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combo52

combo52

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We realized a long heal dream to add two significant Combos to the Museum collection.

Thanks To Ben and Cory in Iowa and the generous help of my neighbor Tom who was also the one who inspired the idea for an appliance museum in the first place, We have added a Maytag 340W and the only known to exist Norge Combo, the Norge is the orignal WD600 model.

Both machines are the electric condenser models and are white, this combination was easily the most popular way these machines were sold.

The Maytag Combo and the Norge on the right.

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OH!  Congratulations John!!  Now if I could only find you a Moffat version of the combo... 

 

Be careful with that Maytag though.  If I remember my 'Green Acres' correctly, that's a 5, so you can't plug in more than a 2 with it, dahlink.. LOL
 
What a wonderful find . . .

. . . and addition to your collection. That must be the only Norge combo anywhere.

I would give anything to see your warehouse/museum.

Thanks for sharing this great news.

Jerry Gay
 
John,
The Norge is such a beautiful Beast! What a great looking machine!
Amazing find!
The Maytag looks to be in such great shape also!
 
The One And Only Norge

This machine has always been a mystery to me as I had never even seen one. It like everyone of the US designed and built combos during the 20 year span that combos were produced [ 1953-1973 ] had some very interesting design features.

Because Bendix beat everyone else in development and getting a combo to market, every other manufacturer had to come up with a way to wash and dry clothing in a combo style without infringing on Bendix's patents. To me this is what makes combos [ and many other mechanical things ] so interesting.

Norge and other makers in designing their combo borrowed design ideas from their separate washer and dryers. The really interesting thing Norge did with this combo was to use a huge Bakelite fan in the back of the drum that runs at full motor speed during the drying phase of the cycle. And even more unusual [ like their separate dryers ] they actually put rollers under the front of the wash basket to help support the basket at the front, these were exposed to water, and as far as I can tell this was the only front loading washer or combo ever built to try such a thing.

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Interesting John!
Where did the air actually escape from the huge fan?
Also, did this machine spin between each fill for rinse?
Brent
 
The big fan sucked air through the drum and blew it against the back wall of the outer tub where cold water flowed down in a sheet for condensing. From there the air moved forward to the front of the outer tub where a heating element cast into a finned aluminum housing heated the air. Even though the Norge water extraction was crippled by the low spin speeds of most combos, the drying system was so powerful that these machines turned in good drying times of under an hour for mixed cotton loads, remarkable for a non-Bendix condensing combo.

In 1960-61, I used to visit the WD600 one or two afternoons a week on the floor at the Rich's store in Belvedere Plaza while mom went to Kroger's; all of those appliances and Superman reruns on the two tiers of TVs on display. It was a great spot.
 
Still trying to pick up my jaw off the floor. The Maytag is rare enough to warrant raves--especially in that condition--but that Norge is certainly the Holy Grail of combos. Thanks for the photos and explanations, John. Freaking amazing!
 
Phil, as far as we know only the Hotpoint combo which seems to have been universally recalled by the manufacturer and the big gas combos marketed by O'Keefe & Merritt, One Minute and Automatic are missing. The big gas combos are the ones that did not spin at all and used a close to 100,000 BTU burner to dry the dripping wet load. If you had a spinner to use with it, it probably would have dried loads fast. It would be interesting to see the venting requirements for a 100,000 BTU appliance, I wonder if 5" double wall flue pipe was needed.
 
That's interesting Tom, 

 

Do you know why the Hotpoint was recalled? Were they just refunded or replaced by GE combos?

 

 
 
That tub

is amazing, it looks like CCW rotation? ! I love her big holes in the walls and I think I can see the blades of that fan! its huge!

John was telling me about the finned aluminum heater, I couldn't quite picture it till you explained it Tom.

 

That must be some windstorm in there on dry !! It looks like a solid built machine I wonder why we don't see more of them ?

The solenoid on the motor, does that shift a clutch between the wash and spin pulleys?

 

Here it is in a 1960 Kentucky Newspaper ad:

 

 

 

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...uYrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OmcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5760,2875615
 
The Norge technical report said that the machine used a combination of deep, spray and spin rinsing. We will have to look at the timer chart to know more.

It is interesting that only the electric Norge combo offered auto dry, the gas model was strictly timed drying, and offered it years before Norge offered it in their regular dryers. The Maytag combo was strictly timed dry, both gas and electric.

Tim noted, before he started taking these nice pictures, that the Maytag combo had the control panel contour of the 06 series years before they were introduced.
 
