Thread Number: 62892  /  Tag: Vintage Automatic Washers
POD 11-30-15 Jacob's Launderall 		[Down to Last]

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Post# 854339   11/30/2015 at 12:05 (3,062 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)        

How tightly did that door on top seal? When I was reading the part about the care-free operation, I saw the word "soap" and though what would happen if it was really oversudsed and went into a spin? Would foam be forced out around the edges of the lid? Would the overworked transmission overheat and cause a fire? Since it was such a POS washing machine, all I can concentrate on is its destruction in spectacular ways.

Two things come to mind: When I was 6, I had to spend a day and night with friends when I had chickenpox and their youngest son squirted some liquid hand dishwashing detergent into the Apex Dish-A-Matic before their family retainer started it. There was no gasket around the porcelain lid and the suds poured out and down in all directions while the kid laughed and the poor lady kept wiping it up. The other thing is when we took throw rugs to the coin-op and there were Bendix or Philco-Bendix washers with little yellow knobs to select the wash and rinse temperatures and three little rectangular lights for wash, rinse and spin. They had a door on top for adding detergent, but it was not the metal or porcelain door like on home machines, but a gray soft, rubbery round door in a raised housing. Maybe some of our more mature members will recall them. Anyway, daddy overdosed the machines on detergent which was not especially low sudsing to begin with. After the wash, which looked like a blizzard whiteout through the window in the door, there was the 3/4 minute assured rinse to kill suds. Well, nothing that machine offered could cope with the suds situation. After the rinse ended and the drain continued in vain, the machine kicked into spin. Almost immediately, the suds pressure was relieved when the little gray door flipped up and the washer projectile-vomited suds up and forward over the front of the machine. There were other people there and it was embarrassing, but to see a washer vomit was so damn funny we could not stop laughing after the initial shock passed, at least my brother and I could not stop. We had never seen such a thing happen. Who could imagine it? The only saving factor was that we had stepped outside, maybe so daddy could smoke, so we were not actually in there when it erupted. Back then coin-ops had windows all across the front so we saw it all, but nobody heard our reactions to completely link us to the machine. Fortunately the machines were gravity drain and were on a raised concrete bulwark so the suds that flowed down the front of the machine was caught by the front lip and did not run across the floor as a lasting testament to our washer abuse nor did it cause a slippery hazard to others.

A mind is a terrible thing to lose, but can be a lot of fun when it is warped.






Post# 854355 , Reply# 1   11/30/2015 at 13:59 (3,062 days old) by DADoES (TX, U.S. of A.)        

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Many years ago along the way of junior high and freshman PE class ... I caught sight of a hardmount Milnor washer (and I think Huebsch dryer) in the gym laundry room between the boys and girls dressing rooms.  Took the opportunity to peep in there whenever possible to spy the machines running, and eventually had a couple instances of starting a load of stinky gym clothes.  Anyway, I found on one occasion when looking in that someone had seriously oversuds it.  There was an Oversuds toggle switch on the panel, so I pressed it and was rewarded with plume of foam exploding out of the open top of the drain hose loop on back of the machine (functioned as a siphon break).

Post# 854359 , Reply# 2   11/30/2015 at 14:09 (3,062 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)        

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Here is what can happen to an oversudsing H-axis toploader.










This post was last edited 11/30/2015 at 14:35
Post# 854363 , Reply# 3   11/30/2015 at 14:41 (3,062 days old) by pulltostart (Mobile, AL)        
Tom

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That's hilarious.  Thanks for the laugh!

 

lawrence
Post# 854369 , Reply# 4   11/30/2015 at 15:54 (3,062 days old) by kd12 (Arkansas)        

Has anyone here seen one of these in the wild? Working, that is...

Post# 854386 , Reply# 5   11/30/2015 at 17:24 (3,062 days old) by cuffs054 (MONTICELLO, GA)        

It would be fun to test one of those vs. the Staber.

Post# 854394 , Reply# 6   11/30/2015 at 17:56 (3,062 days old) by appnut (TX)        

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The neighbor to the left of my dad's two old maid aunts bay house on Galveston Bay apparently had one.  I vaguely remember seeing something like it when I was about 4 or 5.  I mentioned something to my dad about a top loading "front loader" (h-axis) (because of the pod washer long before my dad's memory went bad) and my dad said he remembered Mr. Black at the bay house having one in the garage.  Mr. Black was an engineer and was fascinated by unusual things. 
Post# 854447 , Reply# 7   11/30/2015 at 21:16 (3,062 days old) by Supersuds (Knoxville, Tenn.)        

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kd12, check out this thread for some horror stories. ;)

CLICK HERE TO GO TO Supersuds's LINK
Post# 854498 , Reply# 8   12/1/2015 at 05:20 (3,062 days old) by Easyspindry (Winston-Salem, NC)        
When I was a kid . . .

. . . and my dad was on the faculty of a college in a small town in North Carolina, the college athletic department had four of these machines and four GE electric dryers . . . the ones with the square door with square glass in the center.

It wasn't long before they changed to a large commercial machine and sold the Jacob's Launderalls to various faculty members at a "bargain" price. I knew some people who bought one. It had to be bolted down, but they had only half of the bolts which were put on the back side. When they finally got it running and it went into the spin cycle, the front of the machine started raring up like a disgruntled horse and banging down on the cement block it was bolted to.

I remember the lady reaching up and pulling the plug to make it stop.

Next thing I knew, they had a Maytag AMP which lasted a lifetime.

The Launderall always fascinated me, but that's the only one I ever saw run.

Jerry Gay

Post# 854514 , Reply# 9   12/1/2015 at 08:29 (3,061 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)        

Thanks, Louis! If ever Rosalie's Zero Suds was needed, it was needed by Thumper, that little bathroom bouncer. That is pretty inefficient to rinse 5 times before spinning.

A dear departed washer friend discovered how to give multiple water changes in the coin-op Milnors at the Ansley Village Cruise-o-Matic-Automatic. If you pushed the button labeled "oversuds", it opened the drain valve and you could drain the machine. When you released it, it would refill with water and continue. Of course, without spinning, there was a lot of water left in the load, but it did help a bit with the suds.


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