What kind of dishwasher was this?

[machinehead]

Hi everyone!

OK, beaming out to all the DW Guru's out there, i have a puzzle for you that i'd like some input and help in solving. Unfortunately, i don't have pictures (only mental ones) to share that would help ID'ing this thing easier.

Somewhere around 1977, my Dad brought home an old, portable dishwasher and i'm not sure what make it was. It was not a top-loader, it was white, could've been a Waste-King or something, had a heavy-duty almost 2 inch thick butcher-block top that the water fill/drain hoses pulled out of towards the back in the left rear corner area. It had i believe 5 buttons or so, don't remember if it had a dial or not. Here's the thing that is bugging me: it DID have a separate spray arm for the silverware basket, which if i remember right was in the left front corner. It was a small spray arm, maybe 8 inches, and the larger main one had only the std two arms that would occasionally block the small one as it spun. I had never seen any dishwasher with two lower rack spray arms, especially one just for silverware, and never have seen one since! Does anyone out there in Appliance Land know what make this was? Does anyone have anything like that? I still have the butcher-block top, but nothing else. It was an old machine at the time, but i thought it was the coolest thing since Saturday morning cartoons! I hope this creates a fun thread of nostalgia and conversation... the kind of thing i LOVE about this place!

Thanks for your help in solving my 30+ year old mystery!

-Chris (machinehead)

 

[laundromat]

GE "Silver Shower"????

It was a GE convertible.I don't remember what it was named but they made that model.I've seen them twice.Both times questioning why they didn't go any further with that idea.

 

[bajaespuma]

I was a Silver Shower fan myself, but...

I think the designers/engineers at GE shot themselves in the foot with this gimmick by using a silverware basket with solid sides, limiting the spray that could get to it. Had they stuck to the old GE plastic mesh basket, the feature would have worked better. As such, it was offered on the all the TOL's for more than a couple of years.

Here are a couple of brochure shots. We had the BOL version of this machine(I was so mad at my parents for deciding, after their first TOL GE dishwasher with four buttons, never to buy a dishwasher with more than one cycle ever again. That said, it was a solid, if not glorious, machine with neither a Power nor Silver Shower). I think "FredrikSam" in Sweden has the Control Panel for this first model:

 

[bajaespuma]

Here's a better shot of the Silver Shower itself on the portables brochure:

 

[machinehead]

Applause, Bravo and Standing Ovations!

Wonderful! Outstanding! Fantastic! And its good, too! Thanks so much to bajaespuma and laundromat for your detective work!
Another 30 year mystery solved-- hot damn! (the last one was who made the funky agitator that went up and down-- thanks again to this site and all you fine folks i finally ne-rembered it was a 1-18! I LOVE this place!) "Silver Shower"? What years did they make these things? I remeber ours had a problem with the water level going up too high and swamping the minature spray arm... anybody else have that problem?