Thread Number: 32091
POD 12/23/10 		[Down to Last]

automaticwasher.org's exclusive eBay Watch:
scroll >>> for more items --- [As an eBay Partner, eBay may compensate automaticwasher.org if you make a purchase using any link to eBay on this page]
Post# 483919   12/24/2010 at 00:03 (4,870 days old) by Spiceman1957 ()        

Does anyone remember when this Bendix ad was published. I'm thinking it had to be in the 1930s when Walt Disney first came out with Snow White and the seven dwarfs but I may be wrong.
I wished mfgs today would make front loading machines that had a built in heater.
John




Post# 483964 , Reply# 1   12/24/2010 at 05:52 (4,870 days old) by polkanut (Wausau, WI )        

polkanut's profile picture
IIRC, Disney released Snow White in 1938, so that should tell you how old this Bendix would be.

Post# 483966 , Reply# 2   12/24/2010 at 06:04 (4,870 days old) by Easyspindry (Winston-Salem, NC)        
I'd say somewhere in the 1950's . . .

 I have never seen one of these machines with the built-in heater. However, I have used one that looks very similar to this machine. It was at a lake house that was built in the early 1950's.

AND if you think that the Duomatic was first sold in 1953, that seems to me to be from whence the idea came to put a heater in a washer.

It looks like it would be a fun machine.

Jerry Gay

Post# 483968 , Reply# 3   12/24/2010 at 06:18 (4,870 days old) by retro-man (- boston,ma)        

To Spiceman
The new whirlpool front loader that i have has a built in heater so they are making them like this today.
Jon

Post# 483994 , Reply# 4   12/24/2010 at 09:15 (4,870 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)        

The libidinous tale of a virgin princess living with 7 lusty dwarves was re-released in the early 50s which is the time of this machine. The testing reports were starkly different between Consumer Reports and Consumer's Research Bulletin. Consumer Reports said that the temperature actually fell a few degrees during the wash, although not as much as it did without the heater. Consumer's Research Bulletin said that the water temperature increased by a few degrees during the wash and while the cleaning was improved somewhat by using the heater, the Bendix was still the poorest cleaning automatic. That did not apply to the Duomatic with its larger tub which rated just below the WP automatic in its performance as a washer when washers, dryers and the Duomatic were tested in 1954, I believe.

Post# 484133 , Reply# 5   12/24/2010 at 19:11 (4,869 days old) by askomiele (Belgium Ghent)        

Why was the bendix such a bad cleaner. If you see nowadays they market frontloadwashers as better cleaners...

Post# 484146 , Reply# 6   12/24/2010 at 22:38 (4,869 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)        

The original Bendix tumble washer had a teeny tiny, itsy bitsy cylinder. You probably have mixing bowls larger than the cylinder in the Bendix. Then, in a washer that depends on fabrics falling into water, you had, not only a tiny drum with no room for things to drop, you were washing in soap which has to make suds to suspend the dirt. Suds cushion the landing when clothes are supposed to drop. Then you had suds and some soap curd, not crud, but curd. That is the combination of soap, soil and the by products of using a precipitating water softener like borax or various other products that sequester the minerals in globules of gunk. In a wringer washer, the clothes are lifted out of the wash water so what floats on top of it stays where it is. In the teeny tiny drum of the Bendix, this gunk could not go anywhere without great difficulty. It was all mixed up with the clothes and when the water drained, it was hard to get this stuff to go through the holes in the cylinder. They tried to assist this by giving the one minute flush rinse with warm water, but in the old Bendix machines and the first WH Space Mates, the water spray came into the outer tub and sprayed down onto the rotating culinder, not the best way to flush gunk out of the cylinder and not like more modern machines where the flush rinse sprayed into the tumbling clothes. Any suds curd left when the deep rinses started just dispersed themselves back into the load, redepositing soil.

Things got better when low sudsing detergents came along by the mid 50s, but by then you had 15 years or so of a marginal method of doing laundry impressed on people's minds. Westinghouse greatly improved their machines in 59 or 60 when they enlarged the tub and removed the tilt. I honestly do not know when Philco enlarged the cylinder in the Bendix design tumbler washing machine. If the washers had the same size cylinder as the 27" Duomatics, it was a good size and a great improvement.


Forum Index:       Other Forums:                      


Comes to the Rescue!

The Discuss-o-Mat has stopped, buzzer is sounding!!!
If you would like to reply to this thread please log-in...

Discuss-O-MAT Log-In



New Members Click Here To Sign Up.



                     

automaticwasher.org home
Discuss-o-Mat Forums
Vintage Brochures, Service and Owners Manuals
Fun Vintage Washer Ephemera
See It Wash!
Video Downloads
 Audio Downloads
Picture of the Day
Patent of the Day
Photos of our Collections
The Old Aberdeen Farm
Vintage Service Manuals 		Vintage washer/dryer/dishwasher to sell?
Technical/service questions?
Looking for Parts?
Website related questions?
Digital Millennium Copyright Act Policy
Our Privacy Policy