It may be premature, but it looks like the apartment in Montreal is sold so Hubby and I are going to have to move our butts to find a new home by September 1st.

We've seen a couple of interesting places and are still looking; most places have 'modern' kitchens but I've been favouring ones with wood cabinetry that can be "retro-fied".

Anyone close to the Vermont-Quebec border has probably already heard the wailing... Not Canyon, but Hubby's tirades about not having an all-turquoise kitchen in the 'new' home.  Yeah, well, he's not the one at home doing all the cooking, right??  LOL

All this to say that I've got a dilemma as to which of my fleet of vintage undercounter dishwashers will make it to a future kitchen...   I've eliminated the '57 Whirlpool (gravity drain installation may be problematic) and the 'topless' '59 GE Princess. 

The top competitors so far are: the '58 Frigidaire Spin-Tube, the '63 GE drop-door, or (and it will still require some work) the '63-ish Kenmore 600 Roto-Rack built-in.  

The Frigidaire has been rebuilt from the ground up (and a shout-out to Nate is due here - the pump he sent me is what really made this restoration possible).  But I have reservations about if the unique racking system would accommodate the kind of loads we tend to create in our 'regular daily cycle'...  We always seem to have way more glasses and cups than plates and I do cook and bake so there are always going to be bowls, pans, pots, etc.  My test-drive of the Frigidaire kinda made me wonder how well it would cope with such unbalanced loads - we'd probably be running the darn thing twice a day!

The GE is practically mint (I have a new motor panel to replace the one the movie production lost but which  later turned up shoved down the condenser coils of the '65 Frigidaire Cycla-Matic...).  The racking system is pretty much identical to the '93 Moffat we've been using daily since we moved to Montreal.  But this is a machine with a Plastisol tub, so I have concerns about the daily wear and tear.

The Roto-Rack has been brought back to life, but still needs a couple o' tweaks.  The current front and motor panels are white so I'd want to paint them turquoise.  I've never actually test-washed anything in this machine, but it intrigues me because it's an oddball combination of impeller plus fixed spray-arm (one of the half arms for the Roto-Rack).  But it's a porcelain tub and I think it could possibly be the easiest one to repair if anything horrible happened...  

AAARGH!  What to do??

And there's still the 'wild card' machines (the '56 Hotpoint and the '72 Viking/Westinghouse). 

And Hubby wonders why I can't sleep at night.... LOL 

Oh don't get me going... One turned up in Montreal about 4 years ago and I've been kicking myself from hell to breakfast 'cause I missed it...  

The overall look is the big consideration - I fully intend to install a turquoise refrigerator (either the '65 Frigidaire or the '64 GE, assuming I can fix it) and either the '62 turquoise Flair range OR a '65 GE P7 wall oven paired up with a '64 GE cooktop, both turquoise.  

The Viking is currently Harvest Gold, but has presto-chango panels for white, coppertone, or avocado green.  A certain Hubby will probably freak at the thought of another avocado kitchen (his house in Mountain Lakes was all avocado).   BUT I could always paint a panel turquoise...  

Just to really make things difficult, here's a gallery of photos of the machines under consideration.  In order of display here's the '58 Frigidaire, the '63 GE, and the Kenmore 600 Roto-Rack: 

That's a toughie.  Any of those would be stunning in a turquoise kitchen.  No, avocado's probably not the goal here, and I'd have to see the Viking to see if it'd work in turquoise form.  I painted a KDS-15 turquoise from avocado once, and it looked fab because the control panel fit that look, but it all depends on the styling.  :-)

LOL  The Dual-Drench would be off the charts on the fun-factor, but you'd be living in a tent in the backyard if you had that installed in the kitchen, and hubby saw the results.  ;-)  Maybe a two-dishwasher kitchen would be in order?

One comment I would make is that the Spin-Tube I had was toward the end of the run, and TOL, and had the constant rinse plus double detergent dispensers--that puppy could wash.  In the absence of either of those features, you might see considerable reduction in performance, especially with dried-on foods.  That might nudge you toward one of the other machines.

Hey, isn't that an impeller Roto-Rack?  I'd probably opt for a wash-arm machine of some sort over an impeller, unless the inherent restrictions in impeller machines don't deter you.  (I still remember when a small screw worked itself loose from a rack in the Hotpoint, entered the wash stream, and created all sorts of interesting havoc--happily, on an empty run, and no damage done to the machine before it was noticed.)

It's an impeller model but it does also have the 'half-arm' that sprays continuously on the rear half of the Roto-Rack.  Having the '56 GE impeller machine down in Ogden has gotten me into the habit of not expecting baked-on food to be washed off the casserole dishes BUT this here Kenmore has the 150-degree wash option that should extend the wash cycle long enough to cut through at least some of the heavy soil.   Maybe the take-away here is that I should get the Kenmore down from the loft above the garage and try a test-wash!!  

