Maytag Wringer Demonstration


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Thread Number: 3316
Maytag Wringer Demonstration

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Post# 83450 9/15/2005 at 19:27 (6,796 days old) by Pulsator (Saint Joseph, MI)
Checkrate/Likes Hey everyone!!! I have been asked to do a wringer washer demonstration at a farm on Oct. 1st (2005, lol.) Anyway, I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips on how to do it, I'll be bringing my Maytag manual for assistance, but that's not always enough. I'll be doing laundry in a MINT and I mean M I N T condition late 70's to early 80's Maytag Wringer square tub with pump!!! Anyway, any hints would be greatly appreciated!!!! Oh! Also, does nayone have any idea on how much the machine might be worth?

Post# 83455 , Reply# 1 9/15/2005 at 20:24 (6,796 days old) by westytoploader ()
Checkrate/Likes Congratulations...very exciting news!!! Is a historical society putting on a presentation? Whatever it is, it sounds like fun! I'd say start practicing on your machine...IMHO the best way is by experience, and you have 15 days! Wow, a machine like that? My guess is $700 or more. If the Bellville Historical Society/Chamber of Commerce does an "50's home life" exhibit here, I will definitely contact them and display the WO-65-2!

Post# 83465 , Reply# 2 9/15/2005 at 21:41 (6,796 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There�s a Lady on Stage)
Checkrate/Likes *Don't Forget A Pinnie* You'll surely want to wear some sort of apron, as wringer washing like using a twin tub is very splashy. Remember to keep your hair and bosom (whoops, forgot)well away from the wringer, and watch those fingers. Would be a good idea to leave rings, and other such items at home. If you really want to go the whole hog, bring along some Fels soap and show how it was sliced up into slivers and put into the washing tub. Don't forget bluing for the final rinse. You might wish to add that many housewives didn't chuck wash or rinse water down the drain. Floors and porches were washed, and lawns gardens watered. Best of luck, Launderess

Post# 83506 , Reply# 3 9/16/2005 at 09:17 (6,796 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes By demonstration do you mean start to finish laundry or just running the washer and showing how things went through a wringer? If it's just the latter, you could also have a divorced man stand there, but never mind. If you have to show the whole operation, will there be tubs for rinsing and hot and cold water? The washer is usually placed in front of the tub or sink so that the pivot point for the wringer is between the two rear tubs or sinks, if you are right handed. I have never seen anyone left-handed do this. The washer is filled with very hot water, agitation started, detergent added and then clothes are "put on to rub" (in my grandmother's words, may she be remembered as a blessing) and the lid closed to keep in the heat. After ten or so minutes (wind up timer is handy with timerless Maytags) you stop the agitation. To be authentic, the transferring of articles from the washer to the wringer is done with the aid of a "washin' stick." It is 12 to 15 inches long and smooth so as not to snag or tear things as you drag them up to go through the wringer. With practice, you don't need to use fingers to get the item started into the rollers. "Rubber" gloves are relatively new on the scene for this chore so they were not around during most of the time wringers were used. Have you practiced using the wringer? Do you know how to set and release the roller tension? Have you practiced hitting the turquoise safety release bar on the wringer? If your machine has it, does the little air-operated foot switch work? You need to make sure that the tilt pan under the wringer is working properly to avoid a big mess. When it is working properly, as the wringer rollers are moving in the direction from the washer to the sink or tub, the tilt tray underneath will tip back in the direction that the clothes are coming from to let the water drain back into the used water, not into the new while the flattened items fall into the 1st rinse. As soon as you finish wringing, turn off the wringer. Never leave it running. Then you rstart the agitation, add some more detergent to the water and put in your 2nd load. Set the timer then go to the first tub and squish the clothes up and down in the water. This is great fun for little appliance persons. Now, you want to release the wringer and pivot it to be between the two tubs so that you can wring the clothes into the second rinse. If you are using galvanized tubs on supports, you will probably have three tubs. Once the clothes are all in the second tub, repeat shutting off the wringer, pivoting it so that it is between the 2nd and 3rd tub, have your bluing in the last rinse water, squish, wring, rinse again and wring into the basket to hang up. After the third tub, you are probably going to have to have a hand on the output side of the wringer to catch the items to transfer them to the laundry basket. To be authentic, this should be an oval willow basket lined with a piece of muslin or oilcloth to keep the damp clothes from picking up color from the wood and to protect the clothes from snags. If you are lucky enough to have a laundry sink with two tubs, you can change the water in the first tub as it gets sudsy and even the second tub as needed, eliminating the need for the third rinse. Never take your eyes off the wringer when something is going through it. Sometimes items stick to the roller and will go up inside, get greasy or torn, leading to panic on the part of the operator and setting up a situation where it is easy to get injured. I hope that you do not have to do this in the sun or in a hot place because it is tiring even in air conditioning. Have cold drinks handy and be prepared to get splashed. When you are through washing, the wringer is rinsed with running water while rolling and unlocked so that the rollers dry without sticking to one another, the washer is drained and rinsed (don't forget the lid), drained again, agitator removed and dried, tub wiped dry, grease added to the agitator splines, rinse tubs emptied, rinsed and tilted up-side-down to dry. If you don't have someone helping you, you are going to have to leave a load washing and hang up the first 2 loads, because they need to get out early enough to have time to dry while the sun is strong, especially the white towels. Of course, you could set up the scenario that would be understood by many farm families that you have an automatic washer and dryer but have to wash in the wringer because there's a drought and the well is down so you could still use the dryer, in which case the clothes could be given a final spin to extract some of the water left in them by the wringer.

