More Kirbys

[petek]

Here's my yesterday flea market find

1 Heritage II, beautiful as new condition, 1981, the motor
sounds a bit strange and will need investigating

2 yes 2 Traditiions..one shown needs some buffing but purrs beautifully, the other doesn't work yet!. both came with full tool boxes

1 cheapo Singer upright thrown in, it works, it's noisy and did I say it's cheap, very cheap.

 

[petek]

The Tradition

I like this one..it hums so beautifully, sounds like a real vacuum should.

I don't know if my goldfish are as impressed as I am..Bubbles seems to have gone into hiding.

 

[petek]

Oh the lowly Singer

This is an absolutely awful vacuum cleaner with no redeeming qualities. Out of sheer desperation to make it appealing it does say on the hood "6 amps" as well as "Headlight" and the Singer name. You turn it on by lowering the handle it's that cheap and turn it off by putting said handle back in the full upright position. Needless to say it will not be given a place of honor.

 

[tolivac]

The Kirby "Tradition" is one of my favorite colors-and the Kirby dealer here.She liked it as well.Unfortunately the "Traditions" we run into are in pretty bad shape.I do have the "lunchbox" toolkit that goes with them.The older Singer vacs were supposed to be better than the newer one shown in the pix.Their older machines were quite interesting. On the lookout for the older metal ones.I too have seen newer Singer vacs in the Vac repair shops in their junkpile.The tech uses them as parts machines.

 

[alr2903]

Hi Tolivac

Nice vacs pete, Tolivac didnt singer rebadge a bunch of those for sears at one time?

 

[tolivac]

Yes-I beleive you are right-at one time Singer made these machines for Sears as a "Twin Fan" model-a fan on each end of the motor-Both were "fan-first design-both blew dirt into the bag.Wasn't a very succesful model.The fans broke or clogged frequently.One large fan such as Royal,Hoover,Kirby,etc was better.

 

[petek]

Singer = Sears..

Now that explains the absolutely awful upright my mom was using until I got her a neat little Panasonic shortly after dad passed a few years ago. I was helping her with the cleaning and using this blue piece of Sears junk that was so bad I went out that very day and bought her a neat and simple Panasonic upright. I'll bet it's the same machine as this one I have..if it's still downstairs at her place...because....
Now the unfortunate news of late.. I called her Sunday to see if she still had her 1955 Kenmore Satellite canister which has been sitting in the furnace room for years untouched..and she gave it away only a couple of months ago to Goodwill..arrgghh.

 

[kenmore1978]

KM canister

Naughty boy, see, you should call your poor old Mother more often...

 

[mrcleanjeans]

the Heritage II was out from 1984-1989

 

[westytoploader]

Twin-Fan Singer story

Back in 1996-97 or so, I was spending the day with my aunt and was vacuuming out her "weekend car" (a red Volkswagen Beetle convertible that she later sold to us) when I picked up *something* that basically jammed the motor on her Eureka Bravo upright...by that time she was pretty much hoping it would go...LOL. She also had a Rainbow SE but didn't really like using it on the carpet...only on floors.

Planning this trip anyway, we went to Traders Village (Texans might be familiar with this place...LARGE flea market in Houston that was pretty neat and a decent place to visit 8 years ago; now it's mostly Mexican and gross, which means I haven't (and won't) ventured in there since...) and stopped by a vacuum kiosk (this person also had a good-sized shop in Houston). While I was looking at the Kirby Generation 3's and Hoover Convertibles, she pointed out a commercial Singer upright (same as this one but dark grey) that was serviced. I thought it was pretty neat and she bought it for $14...couldn't wait until we got back.

Plugged it in, lowered the handle to turn it on (learned about this Singer feature beforehand), and it fired right up! Had a neat sound to it, and was it fun! Did a pretty decent job too and raised up the thick pile. She had it for a few years and used it with the Rainbow and a Eureka Victory "World Vac"; not sure whatever happened to it.

--Austin