Nice Whirlpool BD

[bajaespuma]

Gordon, thanks for the information and, just so's you&#3

I've softened my attitude on that agitator a little; I realized that it deserved a little respect because it is the grandchild of the agitator pictured below.

 

I actually own two of them now, as standard sized one and a large capacity Penta-Vane version. I wouldn't mind owning a Vari-Flex in that color, which I've named "Sears Mango"for improved self-marketability.

 

Actually I'm becoming curiouser and curiouser about how the plastics managers at our favorite vintage appliance factories colored the resins for the black, blue, turquoise and other agitators. I used to be a potter so I know about oxides but I have no idea how polypropylene and phenolic moldings would have been dyed. I keep thinking about the movie, "The Graduate" (I have one word for you son, "plastics"). Had I been as in touch with my Vintage Appliance interests when I was back in college as I am now, I might have studied harder with the goal of becoming a plastics engineer.  Just in time for our current era when all the agitators are nothing but white.  I met one recently at a party and I'm afraid. I bent his ear back with zillions of questions.

 

[kenmoreguy64]

Ken -

I am Materials Manager at a plastics company (we make various material handling containers in a variety of colors), so I can explain this to you in detail.

Virgin plastic resin, at least in polypropylene and polyethylene, is typically a foggy, milky color. Colorants are used to die the material to whatever shade it needs to be. These are typically potent colorants where a little goes a long way. We use 33 to 1 color here, which is nowhere near as potent as some, meaning that if we have a 33 pound product, one pound of it is color. This is very similar to how food coloring works for example, and in fact plastics colorants are available in liquid and granular/dry formulations.

I could match that Kenmore gold, the Maytag blue, or any other color with my color supplier. They all have labs and color matchers (usually well paid, scientific technicians who blend market pigments to match a color) who review a sample, and make an offering. Color matching is an art, and a good matcher is usually very well paid.

The fun part about coloring plastics is when a color change is made. If for example Whirlpool was running gold straight vanes, and they needed to change the mold in their injection molding machine to a Roto-Swirl, they would swap the mold, and leave the resin and the color in the machine and it would start making gold Rotos. BUT, in the mid 70s, Sears changed to White Roto-Swirls, so the color would have to get changed to white. But, not before a certain amount of material would have to be run through the machine to purge the system and bleed off the built-up gold color. While this is happening, swirled and mixed products would be made which have blend white and gold together like a tie-die. Eventually the color would go to all white, but not before a number of swirly Roto-Swirls would have been made, which undoubtedly would have gone directly to the grinder.

Speaking of the grinder, these scrap parts can be re-ground and used again along with the resin and color. Often, other items such as processing agents and anti-oxidants (things to stabilize heat processing, mold removal, stability against laundry aids, etc) are added along with. When all of Sears' agitators were gold, there probably wasn't much problem with scrap contamination, same for when they were almost all white, but in recent years, WP has made white, kitchenaid blue, black for commercial Maytags, etc. and these colors cannot be combined without contaminating the color stream. When things do get contaminated, and trust me, they do, the scrap can be turned into something darker, and it all gets masked. We usually do dark gray or black. I am sure that WP puts a lot of scrap/regrind in their black agitators as well.

Plastics can be used and re-used this way, until so many "heat histories" of the plastics being melted and re-molded, that it becomes too weak in properties.

In a nutshell, if WP were to approach a plastics molder to run a gold agitator, or a Maytag blue one, the molder would ask for a color chip or a master, their color supplier would match it, and WP would approve or reject the sample. It is a fairly simple process with an infinite rainbow of color options.

Before anyone asks, if an old agitator mold was found and made runable, yes, your favorite GE ramp agitator or a Maybe powerfin could be molded in bright red, navy blue, or a color to match your machine.

Gordon[this post was last edited: 1/31/2013-16:11]

 

[toggleswitch]

24 inch wide full-sized washing machines (both Kenmore and Whirlpool) were VERY popular in New York City apartments.

The standards at one time were:

24" (2 foot) wide refrigerator
48" (4 foot) wide mandatory DOUBLE sink (with one deep wash-tub and a shallower dish sink)
36" (3 foot) stove/range/cooker

(Luckily today the same 9 feet is now used as/for 2.5 foot (30 inch) refrigerator, 2.5 foot stove 2-foot (24 inch, 60cm) dishwasher and 2-foot sink).

Ice-boxes frequently preceded electric refrigerators in New York City and as such the refrigerators were placed next to the sink more times than not. (To empty the water from the melted ice).

Therefore 24" wide washing machines were placed in the spot designed for the refrigerator, and (wider and taller) refrigerators were relegated to another spot in the kitchen.

AFAIK only Whirlpool made 24" wide full-sized machines for a very long time.

A regular G.E. and Maytag washer is slightly wider than 24 " (60cm) IIRC. G.E. made a 24" washer for a very short period of time.

The picture is a typical NYC "ghetto" clothes dryer (as found in some neighborhoods in the boroughs. (This happens to be Ridgewood, Queens); a metal pole with pulleys and clothes liens for multiple apartments.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

I know it does not matter  much with the topic but thought nice to see,  this is what is considered normal ( and not a sign of poverty or ghetto)  in Italy until recent days when gas dryers finally entered, it is so common to find pulleys all the way in city streets.

That is because here electric dryers never catched up due to the famous  Electricity cost in Ital which is crazyy, so even  rich families also  hanged laundry to dry until recent years....
That's a view of Naples:

[this post was last edited: 2/1/2013-07:11]

 

[kenmoreguy89]

A typical Genoa clothesline alley:

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Typical Venice clothesline.....

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Venice 2:
It is common for foreign people to asscoiate clotheslines views to poverty and slums but actually  in all Italy hanging laundry  it is  and was considered normal routine.
Just think a small  apartment in Venice costs as much as Villa elsewhere.
So not poor people at all.

 

[alr2903]

Post #15, Gordon the str8 vane always reminded me  of the Vintage SQ agitator. For a no drama Kenmore machine it could kick up a foam. I am sure it did not have the 180 arc of the sq. arthur

 

[bajaespuma]

A Big Thank You, Gordon!!

Wonderful information. When are you having a wash-in? I have a million questions for you, lucky man.

 

Next question: What are the colorants made out of? Are they metallic oxides or are they chemical dyes? And is it reasonable to assume that most of these companies are producing white agitators because the colors are significantly expensive?

 

Vintage parts in whatever Pantone shade I want; joy.

 

[tomturbomatic]

John found and someone now has a 24" GE FilterFlo washer. The control panel's brushed aluminum had a slightly bluish cast like a GE combo he had. I think the washer was made in Canada.

 

[mtn1584]

They were very popular in BRONX NY apts also.....

Growing up in Aa Bronx NY apt, we had a 24 inch Kenmore washer next to the deep double bowl sink and the "frigidaire" was moved over so the washer could be next to the sink. In my nan's apt, she had a GE V12 which was next to the double sink also, but had free space on the side to accomodate the larger machine. EVERYTHING WAS DRIED ON A CLOTHESLINE!!
Mike

 

[akronman]

cheap trick

look at the two dispensers above, turquoise and white, exact same casting BUT one is softener, the other says LIQUID DETERGENT ONLY, USE ONLY WITH PRE_WASH CYCLE. Are consumers so dumb they needed two? Was this just thrown in to increase the price of models with a pre-wash cycle? I'm laughing here, and getting way off-topic