Wagner portable clothes dryer?

Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

Help Support :

Dainty Dryer

Sunbeam amoung other brands sold them IIRC from about the 1950's or so until the 1970's (or so).

Some doubled as hair dryers but the main purpose was for drying hand washables such as ladies intimate apparel, hosiery, perhaps baby's things etc.
 
They worked fairly well........

considering that they were about 1,500 watts- element and motor.

A cousin of mine had one, and I was interested in it, but it's nothing I would be interested in now.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
They're using to sell this kind of portable tiny dryers now in Italy I see them in many chinese bazaar and as expected everyone who looks at them laughs, they can dry a load of max 2 kg if I remeber well, as someone here say to do not seeing the utility I will totally join his idea, it may find use in an emergency situation maybe on camping or travelling in camper if you finished your clean T-shirts and need one very very quickly, but how worth could be to waste precious space wich is never enough in a camper just for this thing? I guess that you can dry just 1 pair of jeans , if I were in an hotel or on travel I'd rather carry a portable washer as not every place haves a bathtub, and then even if were I'd hang clothes on a chair or closet rack....I'd not ever bring and carry that thing just to dry those 2 little things can fit, nor if i were at college or another similar situation (and BTW almost every college have a laundromat inside) it's too small to be taken seroiusly.....just for those little thing you could rather hang everywhere.... how worth could be having to carry this thing and use space for it? Just my thoughts....here are also pretty expensive!

http://www.capperus.it/pages/dettaglio.php?codprod2=Rxdijry8vMS45PQcjYu7&stringaric=
 
SUNBEAM PORTABLE DRYER

I have the same one with the Sunbeam name on it. It is really TINY I am guessing maybe 1/4 pound capacity at best, you couldn't even put a pair of shorts in it let alone a pair of jeans. For the small amount of clothes that it will dry it would use a lot of electricity when you consider that you could run a full sized gas dryer for about the same cost as running this dryer and actually dry 15 pounds of laundry.
 
Well, you probably wouldn't want to put sheer things like nylons in a full size dryer and those fabrics do not hold a whole lot of water. You can't really wring sheer things so they have to be rolled in a towel before hanging or drying in this little thing and that removes a lot of water also so this probably would not take a lot of time or current to dry a pair of Mojuds, a brand of hoisery that I think I remember Bob Bailey awarding to all contestants on Queen For A Day.
 
Sheer things and kitchen towels

Sheer things:
I do put sheer things in full size dryers, why not then?
Such pantyhose etc, my granma too....we wash and dry them when I do permanent press wash.
Kitchen cloths:
That's unusual.......
I think it is obviously more convenient for me to hang them on a chair or oven handle or their hook to the wall when I finished to use them and are wet,the next morning are dry, and of course when they're dirt I put them with the rest of laundry, so weird? ...why wash and dry them separately then?
 
@Kenmoreguy

Post WWII with the United States in full prosperity boom and manufacturers turning out home gadgets by the ton, things people didn't know they needed *yet* but advertisers would soon find a way to fix that small problem.

For generations nice girls and women of great virtue (along with every other female in between, *LOL*) were taught to launder their intimate apparel by hand and allow them to drip dry. This went on even after automatic washing machines became pretty much common in all homes.

The result of all this hand washing was that in almost every bathroom with females in the household one could find various undergarmets dripping dry nightly. If you watch any American movie or televison show right through the 1970's you'll see this.

Even though washing machines had become common dryers weren't something all homes had nor wanted. So what was a girl to do? Why pick up a handy-dandy Sunbeam or what ever "portable" dryer. Volia, problem solved.
 
Solar Clothes Dryer

This reminded me of my friend's mother. She lived in Palm Springs California. The wind is always blowing, one direction or another. She would wash all of her clothes first, then put them in a cart and wheeled them out the back door. Her house was built in the mid 1950s, but she did not have a dryer. She had a huge clothes line that covered the rear yard. She would start at one corner hanging up clothes. When she had hung up all of the clothes, she would return to the starting point and remove them. Due to the high temperature, low humidity, and wind, the clothes were dry in about 20 minutes. They were not stiff either, the wind whipped them around so much that they were soft, like they had been tumble dried. It appeared that her neighbors did the same thing.
 
