Way cool, Geoff. I'd get one of those for a backup machine; plain white, green, or yellow for me.
The purpose of the spin-mat (rubber cover) is to prevent socks etc. escaping at high speed from the spin tub into the outer tub and/or mechanism, which could cause damage to the machine as well as to whatever tried to escape.
You don't want to "press down" too hard on the load in the spinner, because that would interfere with the free passage of the water out of the load.
Petek, I have one of the Danby units, it cleans great, it's fast, quiet, and very cleverly designed. Lighter construction than the classic Hoovermatic and Geoff's Maytag twinnie, and won't handle water over 140 F. Standard North American style agitator; interesting duty cycle (Gentle: one sec clockwise, one sec pause, one sec counterclockwise, one sec pause, repeat for however-many minutes you set on the timer. Normal: same but 1-1/2 seconds counterclockwise, and yes that does make a difference!). The gentle cycle is good for everything, but I use the normal cycle for larger loads of underwear. Uses half the water & electricity per pound of laundry as the large Hotpoint TL that came with this place, though I still use the Hotpoint for big stuff that won't fit in the Danby. Cost me $250 (US) or so plus shipping. I'd say it's well worth it.
BTW, I've been experimenting with an ad-hoc "spin/rinse" procedure and discovered that it doesn't make a huge difference compared to the standard "overflow rinse" procedure. The latter is: wash, spin, refill washtub with clean water, put load back in washtub, turn on agitator and let water flow through at about 1-2 gallons/minute for 6-9 minutes. Doing a few spin/rinses before the overflow rinse doesn't appear to reduce the amount of water or time needed for the latter. This is interesting & counter-intuitive, but in any case the Danby machine isn't designed for spin/rinse, and the overflow rinse works great -no detectable detergent left in the clothes, no scent, they just smell like clean water after the final spin.
On the Maytag the impellers rotate in the same direction, i.e. both clockwise, then both counterclockwise. Imagine if they rotated in opposite directions; when the left one was going counterclockwise and the right one clockwise, the water would tend to shoot up in the middle between them!
It would be very interesting to see a machine of this type with two impellers but have 'em on opposite sides of the washtub, i.e. front side and back side. This I think would also produce a no-tangle action since the water would all be moving at the same speed across the horizontal axis. Though it would reduce capacity slightly, which is probably why it hasn't been done yet.
