Westinghouse Range

[pulltostart]

$150 in Enterprise, AL

 

lawrence

https://dothan.craigslist.org/app/d/enterprise-antique-westinghouse-stove/7078201032.html

 

[tomturbomatic]

Well, we know that there is a scarcity of cleaning products in Dothan. My father, alav ha shalom, used to go there on business and said it was the hottest place in the world. I remember the beautiful Coca Cola Bottling plant behind the Heart of Dothan Motel in the early 60s. It had big plate glass windows in front on both sides of the doors so you could watch the bottling line, from the bottles emerging from the Meyer Dumore soaker (industry terminology for the bottle washer) on the left to the filler-capper on the right. The width of the soaker was measured by the number of bottles it held in one row of holsters. That and how fast you could run them through the soaker and get clean bottles was key to the speed of the bottling line. The operation was a symphony of movement. The bottles moving on the conveyor chain jostled back and forth slightly like penguins walking, but they were moving much faster. There was this fluid motion as the bottles entered the filler-capper and rose up to be filled and came down as they were capped. It was so beautiful--like something out of a 1930s movie about a streamlined world.

My brother had this range. It was in a house he bought and redid.

 

[rp2813]

Looks like they cheapened the materials used for the drawers by 1951.  My mom's '49 had dark porcelain enameled drawers.  But just like my mom's, the original bake element had to be replaced, but the original broiler element survived for the duration.

 

Tom, we had a Coca-Cola bottling plant here and as kids we'd ride our bikes over to watch the same scene that you described, always hoping somebody inside would offers us a bottle.

 

[combo52]

Early Westinghouse Ranges

Often had aluminum drawers, they also used painted steel drawers that could rust, I doubt they ever used porcelain on steel for storage drawers.

 

John L.

 

[circlew]

My '53 Westinghouse 30" has a painted steel drawer. It has a few scratches on it, but not much rust. It probably would be chipped if it were porcelain. I plan to strip & refinish mine sometime.

Mine has the same knobs as the one shown. They are a good plastic that doesn't yellow.

 

[pulltostart]

Tom,

During college I worked at the Coca-Cola canning plant in College Park, GA for a short time.  The same scene took place in the canning operation as in the bottling operation.  The open cans were sanitized, filled, and capped; then strapped into 6-packs and sealed in cardboard boxes (4 packs to a box).  I ran the drop-loader, which was the machine that basically built the box around four six-packs.  The cans had to cool sufficiently after the canning process, before being boxed or they would explode.  Those exploding cans were my dreaded enemy.  Usually if a can popped or exploded, I had to shut down the entire line until the mess was cleared.  It wasn't hard work, but it could be nerve-wracking.

 

I worked the second shift for about 6 weeks, at which time management decided to eliminate the second shift.  After that I worked in the warehouse the rest of the summer, salvaging boxes with damaged 6-packs.

 

lawrence

 

[tomturbomatic]

Thanks for the memories

I remember a rubber hose with a nozzle and if a bottle exploded in the filler, the line was stopped and the nozzle was aimed at the disaster area to blast bits of glass and the sugary drink to the floor, after which the operation resumed.  The line split in two just after the bottles came out of the soaker and passed through a double sided lighted inspection station where the glass was inspected for chips or cracks to cut down on the explosions during the pressure filling.

 

I guess things changed quite a bit as the containers changed. Our young neighbor in the old neighborhood was a Georgia Tech engineer who worked for Coke designing the cartons that at that time held the bottles.  He and his family were moved to Coke operations all over Europe during his career.

 

So, Lawrence, the coke was put into the cans hot? How did it keep its carbonation if hot? How was it cooled? I wonder if the coke went into the glass bottles hot.  I wonder if the plant in College Park was among the bottling plants we used to pass on the old way to the  two old airports. There was a Carling Beer and Red Cap Ale brewery and a National Beer brewery and the coke plant, as well as the Gordon's potato chip factory. Scouts used to get tours of the Gordon's and Coke plants in the 50s. National Beer used to advertise on television and all the kids knew the song.  

 

RE: the range, We have seen older GE and Hotpoint ranges with aluminum storage drawers. 

 

[pulltostart]

Oops

Tom, the cans were hot after being sanitized.  I don't know the temperature of the Coke.  The cans were the problem, not the product.

 

lawrence

 

[tomturbomatic]

Oh, OK, Thank you. As thin as the metal of the cans was, I thought it was the hot Coke that had to cool.