I must really be old and out of the loop.

[brucelucenta]

I guess because I have been around since the late 50's I have taken a lot for granted. When I was a teenager in the 70's I started working on older model washers and dryers. I happened upon a place where they delivered new machines for a local company here. Otasco was the company and many of the old machines found their way to a big open field there on the premises. That field of machines had an abundance of Philco's, ABC o matics, Kelvinator, Frigidaire, GE and many main stream machines too, like Maytag and Kenmore/Whirlpool. I learned how to work on all of these by purchasing a machine at a time for $5 a piece. There was even an old Apex, exactly like the one Robert now has. For some reason I never got around to picking it up, there were so many others to choose from. So many different machines and matching sets went through my hands that it amazes me now. I was fixing them up and selling them for $50 a piece. Not bad for back then. I just never realized that one day there would be no more of them and they would be scarce and in demand. Back then there was no metal recycle places like there are now. I guess that's where most of them disappeared to because there are a lot of "scrappers" who will actually steal machines just to get what little they can from the scrap metal places. Anyway, there used to be some very interesting and novel machines around in the 50's and 60's. One that I have personally never seen was a very unusual machine that Hotpoint made one year, right before they went to using the GE style mechanism with the perforated tub. This one particular year they made a hotpoint washer that had a mini basket, like the GE, but with this machine you could wash two separate loads at the same time, according to consumer reports. It allowed you to wash a white load and a dark one at the same time. Pretty cool I would say, but I have never seen one to this day. I have only read about that machine in the consumer reports on automatic washers from August, 1969. Would be quite a find to actually come up with one. It says that the TOL model that year was the only one that had that feature. LW3X1 is the model of machine. It wasn't too much longer after that Hotpoint had the same mechanism as GE. As far as machines with a "different" style of washing Frigidaire was the last of them until White Westinghouse bought them and changed them all to their own mechanisms. I did happen to see something I found quite interesting on youtube a while back. It was an Australian machine that agitated like the old Kelvinator and had an agitator like the Kelvinator, but had a perforated tub. Interesting...

 

[tomturbomatic]

There is a thread here about that Hotpoint. I think Ken posted it after I scanned the article from an issue of Appliance Manufacturer published the year it was introduced. It will answer questions you might have about how the water was kept separate, something that could only be done with a solid tub machine. The fact that it was only offered for one year shows that it was the answer to the unuttered request, but it was a marvel of engineering and plastic parts.

 

[bajaespuma]

If you're really interested in those...

...there are cut-sheets and fold-out brochures of the Hotpoint "Duo-Load" in the Ephemera library.

And as Tom said, I posted an extract from some Appliance Journal many years ago describing the mechanics of the Duo-Load in great detail. I forget where it is but you can use the Searchalator to find it. It was, in my opinion, the ultimate in Rube Goldberg appliance engineering, but, alas, it was short-lived. CU condemned the machine for overall poor performance and I think it was a machine designed to impress the geek husbands; most wives that I know hand-washed their delicates in the bathroom sink instead of going to all the trouble of setting-up the Duo-Load with its large bulky mini-tub and the complicated tub lid that had to be fitted carefully on top. I would be in vintage heaven if I ever found one. It is truly a holy grail.

I only ever saw one of these and it was in the Gimbel's Herald Square appliance department on the 8th floor, surrounded by crusty old salesguys who were soon to be on the unemployment line so they weren't very tolerant of strange little 11 year-olds wandering through their sales-floor opening washing machine lids.

 

[brucelucenta]

Wow, if you actually have seen one even back in the day it is more than I have seen. I have only read about it in an old consumer's reports. Quite a machine I'd say.

 

[danemodsandy]

No Wonder It Didn't Sell!

The late '60s/early '70s were a rough era for those who value beauty in fashion, but that model's top is especially bad - a top-seeded candidate for Ugliest Panel Print Ever. And she's wearing orange shoes, which is always Just. So. Wrong.

I could see how women looking at this ad would shudder and turn the page.

 

[bajaespuma]

We all lived on a Yellow Submarine

My Mother was a fashion illustrator who worked for Simplicity sewing patterns. I remember designs like this coming through around that time. If you look at her clothes and shoes from another perspective the outfit looks like that Frigidaire Rollermatic ad that we've all seen on this site.

Mom was appalled at this stuff but explained that a lot of these colors and styles were the misinterpretations of fashion icons of the time(Peter Maxx, Pucci)that trickled-down(badly) from the runways to the corporate market who thought they knew what Middle-American women wanted to wear. The model in the Hotpoint ad was very similar in size and shape to the women Mom paid to model in her studio. That was the style of print woman of that time--tall, thin and a little androgynous.

 

[washman]

I have tons of old back issues of CR

that I have accumulated over the years. It is interesting to see CR reviews on washing machines over the years. My collection spans from the 50's to 2004 or so. One thing that I can say that was consistent was Maytag being very reliable.

 

[tomturbomatic]

A Maytag would not do anything to hurt itself. If the load was too large to turn over, those 4 paddles on the Gyrator just rubbed the load back and forth against the tub. If you ever find an old Maytag with a white tub that had blue showing through on the tub opposite the fins, that is the reason. The white coat of porcelain was rubbed away and the blue coat was showing through. The belt would slip when presented with too much resistance and that protected the machine also.

