somehow between 1946 and 1949 GE bought these two patents for the Hotpoint machine, or maybe Hotpoint was bought out by GE I'm not sure here, maybe YOU know that step?
Maybe to get into the automatic game Hotpoint had Beam make the machine instead of building a factory and when GE bought Hotpoint it acquired all these patents and as long as Beam could make money building machines GE let it roll? But that doesn't answer how Speed Queen got involved.
However after this point we see the remainder of the patents covering the Beam design coming out of GE.
The next patent by W.P. McCarty of GE was for a "Beam" design automatic that followed ABC's current automatic in that this machine also had TWO motors, one for spin , one for wash. In fact it cites the Altorfer patent! It also cites the Kirby patent - designer of the jiggamatic Apex, and Kendall Clark the designer of both the Bendix and Unimatic transmissions !!
This patent is 2,646,673 W.P. McCarty 10/19/1949
The next patent from J.C. Sharp at GE covers the cabinet design elements of the Hotpoint which were also used on the Easy and Speed Queen automatics. Also this patent includes the famous GE outer tub lip seal design for the outer overflow tub and the then novel idea of incorporating the entire mechanism onto the base plate so that it was completely independent of the cabinet structure. It is also where the invention of the sediment tube removal system is invented, so central to Beam built machines.
See 2,687,633 J.C.Sharp 10/14/1950.
The first patent I found, which was it appears the last for this design was from K.M. Hamell for an improved fluid clutch design that shows the entire Beam mechanism in a Hotpoint machine.
His improvement was the addition of small vanes that helped start up the fluid drive from a stop position and this patent is good to give us the optimal level at which this fluid drive should be filled for optimal pickup and de-clutching in unbalanced spin situations. This patent cites the McCarty patent above.
See 2,723,737 11/21/1950 - the day after my parents got married!
So the BEAM design is really a conglomeration of many inventors across several companies. My guess is the early patents were licensed to Hotpoint and Speed Queen and when GE bought Hotpoint it aquired these but I still don't see how Beam got involved unless they were a Toll Manufacturer for GE and as such were able to sell this design to other makers who didn't have the capital too tool up their own factories. GE has always been about the $$$ not the fame.
This may all parallel what Gansky and I found regarding waterless cookware - we've found 100's of names but they were all mostly made by West Bend for direct marketing companies .
AW what do YOU make of all this and what do you think happened?
[this post was last edited: 8/7/2014-08:01]
To my huge surprise the patent that did come up for "fluid drive washing machine" was from GE, - NOT BEAM !! And it was the complete mechanism that Beam used. So this brought a slurry of questions to mind.
I knew from what Robert had told me that the early Hotpoint were "Beam" machines. And we always knew Hotpoint washers were not made on the same assembly line as the GE Filter Flo's until late in the 60's.
So Hotpoint had to be made somewhere else.
So I kept digging linking one patent to another and finally got down to what appears as the bottom, the first patent for the Hotpoint, Speed Queen, Easy, One Minute design washer.
Its a convoluted tale and it will take some more digging to get the actual answers but from what I learned from the Frigidaire patents history this one seems to parallel that one.
It starts with a man named A.J. Patch in 1931 who invented the 210° arc-cuate drive for wringer washers in Ripon Wisconsin. He also invented the engagement clutch used to engage the agitate shaft. This whole mechanism will form the base of the "Beam" machine. Interesting he lived in Ripon WI where Speed Queen would be found.
I have some early wringer parts books that show his transmission in Speed Queen wringers, so there is a connection I'm sure. His claim is very interesting and I think leads to the Speed Queen moniker, he claims that 180° washing won't effectively turn the clothes over so the machine has to operate for an extended amount of time, so that his transmission which really turns through 220° will turn the clothes over much faster saving washing time at the wringer for the Madame. Hence the commercial name "Speed Queen".
His patent is 1,964,440 Oct 27, 1931 you can view it at "gugglepatents".
Next a patent citing Patch's work shows up in Aug 14, 1946 by a G.P. Castner who works for a company called Solar in Milwaukee WI. His design incorporates the transmission into a semi automatic with a "bowl shaped tub" but adds the snubber plate design, the 1 point suspension, an early version of the fluid drive, the yoke support for the whole mechanism and the centering springs and an early version of "jet-circle" filling of the tub. Interestingly - which I never knew - he points out the advantage that the fluid clutch will actually slip and slow down the tub on unbalanced loads.
His patent is 2,513,844 8/14/1946.
After this is where GE/Hotpoint comes into the picture, all these patents are then cited by GE, which is common in patent law BUT GE also included the entire design elements in their patents - something you couldn't do unless you owned them. So somehow between 1946 and 1949 GE bought these two patents for the Hotpoint machine, or maybe Hotpoint was bought out by GE I'm not sure here, maybe YOU know that step?
Maybe to get into the automatic game Hotpoint had Beam make the machine instead of building a factory and when GE bought Hotpoint it acquired all these patents and as long as Beam could make money building machines GE let it roll? But that doesn't answer how Speed Queen got involved.
However after this point we see the remainder of the patents covering the Beam design coming out of GE.
The next patent by W.P. McCarty of GE was for a "Beam" design automatic that followed ABC's current automatic in that this machine also had TWO motors, one for spin , one for wash. In fact it cites the Altorfer patent! It also cites the Kirby patent - designer of the jiggamatic Apex, and Kendall Clark the designer of both the Bendix and Unimatic transmissions !!
This patent is 2,646,673 W.P. McCarty 10/19/1949
The next patent from J.C. Sharp at GE covers the cabinet design elements of the Hotpoint which were also used on the Easy and Speed Queen automatics. Also this patent includes the famous GE outer tub lip seal design for the outer overflow tub and the then novel idea of incorporating the entire mechanism onto the base plate so that it was completely independent of the cabinet structure. It is also where the invention of the sediment tube removal system is invented, so central to Beam built machines.
See 2,687,633 J.C.Sharp 10/14/1950.
The first patent I found, which was it appears the last for this design was from K.M. Hamell for an improved fluid clutch design that shows the entire Beam mechanism in a Hotpoint machine.
His improvement was the addition of small vanes that helped start up the fluid drive from a stop position and this patent is good to give us the optimal level at which this fluid drive should be filled for optimal pickup and de-clutching in unbalanced spin situations. This patent cites the McCarty patent above.
See 2,723,737 11/21/1950 - the day after my parents got married!
So the BEAM design is really a conglomeration of many inventors across several companies. My guess is the early patents were licensed to Hotpoint and Speed Queen and when GE bought Hotpoint it aquired these but I still don't see how Beam got involved unless they were a Toll Manufacturer for GE and as such were able to sell this design to other makers who didn't have the capital too tool up their own factories. GE has always been about the $$$ not the fame.
This may all parallel what Gansky and I found regarding waterless cookware - we've found 100's of names but they were all mostly made by West Bend for direct marketing companies .
AW what do YOU make of all this and what do you think happened?
[this post was last edited: 8/7/2014-08:01]