Awkwardly??   LOL

I'd have to guess that the plates on the right hand side of the rack would face forward and the ones on the left would face the rear, but this is assuming a clockwise impeller rotation.  I think you'd be able to place pots and pans and bowls open-end down on a rack like this (I've seen illustrations of loading the top-load version of a machine like this, but I think it had the more typical D&M circular lower rack...).  Gotta get that top-loader one of these days, too!

More incentive to get the built-in beastie down to play with... LOL 

Unportableize the KDS-14.

You know you'll have good results with that.

If you want to go Coppertone, I know someone with a KDS 55 (Tapping Fingers)

But if it were me... (and it's not) (and I also have no Hubby) I would go with the Roto Rack or at least a 2 armed machine as the DD. Then a Back Up Portable for the Heavy Prep and Baking Days.

Paul, any serious dishwasher collector like you needs to have at least two built-in dishwashers in his kitchen and a portable too! Maybe you should get a spot for a machine that's not too likely to break parts that are impossible to find or to disintegrate itself as a daily use machine and one spot for the odd or less durable machines that you could use lightly and rotate as you feel... So if you ever find another Tappan, you'd have a spot for it!

;-)

Hmmm....  I was warned about getting two dishwashers, but if I can pull it off, that would be the perfect solution.  Of course that will depend on the state and size of the future kitchen...  One place we are looking at tomorrow has a basement kitchen with what looks like an unused dishwasher cut-out - that would be fun!

I'm more than likely going to pair up any built-in unit with a portable, but I'd sure like to keep all the appliances brand-consistent (I have plenty of GE goodies that would make that possible, but I can almost do an all-Frigidaire one, too).

Greg, the idea of a KDS18 in particular has been popping in and out of my addled brain, 'cause I know where I could get one in a hurry (wink, wink, cough... Phil???)

And breakfast is always included... LOL   I make terrific waffles!

Paul, for the basement, you could get one with the "Party" cycle. 

The price of this one dropped from $80 to $50 recently. You might want to make an offer! 

www.kijiji.ca/v-view-details.html...

Otherwise, I'll think about it as I'd really like to have a KDS-17A.

As for the KDS-18, it's a keeper but if you're able to help me dig into the pile of appliances, I'll give you my KDS-58 (which was converted to a semi-built-in!)... 

Hmmmm.... That is a 17 in the ad, isn't it?  

Of course, as Eddie suggested, I could always 'de-portablize' the KDS54 but that's a machine that would make an excellent portable second dishwasher if I can't install two built-ins in the kitchen.  But there's also the '61 Whirlpool, the '60 KitchenAid, the '65 KA Electra, the '65 GE Talisman MobileMaid, the  '62 GE MobileMaid in turquoise, choice of a 1956, 1957, or 1959 GE MobileMaid as well. Oh wait, there's also the '68 Viking top-loader, the '62 Monkey Wards or the mint '71 Westinghouse convertible.   Do I have too many portable dishwashers??  LOL   

My grandfather used to be a part-time real estate agent and he sold many houses to/from Italian families in this area, a bit further south east in St-Leonard in the late 1950s. It told me that it was common for Italians to have many generations of people living in the same house. I don't think I have any Italian roots but that's also common in my family.

I think the part of the family on my great-grandmother's side who had this tendency had ancestors from the "Hautes-Alpes" not very far from Italy! My grandfather, two of his brothers and a sister who were those who left their parent's home "early" (I mean before their parents died!) bought a summer cottage outside of Montreal together back in the early 1940s and when they retired in the 1970s, they each sold their houses in Montreal and tore it down, and then each built their houses on the same land that they divided. Their next neighbors were also uncles and aunts all from the same Guerin family who originated from the Hautes-Alpes.

This was the place:

www.google.ca/maps/place/...

I used to mow the lawn with my great-grandaunt's Sunbeam Twin Blade mower with about 200 ft of extension cords around the mailboxes there when I was a kid!

The 4 other brothers and sisters stayed with my great-grandmother in Montreal until she died at age 82 in 1962 and they moved together across the street next door to their aunt...

But Paul is looking to buy something outside of Montreal!

Oh, what a choice to make.... LOL   Thanks to everyone for their input!  It can be difficult to be objective about a machine sometimes when one is smitten by it's looks.... 

IF and say this is still IF, we get the house we're currently looking at, we're going to have to 'correct' a space left by a commercial-size refrigerator/freezer unit in the kitchen.  That space will easily accommodate a refrigerator (still have to pick THAT, too...LOL) and a portable dishwasher of some description.  So, if the range winds up being the Flair, the refrigerator the '65 Frigidaire Cycla-Matic, then the built-in dishwasher will probably be the Spin-Tube.  The portable would then have to be the KDS54, kept portable, but repainted turquoise.  

No second kitchen in this particular house, though.  It has something MUCH bigger and better but I don't want to jinx anything....

I'll be sure to post about how this winds up playing out, I promise.