The most jarring CU report on washers was the report in the early 70s when ON THE COVER they showed a small tub Maytag with three baskets of laundry stacked to the side of it and a large capacity Whirlpool with just two baskets of laundry stacked beside it to show what a difference in capacity could mean. That was the LAST time CU tested a small tub Maytag. The first time the AMP was tested, CU determined that its capacity was around 5 lbs of dry laundry. That was never repeated.

The most blatant slant to a test I ever remember reading was in the early 60s when the capacity wars were getting going. There was was a test to determine how much a washer would hold. They said that the standard capacity WP/KM was overloaded with a 12 lb. load while the standard tub Maytag was not. That might have been the day when Helen Keller was doing the observing. Sorry, yes, I know that was cruel, inappropriate, rude, crude and socially unacceptable, but it is the only way that finding could be explained.

 

[washman]

Its ok Tomturbomatic

Just so long as you don't slam algore.

Anyway, when I get time I am going to go through all my old CR copies and scan the articles on laundry machine reviews and post them someplace to share with others.

What is neat is to see reviews on brands no longer made today as well as what CR "thought" of older brands still made today. Also, their articles were much more in depth and detailed than what counts as a review today.

 

[yogitunes]

Tom is right though.....Maytag machines were 'Dependable'....reliability of the machine was more important than the machine actually washing clothes effectively...

the belt/springs, not only used as a clutching mechanism, was also designed to give into a load, it sacrificed cleaning for the relief of the mechanisms....

why do you think they had that lid switch turn off the machine when the lid was raised, so you would not truely see what was going on inside.....consumers presumed it was the same gyro action as the wringers, but not so!...

 

[arbilab]

My avocado (clue to the year) Tag worked fine as long as I didn't throw my entire wardrobe in it at the same time. Lid switch? Bypassed. I ALWAYS knew exactly what it was doing.

Bought it used in 1988, ran it for 10 years until I bought the Electrofrigiwhite frontloader I still have. Gave it to a co-worker who got another year out of it before the motor quit.

The only goosey thing it did was below 50F in the garage, the belt slipped such that high and low speed were the same until the trans oil warmed up. I accomodated that. After all, it was older in washer years than I was in people years. Gotta respect yer elders.

 

[NYCWriter]

Um ...

... the lady in the ad looks like MY mom.

Right down to the orange shoes.

Got a problem with that???

 

[brucelucenta]

With consumer's reports Maytag pretty much was always on top after they revised their mechanism in the mid 50s and made machines with reversing motors and a little larger capacity. I do think the regular capacity machines back then held just a little more than Kenmore/Whirlpool, but the washing action was not quite as vigorous. They sure did last a long long time though. Wasn't uncommon for a Maytag to last 20 years. If you overloaded one, the soap on the top of the clothes would still be there when it finished. The top clothes got no action at all and the bottom ones got no soap. So you had to be careful not to overload them if you wanted clean clothes. Not so much with Kenmore/Whirlpool and others. One machine that was quite different is the Frigidaire 1-18. Those actually washed better with a larger load, up to a point. Even those you could overload, but most people would never overload a machine as much as you would to overload one of those. Some of the toughest machines that could take the most abuse seemed to be Maytags of course and the older style Frigidaire rollermatic machines. I have seen those run for many years without ever servicing them. I guess because they had no belts, which seemed to be a weak point in many machines.

 

[bajaespuma]

I love Maytags and I've loved the Maytags I've actually owned and used but I have to admit that I was shocked,<span style="text-decoration: underline;"> shocked </span>I say, when I first owned a Maytag and realized how ineffective the final rinse was. It was only about 2 minutes long and the agitator started up so slowly that by the time the rinse was over, the load hadn't turned over completely. I always wondered how CU missed that.

When I was a kid, I actually weighed out a 12 lb. load of laundry, stuffed it into our V-12 Filter-Flo and watched it work. It took a little time but that Activator grabbed hold and turned that load over.

 

[alr2903]

Someday a Duo-Load will surface. If the upper tub and that complex lid are present it would be a miracle.

 

[retromania]

Ken

I was one of those strange little boys that went through an appliance department looking at washing machines. I loved to go to the basement of our Belk store where housewares was. I would look at steam irons and vacuum cleaners. Occasionally one of the old sales ladies would ask me if I needed assistance, but most of the time they would ask me where my mother was as if to say go stay at your mother's side while she shops. Lolllll!

 

[laundromat]

One Saturday back around the mid seventis, our church had a bus trip to an orphanage named Hoffman Homes. It was in Pennsylvania. Harrisburg or near by. On campus,there was a laundry that had this model with its mate.

 

[arbilab]

Parents used to park me in the appliance department and knew I'd still be there when they were done. Back in those days they had those transparent washers full of poker chips. It's been said (can't verify) that Robert Kinoshita who designed Robby for Forbidden Planet and B-9 for Lost in Space at one time designed transparent demo washers.

 

[firedome]

Chuck...

Hoffman Homes was right off US Rt 30 just W of Abbottstown PA, about 5 mi N of Hanover PA. Lived about a mile away in the early '90s, and the population was shrinking, it was more of a mostly special ed day facility, not sure if it's still active but the buildings are there. Son had his scout meetings there sometimes.