ABC twinnie in AU

[gizmo]

Today my partner and I took his nephew to see the sights of our area. He is visiting from interstate.

We went to a small museum I have driven past a hundred times before but never visited, a museum of dairy farm machinery.

In a corner of the museum were some household appliances, including an ABC twin tub from USA. (240 volt Aussie motor though.) Attached to the lid was some correspondence from the owner to a descendant of the Altdorfer brothers, which I have photographed too.

It is from the early 1930s. It is very interesting in how it works - a single motor driving one transmission, which has an oscillating drive for the agitator and a spinning drive for the spinner. You engage wash or spin with a couple of levers on the side of the spinner, they move rods connected to the trans so I assume there must be a couple of clutches in the trans. Quite a sophisticated mechanism. There is no pump, just a drain tap.

The spinner has a hinged cover, inside the cover there is a disc which, when you close the lid, forms a lid for the spin can. The disc fits into the lid in a bearing so the disc spins with the spin can. It is a clever way to keep the spin can from banging around if out of balance. The can feels very loosely mounted underneath, I reckon there must be a flexible mount between the spin can and the transmission. It may be worn, too.

I have about 20 photos of it so where should I post them? Is there a particular place to post photos which are suitable for the museum section?

Chris.

 

[gizmo]

wash tub

 

[gizmo]

spin tub

 

[polkanut]

The washer section looks like they borrowed quite heavily from Maytag in it's design.

 

[sdlee]

nice

thats crazy, every time i think I have seen it all there is something new. Thats why I love this site.

What Polkanut says got me thinking, could this thing have been home made? Hard to believe but look at some of the things some of our own members have managed to pull off

 

[easyspindry]

Fond Memories

Our neighbors across the street had one of these machines when I was growing up. It was fasacinating -- and NOISEY. When their maid would do the wash on Mondays, I could hear it spinning from across the street. The disc on the underside of the spinner top fit into the tub as a seal and would turn with the spinng basket. The operator should have had earplugs.

The top part of the spinner would manually rotate. In other words, the large spout could be turned manually toward the wash tub so the water would empty back into the tub to continue washing. Then turn the spout back to empty into a bucket or onto the floor (as in my neighbor's case) for the water that wasn't any longer needed.

That babe put in many years of service.

Jerry Gay