Post# 83510 , Reply# 4 9/16/2005 at 11:16 (6,796 days old) by geoffdelp (SAUK RAPIDS)
Checkrate/Likes Jamie ... Remember using Robert's plexi tub Maytag at his wash-in? Remember Gary and I showing you how to put towels through the wringer? Always start with a folded end; it helps to eliminate items getting stuck on the wringer rolls. Fold buttons and snaps to the inside of the article being wrung to avoid breaking. The value of these machines lies within the person wanting to purchase it. A new Maytag Model E sold for around $500 when they stopped producing them in 1983. Tom ... I like your comment about having the cold drinks nearby!! Not too sure about the left vs. right-handed positions. Maytag operated from right to left; I guess it depended upon your situation or your choice. Some people would set it up so the machine was at the left and wrung to the right. CLICK HERE TO GO TO geoffdelp's LINK

Post# 83515 , Reply# 5 9/16/2005 at 12:35 (6,796 days old) by Gyrafoam (Wytheville, VA)
Checkrate/Likes *Tom's description is excellent-------* NO WONDER the laundry used to take a whole day! I remember the old timers going through all those machinations to get the laundry done. Most of them were able to afford automatics, but washwomen were inexpensive to employ. I remember some basements with two or three wringer washers of various makes and ages all churning away with the week's wash. All of them lined up beside heavy white porcelain wash sinks built in to the side of the wall. What an operation! I'll take an automatic any day!

Post# 83517 , Reply# 6 9/16/2005 at 14:44 (6,795 days old) by frigilux (The Minnesota Prairie)
Checkrate/Likes Pulsator-- If you aren't afraid of substantial physical pain and possible broken bones, be sure to get a hand caught in the rollers----going up just past the wrist area should be sufficient for demonstration purposes. Then you can wave your fingers out the other side of the rollers. I guarantee this will elicit a strong reaction from your audience. ;) (Before anyone calls the out the nice young men in their clean white coats, I am kidding, of course. Kids, don't try this at home! Have a great demonstration, Pulsator!)

Post# 83575 , Reply# 7 9/17/2005 at 05:28 (6,795 days old) by kenmore1978 ()
Checkrate/Likes *wringer washing* This sounds like the method where the clotes are rinsed in the laundry tubs. Isn't there a different procedure where the washer was drained after the last load, re-filled, with clear water, and the clothes run through again for an agitated deep rinse, then a final wringing?

Post# 83747 , Reply# 8 9/18/2005 at 01:42 (6,794 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes If you only had one load to wash, you could wring the clothes, drain the washer and refill it for rinsing, but washing just one load would be a very exceptional case to the way laundry was done with a wringer washer. Just draining the wash water and filling the machine for a rinse without wringing was a very inefficient way to rinse since the clothes were still saturated with the wash water and the soil it contained. At least wringing got some of that out and lifting the items out of the suds left the dirt behind in the wash water. It was not wise to rinse without wringing with laundry soap since the dirt was suspended in the suds and you did not want that falling on the load of laundry. The danger of doing this with soap, and to a lesser extent with detergent, was that the rinse water would not be able to keep the soil in suspension and it would be redeposited on the laundry. Have you ever seen the brief run of ads for Tide that asks, "Prefer to skip rinsing? You can with Tide!" That campaign, which targeted wringer washer users, did not last long, but it was an attempt by P&G to show that Tide kept the dirt suspended in the wash water better than soap and would not leave a film. Man, I'll bet there were some raging cases of detergent-induced contact dermatitis. Original Tide was very caustic as washer manufacturers found out when they made components of aluminum and pot metal.

