Frigidaire Unimatic washers

Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

Help Support :

1957 Frigidaire

Could anyone give me some information about Frigidaire Control tower machines like how to set the water temp. And load size. I would like to know how to use the control tower unimatics. Pictures would make.it easier to understand.

Thanks for the info so far as I have gained an understanding of these machines.
Jesse D
 
Interesting thread, guys. I too have always found these machines to be so intriguing. The only time I've ever seen one was at Greg's house and was mesmerized immediately. Are these the machines with the matching dryers that vent into the house and use a solid calrod type element? If I recall correctly, they are and I also find that really interesting. Rick-Surely you didn't send one of these machines to the scrapper?

I guess Robert's turquoise Custom Imperial set is the most rare that we know of? I assume the pink set is just a dream set waiting to be found???

B.

PS. The fact that they're solid tub machines makes them that much more attractive to me.
 
1957 Control Tower Washers & dryers

Jesse:
I have a set of Non-working Control Towers. To answer your question The temperature and load setting (on the customer imperial) were two knobs that were to the left of the control tower. You only had hot and warm (all warm rinses) and the load size had a normal & small load setting. The small load setting made the timer advance quicker thru the fill cycle thus only a half full tub of water.

The dryers were calrod element dryers. You also had a knob to the right of the control tower that you could control the temperature of the dryer. Yes, these were filtrator dryers which condensed the steam back into water which collected in a tray. No moisture in the house just nice warm heat. Hope this helps answer some questions.
Bob
 
1957 Dryer

Do the filtration dryers require 220v electricity or are they regular 120 electric? Please leave me know because I would love to obtain a matched set but I have electrical limitations. Do you know of any control tower sets for sale?

Thanks
Jesse D
 
I think the internal

works of these machines are as attractive as their exterior's. Very robust.
Color choices were also nice.
I also liked the monitor control styling before the full consoles. When the collector club was featured on the CBS Sunday morning news last fall, a set was shown in a modern platinum color. It looked like it was made today. The shows commentator called them Blackstone's though.
 
Seems like the control tower model is the one that there seem to be more of now. I think they not only must have been a big seller, but they were so appealing looking that people hated to get rid of them. Seem to be a lot of Imperial models still around of those. It's amazing to me that I have actually had so many models of this machine from the past that I sold off to people needing a washer. I have had every single model of the unimatics at one time or another. You never really think about them not being around at some point, at least I never did. Scrappers have really done away with most anything that was left from the past. Who'd have thought??? Had I hung on to all the machines I came across, I would have a collection like non other. Nearly every single kind of machine went thru my fingers at one time or another. [this post was last edited: 1/24/2017-08:59]
 
1957 Filtrator Dryer

Normally yes these dryers were designed to run on 200 volts but you probably could convert one to 110. Someone with more expertise than I would have to weigh in on this. Frigidaire didn't come out with a gas dryer until probably the mid 1960's. I don't know of any for sale at the moment but every so often you will see one for sale.
Bob
 
I decided to put together a quick and easy tutorial of washing a queen size sheet set and 4 pillow cases without any tangling in a Unimatic. It doesn't take rocket science to do this and I can load the machine in 15 to 20 seconds...

Picture #1: Load the first sheet in 1/2 of the tub.

Picture #2: Load the second sheet in the other half of the tub. You can see the line between the 3:00 and 9:00 position between the two sheets.

Picture #3: Load the four pillowcases into four section 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 9:00.

Picture #4: Unlike oscillating agitator washers that many times produces air bubbles in the sheets that prevent the sheet from being pulled down, in a Unimatic the entire wash load is always underwater and turning over.

Picture #5: Wash load completed and you see nothing is visibly roped or tangled.

Picture #6: First sheet comes right out without anything tangled around it.

Picture #7: Second sheet also comes right out as well.

Picture #8: All four pillowcases are free and untangled.

One thing to note is that with the earlier 2-Ring agitator washers I usually get similar results and little to no tangling, but the Three Ring agitator is more consistent in not tangling sheets if loaded this way.

edit: Oh I forgot to mention that I selected 7:40 of wash time.[this post was last edited: 1/24/2017-15:11]

unimatic1140-2017012411091600841_1.jpg

unimatic1140-2017012411091600841_2.jpg

unimatic1140-2017012411091600841_3.jpg

unimatic1140-2017012411091600841_4.jpg

unimatic1140-2017012411091600841_5.jpg

unimatic1140-2017012411091600841_6.jpg

unimatic1140-2017012411091600841_7.jpg

unimatic1140-2017012411091600841_8.jpg
 
Looks good, but getting the average housewife back then to load it differently than she did her wringer washer or whatever she was using was the real problem. Some things like diapers for instance, I have seen loaded properly and still come out tied in knots. It never really bothered me that much, but I can see where it would a housewife with lots of other stuff to tend to. Kelvinator was kind of bad about tangling too. Sometimes I would find everything crammed into the sleeve of a shirt.
 
Thanks, Robert!

I will have to test your method in a MultiMatic Frigdaire...  LOL   Gotta wait until the weekend, alas... 

 

Thanks for documenting the methodology!
 
Robert-

Cool pictures of a sheet load in the turquoise Frigidaire. Just wondering about the window in some of the pictures. Did this machine get moved?
 
Goodness, Loading your machine, Robert, reminds me of Jeff and I's neighbor in Pensacola who worked on Frigidaire machines his entire life until retirement. He and his wife stopped over one day, just to check in. I was washing in my rollermatic. "He said, do you have another load to wash?" I said, Mr. Andrews, I can always find something to wash. He said "please do, I want to show you how to load this machine properly"................. What a plethora of information he was about Frigidaire.
 
I think the late WO-65-2 (1954) and the 1955 WV-65 were available in Sherwood Green and Yellow as the first years/models for shaded GM washers.  In '56 the Imperial line washers received the two-tone colors (a mix of white and the shaded color), with Pink becoming the third available option.  Charcoal Gray came on the scene in 1957 and these colors remained in place until 1958 when Turquoise replaced Sherwood Green.  1959 brought along Aztec Copper to finish out the decade and Charcoal Gray was dropped after 1960.

 

As for shaded 1958 models, a handful of dryers have popped up in pink but I don't recall any pink WCI-58 washers coming around in the last decade or so. 

 

And - here's a thread with a beautiful '55 set.

 

http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?47306
 

Ben

[this post was last edited: 1/25/2017-12:29]
 

Similar threads

Unimatic1140
Betty Furness Introduces Frigidaire's Very First Automatic Washer with a Full Cycle Video!
2
Replies
33
Views
318
agiflow
A
turquoisedude
The status of the Ogden Laundry
Replies
7
Views
103
jetcone
jetcone
A
Roberts 1947 Frigidaire Unimatic
Replies
0
Views
30
agiflow
A
dj
Looking for a pulsator for a unimatic washer
Replies
1
Views
42
thomasortega
thomasortega
K
Frigidaire Unimatic
Replies
10
Views
118
kennywhy
K

Latest posts

Back
Top