Here is the evaluation of the Norge combo by CU in the May, 1960 report:

Norge WD-600-1 $479.95. Condenser type. Average washing ability. Relatively fast drying; complete washing-and-drying program was shorter than with most other models tested. Ease of loading and unloading judged relatively inconvenient. Arrangement of controls judged somewhat conducive to setting errors. Drying temperature (normal or low) cannot be set independently; it is determined by the wash cycle selected. No bleach or rinse-conditioner dispensers. Features include panel light and signal light.
_________________

Anyone who has read CU washer reports knows that they did NOT like front loaders. They were judged inconvenient to load and unload. Some of the combos, because of the bigger door opening were judged convenient to load and unload.

I don't know what they mean about the controls. There are three: a two cycle wash timer for normal and delicate fabrics. There is a three position knob for water temperature and a dry timer with timed cycles and two automatic cycles. If you use the automatic cycles, you don't have to set the dry timer from one load to the next except if you wash and dry a delicate load. The wash timer clearly spells out that if you wash a load on the delicate cycle, you will get low temperature drying. Likewise, if you wash a load on the normal cycle, you will get regular heat drying.
 
Dreams can come true!

Wow John and Tom, I'm so happy you have added a true dream machine gem into your collections!

I have a feeling this is a real splashy fun machine, looking forward to seeing it sometime.

Unfortunately, I have no service doctrine on this machine what so ever, only parts information. I have some Norge combo sales literature up in Ephemera, but these brochures are not from the same model year as this one.
 
CU liked the Maytag combo better than the Norge, but then CU liked anything Maytag put out with the exception of the HOH dryer and the electronic dry system which was the first of its kind.

Maytag 340W $549.95. Condenser type. A relatively quiet machine with average washing ability. Speed of drying was equal to that of most other models tested. At regular-fabric setting, retained less water in clothes at the end of wash period than did most models tested. Ease of loading and unloading judged about average. Built-in automatic water heater. Separate automatic bleach and rinse-conditioner dispensers judged slightly inconvenient to use. Controls allow longer soapy wash period (14 minutes) than do other models tested. Timed drying only.On wash-and-wear setting, a chime signals end of cycle, informing user to remove clothes immediately and avoid creases with may form if clothes are left in machine too long after machine stops. Features include panel light, and signal light; latter judged of relatively little use--does not indicate whether machine is in wash or dry portion of program.

__________

CU was against the water heaters in combos saying that they were too expensive to operate, but the models with the best washing performance (the LK and the WP) had heaters that held the timer until the proper water temperature was reached. What CU did not realize was that front loaders in general and combos in particular use so little water in proportion to the amount of steel that has to be heated that an on-board water heater does yield better washing results. I always washed white as the second load after the first had heated up the whole machine during the dry cycle. The hot fill stayed hot.
 
Combo Pictures

I forgot to thank Tim Schell [ macboy ] for taking the pictures, he has been here visiting from Kentucky all week, and an even bigger thanks for getting all our computers running better, YAY.

We had lots of fun, I always enjoy his visits.

The Norge Combo.

Jon, the solenoid above the motor causes the fan to run for the drying cycle, the other drive pulley is always engaged whenever the motor is running. It does appear that the tub turns CCW, so unfortunately Chuck D [ laundromat ] will not likely approve.

As Tom mentioned we now have at least one of each of the most produced combos.
Between Tom, my brother Jeff, Jason and myself there are more than 27 combos nearby.

This includes 11 or 12, 29" KMs both gas and electric, 3 36" Duomatics one gas, 3 GE combos two under-counter and one freestanding, 1 33" LKM electric machine 50 Amp
, and two WP Gas 33" combos 37,000 BTUs. There are also 2 27" duomatics and the new to us MT combo.

The rarest ones are the two Westinghouse combos, an Easy, a Speed Queen and of coerce the Norge, this last group are the only ones known to exist.

My goal is to get at least one of each design in running condition for demonstration purposes, I would like to a video of them running their cycles for all to enjoy.
 
very cool!!!

CONGRATULATIONS on getting those combos!!!
wow, maytag and norge??
although i am a maytag fan, i really like the look of the norge combo. it would be hard for me to pick my favorite out of these 2!!!
hm hm hm....

thank you for sharing and the great pictures.
i would love to see pictures of the buttons and timer control knobs for both combos, if possible?

very happy for you!!!

:o)
 

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