POD 9-5-14 Frigidaire WCI-60

[tomturbomatic]

Another date that is a math equation. In the summer of 1960, we were traveling with our father on one of his business trips and this particular day, we were in some small southern town. Daddy had to call on an account so it was decided that Mom, my brother and I would spend the time at the library. Well, we just got ensconced when they announced that the library was closing; Wednesday in a small southern town. Everything closed at noon so people could rest up for prayer meeting that evening. From the library, we walked a couple of doors down the main street to a store with a recessed entry which was important because it was starting to rain, really rain, I might add. Plate glass windows held this washer and dryer on the left side of the door. All was dark because the store was closed along with the whole damn town, but there was light enough to study the machines.

Both machines were found up here with John and I used both in my Greenbelt house until the WCI-58 with the Unimatic mechanism was found and was later joined by the DCI-58. The 1960 pair reside in the Beltsville museum hundreds of miles and decades away from where I first saw them. The dream of owning them came to fruition.

 

[frigilux]

The 1960: Another thoughtfully-designed console.

Only the final run of solid tub machines (1968-70, perhaps?) sported what I'd consider a rather pedestrian console.

 

[tomturbomatic]

You know how Frigidaire washers of this period had timed fill. Usually when the small load setting was used, the timer moved faster so that the fills were shorter. This machine varied the fill time independent of agitation and spin times. If you set it for a small load on the cottons cycle, which was a long cycle as opposed to the synthetics cycles which were short cycles, you could hear the timer shift from the faster speed during fill in the pause between fill and the start of agitation. Likewise, if you were doing a large load on wash and wear or delicates, the timer would shift from slow to fast speed after the fill was complete to give the shorter cycle after a full fill. It made a neat "clunk" each time the timer speed changed. It made for a lot of pauses in the cycle. Instead of just pausing between agitation and spin, it also paused after the first spin to change the timer speed, if needed, and then it paused after both fills for the same reason.