Post# 83797 , Reply# 9 9/18/2005 at 10:28 (6,794 days old) by kenmore1978 ()
Checkrate/Likes *Sorry* I did mean that the clothes would be wrung out B4 being put back in for an agitated deep rinse. And I would assume someone would deep rinse agitate the wrung out white clothes first, drain and refill, then deep rinse agitate the wrung out colored clothes

Post# 83978 , Reply# 10 9/19/2005 at 17:23 (6,792 days old) by tolivac (greenville nc)
Checkrate/Likes Interesting-saw that ad for Tide about skipping rinses-and they suggested washing your dishes in it without rinsing as well-Bet folks had the "runs" in those days-it would sure do it to me-have to rinse--or I would be jet propelled. I suppose as well you shouldn't use the old Tide in wringer machines with the aluminum tanks???

Post# 84096 , Reply# 11 9/20/2005 at 09:29 (6,792 days old) by designgeek ()
Checkrate/Likes Pardon my obvious ignorance on the subject of wringers, never having had the chance to use one... Tom, very interesting description of the procedure. The first time I read through it my head spun. The second time it made sense. I think this is one of those cases where it's easier to learn by watching & doing, than by reading. I always thought the procedure was: wash however-many loads, wring each load out as it's done washing; drain the tub, refill with rinse water, and then rinse & wring out each load once; then drain & refill; then rinse & wring out each load and hang 'em up to dry. Re. removing & greasing the agitator: was that necessary after every washday? (Difficult to imagine people taking their appliances apart routinely) On those newer Maytags with the "belly button" knob in the middle of the front: I take it that's the power switch, pull to start the agitator, push in to stop it? And to think, when I graduated from college in 1983, they were still making those. Twenty-something years later we're in a whole 'nother world, with computer-controlled-everything. Yow!

Post# 84099 , Reply# 12 9/20/2005 at 09:35 (6,792 days old) by fixerman ()
Checkrate/Likes The belly button knob starts the agitator.

Post# 84116 , Reply# 13 9/20/2005 at 10:15 (6,792 days old) by frigilux (The Minnesota Prairie)
Checkrate/Likes *Classic Tide sans rinsing* Tomturbomatic---that would explain why the pot metal pump on our '60 Kenmore had to be replaced every few years. We were a Tide household. I can't imagine not rinsing clothes. I get itchy just thinking about it. On the upside, think of the nose-hit of classic Tide scent you'd get all day long!

Post# 84123 , Reply# 14 9/20/2005 at 10:41 (6,792 days old) by geoffdelp (SAUK RAPIDS)
Checkrate/Likes Uggh ... I can't imagine not rinsing; scratch, scratch, scratch!!! And not rinsing/cleaning the washing machine after laundry. When I helped repair Maytag wringers, I found some users did not clean out the machine after use; just emptied the water. Sometimes, it was darned near impossible to remove the agitator and the sediment zone underneath the agitator would be caked with crud/dirt. Yuck; I would think that would float back into the clothes. I always left them with instructions on removing the agitator, rinsing the tub out thoroughly and placing Vaseline on the agitator shaft at least once a month. Always read the manual before first use!!! :-)

Post# 84280 , Reply# 15 9/21/2005 at 04:34 (6,791 days old) by kenmore1978 ()
Checkrate/Likes *Tide* A friend of mine used to be a appliance repairman and he said he could always tell when people used Tide, because the machine parts were always eaten up.

Post# 84293 , Reply# 16 9/21/2005 at 07:36 (6,791 days old) by frigilux (The Minnesota Prairie)
Checkrate/Likes designgeek-- I was also amazed to find Maytag was still making wringer machines in the early 80's. Too bad they aren't making one now, with touchscreen computerized controls. That would definitely be a strange marriage of old and new technology.