@Laundress

Yes I know it, and just for the record is the same what used to happened in Europe and Italy as well during 60s and 70s post WWII, nothing so strange.....
But fortunately the God or whoever gave me a brain, I usually think on the things before acting, I think on the things that I need and I do not need, If I find a thing is unuseful for me, is unuseful and stop no advertisement can make me change idea! So I'm still thinking that buying owning and running this kind of thing just for those few little garments that a lady or anyone else would easily dry hanged over a line in the bathtub or on a rack in the laundry room, is pretty strange and unuseful! I'm still not seeing the utility to own and run things like that, so your explanation didn't solved the "problem", that problem is not anyway, I was just commenting random expressing my opinion about this thing, I've already understand that it was one of those unuseful things for wich advertisers etc hipnotyze simpletons people etc, today is not changed that much anyway, just look at any home improvement magazine and you'll see with your eyes....... I bet they probably were selling this dryer even on teleshopping also etc.....
The scary things is that if they sell things like this is because someone really buy them!
 
Let Me Be More Clear

While an all female establishment may not have minded ladies undergarments and hoisery dripping all over the place, many husbands and other male members of a mixed household weren't thrilled with having to walk through a jungle of stockings, bras and whatever to take a shower, bath or otherwise use the WC.

The other thing to stress is the vast post war wealth in the United States that people purchased things that may not have made sense elsewhere but because it fit a need and or want, and they had the funds....

Americans then and still are often a rather impatient lot. For a woman to leave her danties drip drying it requires thought to wash them out the night before. If one has a date or something and is out of undies or stockings such a dryer allowed you handwash a few things and have them dried quickly.

Again you also must consider the heyday (if there was one) for such small dryers. Often these things were sold to college "co-eds" young "career girls" or some such. In many of those cases these girls were living in small apartments, dorm rooms, etc many without full laundry rooms. Even when there were laundry rooms it may have only been a washer. Automatic dryers weren't standard in all American homes then, especially in the parts of the country where it's warm most of the year. Even when there was a clothes line out doors for drying laundry *NICE* girls didn't hang their drawers out for all the world to see.

As a young man of today you probably don't see the value of such things. But obviously many did because lots of the units were sold.
 
If anyone needs proof or a demonstration of the hanging of lingerie to dry, watch the movie Since You Went Away, released in 1944; great story, great actors and actresses, fabulous lighting effects & even a Sunbeam Coffeemaster.

I remember when we got the GE with the first, small mini basket, mom allowed me to try washing her nylons in it because the owner's manual mentioned it could be done. They were not harmed, although it was probably a terrible waste of water. Then I set the Norge dryer for Stop 'n Dry, put the rack in at the top and dried the nylons in a few minutes with no runs in the stockings from the process.
 
Yes okay I understand what you mean, sorry but still thinking of it like a prank, a "toy", a wastage! As I think it was not worth it in almost all the cases in wich it would have found it's use. Camon just for underpants.....LOL
I could even understand if you would have fit into at least a pair of jeans or 2- 3 t-shirts, but camon it's "drum" size..... it looks like a Barbie toy!

Tom, I do have a filter-flo with mini basket but I never use it as I wash everything normally with the rest of the load even sister's nylons and stuff like and dry them in my regular dryer.
I also wash and dry crocheted doilies in regular machines too.....

I think once you have this kind of things you must find it's use necessarily in a way or another even if you could do without.....
 
SUNBEAM PORTABLE DRYER

I took a closer look at my SBPD while at the warehouse yesterday and it actually lists the capacity as TWO POUNDS talk about the exaggeration of the year. It also lists as suggested loads one mans dress shirt as weighting 1 pound [ I have never seen a mans dress shirt that weights one pound ]. I can only imagine what the shirt would look like after being dried in a dryer drum that is about 10" in diameter and 5" deep. The maximum wattage is 660 so it would not be very fast to dry any heavy fabrics.
 
