This Westinghouse is the dishwasher a friend had in her kitchen for years. I have a newer WH roll-out model with vinyl coated racks which is someplace in the warehouse and it held plates at a very tipped back position also which is possibly why the 11 inch diameter plates pose no problem. Somehow, I think that this last WH machine with the laid back racking for plates was the roll-out with the heavy die cast control panel, the little red sliding switch for the hot water booster and a cycle that was still one wash, two rinses and dry. The machine had a round screen detergent cup held by a loop of the upper rack. If the hot water booster was selected, the timer would advance into the wash and pause as it heated water while washing. With just the 700 or 750 watt element, no pre-rinse to warm the dishes and an uninsulated tank, it could wash along for 45 minutes or more, while heating the water, almost like a primitive pot scrubber. John mentioned that his machine cleaned almost as well as his bowtie impeller GE and my curiosity was piqued when I saw the impeller in his brand new dishwasher just out of the box, so I went to the February, 1950 announcement of this dishwasher and saw that it had an aluminum impeller and diverter blade to create the wash action. Metal impellers can be honed to a sharper edge than Bakelite and I would be willing to bet that the aluminum impeller is the reason that this is such a great performer. With the GE dishwashers, it is true that the cycling, racking and even the shape of the impeller changed when the models with the bowtie impeller were introduced, but that metal impeller made a big difference in the washing ability of those machines.
The information in the February, 1950 issue of Electrical Merchandising describes the cycle:
"Washes and rinses in 4 cycles, each using 7 qts. hot water; 1st cycle is a purge rinse to clear off waste; 2nd cycle is a 5 min. washing action followed by 2 separate rinses; last cycle is a 22 min. automatic drying cycle.
Prices: 48-in, electric sink model $374.95; 24-in. cabinet $284.95; undercounter model, $254.95; (Waste-Away garbage disposer available as accessory for sink model at $124.95 additional). In the product highlights there is this blurb:
"Westinghouse returns to dishwasher field with a large capacity, front opening and top-loading dishwasher."
At the time of the 1939 World's Fair, Westinghouse was showing their front-loading dishwashers that still looked like the Conover dishwashers from the company WH bought to have a dishwasher. So this was their big new design. The control was very much like the old GE machines. You turned the knob one way to unlock the drawer so that it could roll out and you turned it the other direction to start the cycle.
I also believe that the extremely tipped-back position in which plates were held in the lower rack helped asure great cleaning because in most impeller-style dishwashers, a great deal of the cleaning of the plates is actually accomplished by the constant downward cascade of water returning to the sump after having been thrown to the top of the tank. The sharper the impeller edge, the more water it throws so, going up or falling down, the water movement this dishwasher provided resulted in great washing action.
