Today's PAT is American Machine's automatic that's half way between a top loader and a front loader, it sort of looks like an eye on the inside.

Its a relatively simple machine. The tub rocks back and forth for washing. Then after a rinse comes the squeeze extraction cycle. There is a big rubber disk diaphragm which covers the entire bottom of the wash tub (part 34). The machine fills the area underneath the rubber disk with water and water pressure forces the disk up and squeezes the clothes against the top and sides of the wash tub to wring out the clothes. Then after its completed squeezing it drains the water from under the rubber disk. The Bendix squeeze tub used air pressure instead of water which made for a less wasteful system than today's PAT.

Coming next week is FRIGIDAIRE COMBO WEEK! All next week we will showcase some of GM Frigidaire's amazing, incredible, “no it just can't be”, “are they crazy”, “what were they thinking” Combination Washer-Dryer patents! Unfortunately Frigidaire never made a combo, because it would have been out of this world! If you think you've seen some crazy stuff so far, just wait, some of these machines are hysterical!

Cool, but wouldn't the door eventually develop problems with all those clothes pushing against it?

I can't wait for the Frigidaire Combos!!! Wonder why they didn't follow other manufacturers' footsteps and make a "normal" one??

I'm not sure about today's patent. Does it rock back and forth or does it wobble around? What else did American Machine, a company of Dellaware make?

Hi Peter, if you look at the first picture you can see the wash tub simply rocks back and forth, there are dotted lines showing the tub swung in the other direction. There is a solenoid that locks into place to make sure the wash tub door lands aligned with the outside washer door.

That's just weird. One missed nail or pencil would quickly put an end to washday.

I can't wait to see the combos that the boys at Frigidaire dreamed up! Never a conventional washer and never a combination to market...

Yeah, I'd say that design has two fatal flaws.

One, you get the inertia of the water & clothes sloshing back and forth, which would probably impose heavy wear on the bearings, and cause the machine to "walk" across the floor until it encountered a wall or door, whereon it would make a loud repetitive knocking sound.

Two, as Gansky1 pointed out, one pointy object in the load and it's bye-bye.

Heck, three fatal flaws: Three, you have an acute angle between the dome and the flat bottom, and acute angles collect particulate matter over time. In other words, aside from the hassle of having to fish your socks out of the edges of this thing, you also get a buildup of lint and soap scum.

One can imagine a malfunction in this unit causing it to projectile-vomit the entire load through the door...! Puke-o-mat! Eeyow!