Thread Number: 43930
Get Your Thinking Caps On...
[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# 645967   12/12/2012 at 11:09 (4,124 days old) by thelaundrylab (Hampshire UK)        

thelaundrylab's profile picture
Hello everybody, hope your well & gearing up for the festive season. I thought I'd start a "Fun Thread" for everyone to interact, by getting your thinking caps on.

Many of us know, it's taken some of you years to build up a nice collection of Washing Machines, Dryers, Twin Tubs, etc & rather impressive I must say.

So the questions is: What instigated or inspired you to start your own collection? And do you remember the first ever machine you brought (aka for the collection). If there's anything else you like to add, plz feel free.

I look forward to seeing your comments & pictures, have fun gang.

Cheers,
Hass.





Post# 645988 , Reply# 1   12/12/2012 at 13:28 (4,124 days old) by akronman (Akron/Cleveland Ohio)        
how I started

akronman's profile picture

10 years before any washer/dryer interest, I bought a 1940's Chambers range, good cooking! About 3 years ago I was searching for a part for it and googled "antique appliances" and found this site. I kept coming back and watching videos of 1950's Norges and Kelvinators and Control Top Frigidaires, all fascinating, and all quite a bit different than what usually catches my eyes on the web, lol.  After a month or so, I started Craigslist searching to see what may show up locally, and over the border in PA someone had a Hoover Twin Tub #0519. I bought it and was hooked. Then local estate sales got me a 79 Maytag, a 75 Filter Flo, a 60 Whirlpool, a 53 Hamilton dryer, a 48 Easy, etc etc etc....it ain't over yet.  Plenty of folks here have been helpful with my exact machines, plenty of searchilator advice here also from a few years back, depending on what machine it is and what problem and repairs needed.

 

It's a fun hobby, harmless, and we all need clean clothes. Friends don't understand that half the fun is fixing, restoring, repairing, perfecting, painting. But the other half, using them, is fun too.  Which machine is best for towels, jeans, rugs, which is best for delicates and PermaPress, suds-saving and suds-swapping from one to the other.....


Post# 646014 , Reply# 2   12/12/2012 at 16:00 (4,123 days old) by mickeyd (Hamburg NY)        
Washer Christmas Stories-- What a cool idea!

mickeyd's profile picture
Slow and cagey at first, I got my first TOL red-trimmed 2 speed Easy spin from an Antique Store right on the main drag, near my old flat. Twenty-five bucks, not bad. I can afford this. Then a neighbor across the street from my BF threw out a Unimatic, an odd model I haven't seen since. Broken timer, stopped after wash spin. Who cares? Not me! Free. Loved it. This was in the seventies.

Next, I met a cool old guy names Kolpiski who had a Maytag store on Broadway, and the wringer odyssey began. ( A few of these were around in my childhood, but not in my family except for my Great Aunt Mary, and she rarely used it. But that is when I loved wringers, a GE which followed me to college.) Mr K sold me a Norge wringer.I was re-hooked. After the Frigi died I bought a new Norge Burper, and was smitten.

When I bought my house here, Mr K, was closing shop, and I got a Speed Queen and Maytag J2L with a pump. One day on a bike ride in Little Italy near the Peace Bridge, I scored a 25 dollar A 50, for later pick-up.

About ten years ago, my friend Mad Dog gave me his 78 GE Filter Flo, and my Aunt Alice gave me her 77 WP Golden Imperial. By now I was self-conscious about having
8 surviving washing machines. People were always curious and thought it just my little kink. NO ONE, I knew liked washing machines except me. I just accepted the eccentricity and grew accustomed to being the only one. Being gay, I knew that road from early on.

Eureka! One new Years Day morning, seven odd years ago, I was googling washers, and Automatic Washer popped up. I swear to you I died and went to heaven that day. Seeing so many spectacular machines and so many wonderful men collecting them, pictures, texts, repairs, stories--I went nuts, and have never been the same since. I had found a community of men who were just like me in more ways than one. It was like finding the tribe you had been separated from at birth.

I talked to a former member names Greg, who sold me a 43 Turk LK, and gave me three machines that had issues. A 78 GE, a 68 Easy Spin, a 62 Multimatic. Now I was getting serious. I flew to Boston, rented a truck, drove home. A little later, the LTC comes by, to find me playing with the machines right on the U-haul using an extension cord and the garden hose. He is awestruck. We unload, and he says: "You're really into now."

Indeed. Never going back, and never leaving here.


Post# 646020 , Reply# 3   12/12/2012 at 16:15 (4,123 days old) by mickeyd (Hamburg NY)        

mickeyd's profile picture
"You're really into it now."

Post# 646191 , Reply# 4   12/13/2012 at 11:24 (4,123 days old) by thelaundrylab (Hampshire UK)        
We understand where your coming from...

thelaundrylab's profile picture
ahaha, brilliant!!! Love it fellas...

"Half the fun is fixing, restoring, repairing, perfecting, painting"... Akronman that's the beauty to it all and I'm sure most you find it very rewarding, when you've finished restoring a machine and you say to yourself I saved that, etc.

"NO ONE, I knew liked washing machines except me I just accepted the eccentricity and grew accustomed to being the only one". Mickeyd we all felt the same thing and I'm sure others would agree. Like you I was also excited when I found this site, (Thank You Robert, for making it possible for us) to be accepted and belong to a community who share the same interests as you, is rather full filing.

I have known to say this many times and maybe cliche, but the hours of fun this site has given me, the friends I have made, I wanted to give something back to the community. Thats how the Laundry Lab came about. I guess that's to compensate for not having any washers of my own...lol.

Thanks for sharing your stories fella's, anyone else wanting to share there story?



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