Federico, you must be too young to remember when nylon hosiery was a substantial investment, when nylons were packaged in very nice flat boxes, enfolded in three layers of very smooth paper and sold from counters in department stores instead of from rotating racks in drug and grocery stores. Women of my mother's generation remembered when nylons replaced silk, remembered the scarcity during the war and knew how expensive they were to a mother on a middle class income and budget. Today's hosiery might survive washing with the rest of the laundry, but it would have been a death sentence to the stockings from 50 years ago. Many women wore their Playtex gloves and all removed any rings to prevent snagging the things when washing them. I remember how delicately they were handled at all times. Today's must be somehow different. I am not defending the little dryer. When I saw the first one, I thought it was a frivolous toy, but realized that some women would maybe find it useful for the reasons stated here. It is an artifact of a different time as were, apparently, the nylons it was meant to dry.
 
660 watt sbpd

If the wattage were any higher, the dryer would literally suffer a meltdown. Anything it was possible to make out of plastic in that thing was made out of plastic. I guess it would be faster to let the thing tumble on the air setting and hold a blow dryer to the opening, much as the Bendix engineers are pictured doing when investigating whether laundry could be dried in a washer.
 
Tom, yes I know how they can easily be teared by pointed or sharp things, in fact I do not wash them with items with zip such jeans or sweaters etc, I do wash them with syntethic t-shirts and gym stuff....they weren't so delicate only in the past, today is the same thing.....even if not more used like used to be.....
Anyway:
Asked to my granma, she said that when travelling during the 60s (she is 84 years old) and (she travelled alot) she used to bring at least 8-10 pairs of stockings and changes and when washing them she hanged them in bathtub or the shower to drip and or dry and in the closet during the day if still wet but not dripping, she said she would have never bought and brought up and down and straight and forth a thing like that just to dry her stuff that would have easily be dried in a night in the shower, and then said that granpa always complained by her tons of luggages she cannot imagine if she also had to carry that thing just for the stockings, I'm figuring now in my mind a 60s 70s girl or women on travel or at college in a small apartment or an hotel room and I cannot help but think she also could have solved problem easily this way without extra luggage, even more so if the apartment was so small, why to waste precious space?
I personally think that also just for convenience of not having to hang those few items would not be worth it because of transportation, space etc... and then you would have had to drip them somewhere anyway before putting stuff in that thing unless you didn't want to get a short-circuit, is not a regular dryer! I guess and almost sure you cannot put dripping items inside that thing!
So why do not leave those few thin and light things to dry hanged for a couple of hours or at night?
On travelling would have been an an extra weight and space, in a small apartment as well, at home maybe not but it would have been a thing to take, place, plug, use, store away etc....same time and efforts that hanging those few things would have required....
So since we're talking about stockings and underpoants (and anyway no other things would have fit into)I did the example of stockings.....
Again for it's capacity I cannot take this thing seriously, if it was a little more large I mean at least a jeans and 2 t-shirts at same time I could also have understand, but so, sorry not![this post was last edited: 1/2/2012-17:54]
 
Your're Not A Female So Guess Cannot Make You Understand

So unless there is something you haven't told us about yourself, the idea of washing out nylons and or undies in the bathroom sink and hanging the lot up to dry will remain alien to you.

One: The dryer in question is about one foot long by slightly a bit more high. I've owned and or seen hair dryers (the kind one sits under, not blow dryers) that were larger. Indeed many females of the 1950's through 1960's owned "bonnet" hair dryers that were larger than this thing and they went with them on trips, dorm rooms, etc. You simply put the thing into a closet, under a bed or some such place out of the way.

Two: Hanging items to "drip dry" can often leave puddles on the floor even if using the shower stall. Most shower rods are slightly outside the tub so water from the laundry does not always drip down into the tub.

Three: As one has stated up and down this thread hanging wet laundry around one's bathroom is fine if one is the only person using it. In home shared with other persons including males many did not welcome going into a damp and wet bathroom with puddles of water all over the place. Hanging hand laundry over the bathtub/shower also means that no one can bathe until the stuff comes down. Well they could but that means either not closing the curtain or perhaps moving your just washed things aside. To some that translated into chucking the lot onto a sink or some other surface. If it fell onto the floor tough cheese on you.