Post# 84301 , Reply# 17 9/21/2005 at 08:15 (6,791 days old) by designgeek ()
Checkrate/Likes Eek!, not another touch-panel electronic control! Give me back my mechanical levers and switches and rotary knobs and timers that go tick-tick-tick instead of "beep!" Re. cleaning the machine: Was there something about the way the agitator & tub on the wringer units was designed, that required taking the agitator off, that's different from what we'd see in an automatic TL? And what about automatic TLs from e.g. the 1950s to present? I really can't imagine Jane Doe from the 50s or 60s taking a great big wrench to their GE Filter Flo or whatever, and removing the agitator a couple of times a month. I would think that the occasional loads with bleach would keep the outer tub sanitized, and leaving the lid open would prevent mold. And sediment would get pumped out with each load. It seems to me that there's something basic that I don't know about the way wringers are designed & operate, that's obvious to anyone who has one or repairs them. Re. vaseline: was that used because it was a clear non-staining equivalent of what we normally think of as very dark heavy grease? (And does that make Vaseline suitable for use as a general thick grease, for example on certain types of power tools?) (Pardon the really dumb question, but is Vaseline flammable?)

Post# 84325 , Reply# 18 9/21/2005 at 10:13 (6,791 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes Rex first: For the brief time that the Tide was in the wash water, it did not damage the aluminum tub but, of course, you had to rinse it out, just as you had to rinse the wringer rollers with running water. When I rinse the wringer washer, I can't resist playing in the water so I start the agitation and let the hose start filling the tub. After an inch or two of water get in the machine, that slow stroke Gyrator slaps it so hard, it sends it flying. It almost resembles a dishwasher on Qualude, maybe. Actually the aluminum tub was no worse with Tide than with the very strong washing soda and lye soap that was used before detergents. One CU article shows an early Maytag wringer washer that had a tall post drive and the damage to the aluminum if the strong wash solution sat in the tub overnight. It looked like something Lilo and Stitch attacked. Georgio next: The agitator just lifted out with an upward tug if you kept everything clean, dry and greased. You actually greased the splines at the top of the transmission shaft and that transferred the coating to the ones inside the base of the agitator. People who used these machines followed these directions. Maytags were very expensive washers. Most people who had them, or even early automatics, had lived through the Great Depression and knew the value of everything. Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. Wasteful ways make woeful wants. Most people buying a wringer washer had used tubs and scrub boards to wash clothes. Clothes were put in a strong soap solution to soak overnight. That was drained and the sink or tub was filled with hot water, which usually had to be heated in those old copper, if you had money, or tinned steel if you didn't, boilers on a stove. My Father's mother had, in her basement just across from the washer, a kerosene stove with 3 burners in a row across the front for the boiler. The big , clear reservoir of kerosene was pretty neat. So when doing all of this by hand, you scrubbed dirty places with soap and the washboard and plunged each piece up and down in the soapy wash water. Then you either twisted things to wring out by hand, or used a hand-cranked wringer that was bolted between sinks if you were lucky enough to have them. Think about doing all of the sheets by hand. Oh yeah, the old laundry sinks were low and deep, so you were bent over this hot soapy water most of the time. If you were washing diapers or other white things, they might be put on to boil while you washed everything else so that all of the soap would dissolve and rinse free of the fabric because if it stayed, it irritated and in things that were ironed, remaining soap caused an ugly brown stain when hit with a hot iron. So if you were lucky enough to have a machine that agitated the laundry for you and provided a powered wringer, you knew that you were damn lucky and took care of it. Maytag's Belly Button was not the power switch. You plugged the machine into an outlet and the motor ran. You quickly pulled the belly button out to engage the transmission and it could make some horrible noises if pulled out slowly or not fully engaged. The reason the machines had to be taken apart and rinsed was that it was the only way to rinse the strong cleaning agents from all parts of the machines and to make sure, when you were washing with soap, that you got all of the curd and goo rinsed off all of the parts. If you had a drain pump, you had to take the agitator out to clean the porcelain strainer/pump guard. Automatics did not need this so much because rinsing was done in the same tub. That's why it states in so many early automatic washer ads that, "It washes, rinses, spins dry, cleans itself and shuts off, all automatically." If the wringer rollers were not rinsed and /or the tension not released, the rollers could stick together and that might lead to tearing of the covering and money spent on repair, woe, woe, etc. Jaune, when a friend got a new Hotpoint washer in the early 60s, the man who delivered it told her that Tide would eat it up, so if she wanted it to last, use something else. Mom always rinsed everything twice and it must have prevented corrosion from the lingering alkalinity because service people told her our washer looked like new inside compared with others they worked on.

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