POD 1-20-16 The First Bubbles From The Ooze That Became D&M

[tomturbomatic]

Good old AVCO (Aviation Corporation) that bought Bendix for their radio technology and sewed up the patents on the Duomatic so nobody else could easily make a decently performing combo gave us these dishwashers from what would become Design & Manufacturing.

 

[gyrafoam]

I rented a house back in the early 70's that had a built in machine from this manufacturer. It was an impeller model, with a revolving top rack. I was impressed by how fast that top rack would rotate.
Typical of machines of that era, lack of filtration left bits of debris. I had to pre wash everything.

 

[turquoisedude]

And they even sold them in Canada, imagine...   I've never seen one of the Moffat-badged versions of a D&M dishwasher, but by golly, I'm still looking.  

 

I have a couple of D&M machines, most notably the 1957 Whirlpool model that was only made 1 year before Whirlpool built a dishwasher of their own design.  

 

[brucelucenta]

Gyrafoam

Did the dishwasher you used have the under rack spray arm for the top circular rack? The models with the lower impeller and the upper spray arm were quite rare. I think those were only made perhaps a year or so before transitioning to the lower spray arm with the random loading.

 

[turquoisedude]

A D&M Roto-Rack of the era shown in the POD did not have the stubby spray at the back of the tub for the upper rack - I think that only came into use in the early 60s.  I have 2 Kenmore Roto-Racks with the spray arm - one's a 1965 for sure and the other (an unusual front-load impeller machine) is perhaps a 1963 or 1964 model.  

 

[brucelucenta]

Yes, that was my question. I was wondering what year/years did the roto rack d & m dishwasher make the impeller bottom rack with the upper rack spray arm under the top rack. I have only seen one like that before and thought it rather novel since most of them had the full lower spray arm instead of the impeller. I have seen several with the round roto rack on top without the upper spray arm and just the impeller at the bottom.

 

[brucelucenta]

patent?

I am curious, anyone know the reason the spray arm was so long in being used? Was it a patent of Kichenaid's?

 

[gyrafoam]

Bruce, I do not recall an upper spray-arm at all. The lower rack was designed so the dishes were loaded in a circle around the impeller as was the case with many different machines then. I thought the angle of the plates and the water coming up between them kind of propelled the upper rack. I could yank the door open mid-cycle and the upper rack was spinning so fast it would sling water across the kitchen. Other than the lack of filtration, it was a pretty good old machine.

 

[tomturbomatic]

American Kitchens' front loading dishwashers had the roto rack from early models, even before they had detergent dispensers (you just poured the detergent on the door) and just had one wash and two rinses. They had it in impeller machines long before they had the stubby stationary spray arm for the upper rack. It was an advanced design for rotating all areas of the upper rack through the water spray. Kenmore was using the roto rack driven by the torrents of water from the impeller before they had the spray under the roto rack and they had the spray under the roto rack in the impeller machines before the change over to the wash arm and bed of nails lower rack design.