Water powered spin dryer

[adam-aussie-vac]

Hey guys, I just recently picked up a water powered spin dryer off Facebook marketplace,The grease for it has dried up and they’re actually no bearings, is there any way how I can try and get it to spin? I thought about replacing the screw that the rotating drum sits on so that might work but I’m not sure

Anyway here’s a picture

 

[gizmo]

Hi Adam

I used to have one of these. A different brand maybe, I don't remember, but more or less the same. It was designed to clamp to the centre divider in a 1950s concrete wash trough. The water jet blasts onto a turbine cast into the base of the spinning drum.

You just lift the drum up off the centre "spike." The centre pole of the spinning drum is a hollow tube, the spike runs up the centre, there are bronze bushes inside the hollow centre tube. Oil inside the tube and all should be well. Use sewing machine oil, not grease or heavy oil. The lighter the oil, the less friction there will be and the faster it will spin. (still not very fast...)

 

the copper pipe - is that for a spray rinse? Mine didn't have that. It looks like you press the button in on the end and it will spray water on the spinning clothes??

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

You must be thinking of the

“RINS-AN-DRY”(1st image) But the way how mine installs is instead of using clamps you can actually wedge it into like the bottom of a concrete laundry tub which is probably a little bit easier in comparison to trying to use clamps, and I noticed that without the grease in the little indentation, it appears that the bottom of the rotating drum seems to scrape at the bottom of the frame that the of the drum sits on, I will probably get a longer screw to suspend the drum up a bit more so it does not scrape the bottom of the base or raise up the original shaft But probably more the second than the first, The tube that runs up and over the drum is for rinsing the clothes as they spin, You rotate the knob which opens the valve and water sprays out the bottom Of the arm into the drum rinsing the clothing. I’ll grab some more pictures of the nu dry as it says on the bottom of the drum

 

[aussie-plugs]

Memories of cracked tubs ...

My mum had the rins-an-dry. It was great fun to watch ... just don't set it going with an unbalanced load! Mum cracked the centre divider of her concrete set once. A year or two later we got our first washing machine - a Bendix

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Nice, also if you’re interested there’s a booklet

On one of those rinse-an-dry’s On eBay if you’re interested What was one of those Bendix like?

 

[aussie-plugs]

It was pretty much like this ...

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Oh that’s cool, I wouldn’t have expected to see

A “soft mount” Bendix, that’s really awesome

 

[bea]

Water-driven Spin Dryers

This water-driven spin dryer belonged to my mother-in-law (dec), who lived in various railway houses in Queensland. She was tired of her concrete tubs vibrating from the use of it, so her father-in-law (dec), a silversmith who had migrated from England, made this heavy steel stand for the dryer. It still works perfectly. I have recently visited Herberton Historic Village which is fabulous, but they don't have one of these.

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

WOW I jealous,

What happens to the water after it spun out/discharged?

 

[turbokinetic]

Very neat! Thanks for sharing. I had never seen a water-powered spin dryer before. I would expect that you would need a significant amount of water pressure and volume to get it to spin up like it needs to. Hopefully you can share a video of it working some day.