The way around this of course was to stay up late after the household had finished using the bathroom and go last including taking your bath/shower before doing the hand wash.

Three: No, dripping items were not likely placed into the dryer. Rather rolled in a towel first to remove as much of the water as possible.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...k0aAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4ycEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4728,1268730
 
@Laundress
Just say I do not need to be a female to understand, what the hell of speech is that? I'ver already washed by hand nylons of granma when at hospital and at bed and also underpants mine and not. BTW you don't have to be a genius to understand how it could be also...... and I also got a speak to my Granma to ask about how were things in the past that confirmed my idea is not so wrong....also all the things you said should have found their answer in what I wrote in the last post.......
There would be too many things that makes no sense in what you say to wich give a reply,I will make just a few examples: rolling stockings in a towel....don't you can do this anyway?
Dripping in bathtub and water on floor: just be careful and carry stuff using a basin, if not using a basin it would have happened anyway with that dryer or not, BTW you also said you could wrap them in a towel to avoid this, so the matter does not change ....
I read the article and say:"eliminates bathroom clutter"...... wow what a clutter would be 2 stockings to dry! ahahah.....I cannot help but think that these few pair of things would have easily found it's place to be dried in a bathtub without that clutter mentioned and if there were other household to use the bathroom in that moment I cannot believe you couldn't find another place, for example behind a curtain near a radiator or an hidden little corner where to place a little rack or dwarf camon we're talking about stockings, undies and nylons wich requires few inches of space,no that much of quantity as is rated 2 pounds of wet stuff would be just a few pairs of nylons maximum 3 pairs but no more would also have fit into to come out nice, and if hanged they would have take a couple of hours in most cases to be dried if well wringed and not drpping, so was not that big deal to justify a dryer on purpose just for them! Ahahah it makes me laugh so much! As I said if it was larger I could have understand but this size I can't!

And nobody said they had to wash them necessarily in the bathroom even kitchens have a sink.....
Also my Granma said she used towels or clothes only in winter time to place over a radiator and put nylons to dry on it....
Bonnets Hair dryers were larger: A bonnet hair dryer is a bonnet hair dryer and not a stockings dryer! And it's way more useful and worth it than that dryer as permanent curls or bonnet fixed hairstyles were more than common during those years for almost every woman or girl and they absolutely needed a bonnet hair dryer.
I think we could go ahead forever with this topic, as looks like you want to be right at any costs and keeping "defending" this with a lot of things you already said and for which I've already responded....I'm just saying what I think when it looks like you took this on personal.
If you think that having to deal at any times and cases with that thing just for stockings is worth it, good for you! I think it is not! And again I don't need to be a female to say this!

[this post was last edited: 1/3/2012-14:25]
 
Well, just to make things clear to everyone and following the really "strange" emails I got and I could get then wich are asking about strange abitudes I could have and talk about their confessions, I tell you that I'M A PROUD MALE and I absolutely DO NOT or like wear Female dresses or such things like stockings etc.....
Never thought I would ever had the need to state this here and of course receive such emails.......
So to be more clear:
I do not need to be a female to understand: As I take care of my family since my mom passed away when I was 14 due to a hearth disease, I remember mom's stockings and underwears as I remember and know the granma's ones I had to wash and at times I do when we're at family's seaside house together and I do the laundry, I know them because I often had to hand wash them when both my mom and also granma were at hospitals and clinics....I also know my sister's ones as I'm the one who does laundry in this house......that's all!
[this post was last edited: 1/10/2012-06:53]
 

Similar threads

W
The washing machine that doesn’t want to quit, aka Frigidaire FWX833AS1
Replies
2
Views
459
ryner1988
ryner1988
lucas0830
Sears Kenmore Advantage Gas Dryer Not Heating Up(Model #110.87870800)
Replies
1
Views
119
combo52
combo52
J
Free 1974 Harvest Gold Mayttag Dryer
Replies
12
Views
228
bpetersxx
bpetersxx
R
GE Heavy Duty dryer repair
Replies
13
Views
159
raerae
R
frigilux
New Dishwasher: GE GPT225SGLWW Portable
Replies
26
Views
506
user 12105
U

Latest posts

Back
Top