Lightburn H Axis Twin Tub

[brisnat81]

Hi Everyone,

This beauty showed up on Ebay a little while ago and after seeing lots of them sell for big dollars, this one was in my price range and I snaffled it up.

It is pretty much all made of Fibreglass and is huge. It's about 40cm at the skinny end and about 60cm at the wide end. It easily takes up more room than Michaels Motorbike.

This machine is a later variant, it has two motors, both of which run as soon as you connect the power. The spinner has a mechanical clutch, so when you close the lid, it engages and off it goes. The Washtub motor drives the pump via a belt and the handle on the side engages and disengages a rubber cone that drives the wash tub.

I did the sheets and towels in it today with a spin rinse and a deep rinse. It took me about 1.5 hours to do the equivilent of 4 loads (4 hours) in the Miele.

The instructions state to only wash for about 10 minutes, I discovered when you let it run over that, you end up with a very tangled mess. I couldnt imagine trying to wash dress shirts in there.

I hope you enjoy the video

Cheers

Nathan

 

[brisnat81]

The Reccomended Water level

Filled to the reccomended water level.

 

[brisnat81]

Control Lever

The earlier machines had a lever on each side. The left turned the spinner motor on and off, the right engages and disengages the drive for the wash tub.

On this model the spin motor runs continuously and the clutch is engaged and disenaged.

 

[brisnat81]

Finally the spin basket and guard in place.

 

[brisnat81]

Instructions

 

[brisnat81]

Underside

The Spin Motor is on the left, the Wash motor in the middle. The spin chamber drains down the two channels on the top and bottom, into a tank at the back where the pump connects to.

When taking this picture, I realised that it's not the hose leaking, it's the pump, luckily it has had the plastic replacement retrofitted as the early pot metal ones corroded away to nothing, I'll try and seperate it and replace the seal with a few layers of cork and see how it goes. The pump assembley is NLA

 

[brisnat81]

And finally the profile view, so you can see just how big it is. I love the trucklike castors that a fitted

 

[foraloysius]

Yay!!!

What a wonderful machine! What a great find! I remember we saw such a machine quite a while ago, I think somebody posted a link to another one on eBay. Thanks for the video, wonderful wash action.

 

[mieleautomatic]

Great

Woooow, wonderful washer. and great video.

 

[mayfan69]

Wow Nathan!

Hey Nathan!

Wow...it is in great condition isn't it??

And you're right...i had forgotten how big they are!

Cheers
Leon

 

[easyspindry]

Great looking machine.

What fun it would be to play with. I never saw a twin tub like that -- didn't know they existed.

Enjoy. And thanks for sharing.

Jerry Gay

 

[autowasherfreak]

Great Video!

I just love the videos of these old machines. I have never seen or heard of this until now. Congrats on a cool find Nathan.

James

 

[victoriapark]

I remember them

Hi Nathan,

I remember my Mum using these at a caravan park on the Gold Coast back in the 60's. Your spinner looks like it has a safety lid on it - does it stop when you lift the lid? The ones I remember only had a loose fitting lid with a hole in the centre. I guess it was based on the Lightburn Cement Mixer?

cheers,

Greg

 

[simpsomatic]

Hi Nathan,
I am amazed at the finds you present us with. Growing up in Melbourne I am familiar with all the machines so far. I remember the Lightburn being used by the arnmy baseses because they would take a beating by the guys who used them. The Healing Thor Godess was only around for a short while. Its predecessor, the Healing Thor Trimatic is what I was always facinated with. Automatic or semi-automatic. See if you can find one or you may have one already. The action is similiar to the Godess but no center post defining the washplate as an agitator. One of the club members here in the US has one, branded Bendix Thor. There is a video as well. Could you please power up one of the old Simpson Fluid drives and do a video for us. Perhaps you can show how the heat water process happens that incorporates the huge outer tub. Hope you are still searching for your Malleys 12, I wish I knew then what I know now, I can still picture 4 I knew of in existence back when. Keep finding.....

 

[arrrooohhh]

If I die today

I can die happy! I have now seen one of these machines in action.

Thanks for posting this.

Interesting that the clothes dont tumble they just ride around, though there is some great water action going on.

 

[tuthill]

Very Cool

 

[brisnat81]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the kind comments and observations.

The earlier machines had an electrical switch to turn the spin motor on and off, and a metal cap that sat over the top as Greg described. This one has a mechanical clutch and in theory a brake, although these days whilst the clutch operates it ok, the brake no longer has any effect.

I'm not really the Genius Aussie Collector, Leon puts a lot more time, effort and backbone into it and has found a huge number of very rare gems, I'm always appreciative when he provides me with leads on my dream machines (Luckily they are usually different to his)

With the tumbling, you really need to put the lid in place when it starts to move, otherwise you end up with a huge splash of water all over you as you engage the wash drive. On a 10lb load the clothes rotate around the back of the drum pretty well. I tried overloading and adding more water and then things just start to twist up like a really long rope. If they'd had full size paddles, it would've taken a huge load in the wash drum, but as it is, what I see as a 10lb load struggles to fit into the spinner.

The spin rinses seem to work ok, I put the clothes in and spin for a minute and then lift the lid and spray the water in whilst it coasts to a stop. Once it stops I soak the load until there is water pooling in the top of the spinner again. Then another minute spin another soak and things seem pretty well soap free.