Whatever happened to the actual CUBE-SHAPED Ice from Frigidaire?! (Or Montgomery Ward's TRU CUBE?!)

Likewise, what shape did Amana use?! Gibson?! Admiral?! Norge?! 

-- Dave

I think Servel called those early cubes "Ice Circles."  Servel sure wanted people to know those early Servels had an ice maker...there were gold letters on the outside of the freezer door that said AUTOMATIC ICE MAKER, the handle on the food compartment door said Automatic Ice Maker, and then when you opened the freezer door letters at the top of the compartment said AUTOMATIC ICE MAKER. The ice maker itself would be pretty hard to miss since it took up almost half of the freezer.

As I recall, most manufacturer's had limited success with their own ice maker designs. Frigidaire's conveyor belt models had many problems. I had one of their models that made small square cubes by turning a tray up side down and twisting it. GE had some weird units that made these little barrel-shaped cubes with a hole in the middle. The old Servel/Whirlpool Ice Magic seems to be the most dependable of them all, but then I haven't been around the service area for decades.

I'm like Kevin, I like clear cubes for drinks. I have a Monogram (made by Whirlpool) ice maker in my kitchen island that makes clear cubes but it's an expensive thing to use. Filtered water from a reservoir flows over a refrigerated plate until the desired thickness is achieved. Then the plate heats and the ice sheet slides down to a wire grid. The grid heats and the the cubes fall through to a bin. The process repeats until the bin is full. The bin itself is insulated but not refrigerated so the ice stays separated but is constantly melting. In a bar or restaurant there's usually a floor drain to take care of the melting ice. The unit I have has a small pump and sensor so in addition to a water supply it needs a drain. All in all, it's a pricey way to enjoy clear cubes. I prefer to buy Sparkletts Ice at the market, clear and made from Sparkletts drinking water. It's an inexpensive luxury I enjoy in my twilight years.

I do have an ice maker in my Whirlpool freezer, a separate unit next to my all-refrigerator. I use that ice for things like wine and champagne buckets or small Igloo coolers. To keep the ice maker in good order I dump the bin periodically. I've learned not to do this by dumping the ice on the back lawn. One night I "dumped" right before bed and my dog went out there through her door and brought all the ice cubes back in the house. Cubes were everywhere! Silly Springer Spaniel.

Many years ago I had the ice maker instruction booklet that came with the first Servels. Every page had instructions from some little gnome-like person called "Yahoody" which the book said was the guy who turned the refrigerator light on and off. I remember one page where Yahoody said "don't hoard Ice Circles because they develop beards (frost) like old men." It was a funky little book but I can't imagine any manufacturer using a "Yahoody" to explain anything, not in today's high-tech world. I wish I would have kept it.

Tom, have you forgotten what weak airplane coffee tastes like?

Sounding like THIS would be the right time for--:

-- Dave

That have been used in home refrigerators over the past 65 years or so.

Yes Servel started it all with crescent shaped ICs with the worlds frist in freezer home ice-maker that produced zero degree ice fully automatically. The crescent shape is the easiest shape to make because it makes for a very durable IM that does not have to have water seals in the mold for a pusher mechanism to eject the cubes, instead the cubs can just be swept out from above with a rotating set of fingers.

Whirlpool bought Servel in the mid 50s and has been producing crescent cube IMs ever since. Once the patents fully expired on the CC IMs around the mid 80s GE made an almost perfect copy of WPs Compact IM that WP had used since around 1964. Since this time almost everyone else has copied this basic CC design. As late as the 70s WP was building the IMs for about 9 out of 12 brands of refrigerators sold in the US.

Automatic IMs that relied on plastic trays that flexed to release ICs are much more troublesome and prone to problems. Several US ref makers found this out the hard way, [ GM Frigidaire , Gibson, Adrimial, Westinghouse, and even WP tried to make a cheaper IM from about 1977-84 [ the Flex-Mold ], all of these designs are long gone because of excessive problems. Today only the Koreans are stupid enough to try selling plastic tray IMs in some LG and Samsung refs, but it not a great loss as these refs are not lasting long enough in many cases for the IM to be the major problem, LOL.

All US refs today use some version of a crescent cube IM in thier refs. Yes the crescent shaped ice cube is not the best shape for round drinking glasses, but you can crush the cubes or buy squared glasses.

There were better IC shapes in the past, All plastic tray IMs made at least partly squared ICs and GE made cylinder shaped ICs in there first IM design [ 1968-1986 ] before GE switched to their WP copy. GEs ICs never had a hole in the middle.

We have quite a collection of unusual early IMs from early refs that came with them here at the warehouse. I even have a 1967 FD bottom freezer model that has a working conveyor belt IM that works, FD called this IM " AIS " for Automatic Ice Service, this IM drops the cubes in a door mounted ice bucket. We also have a bottom freezer GE ref from 1968 that had the GE Snap-Action IM that actually throws the ice forward into the ice bucket for even distribution of the ice.

John L.

I think it's time to suggest to some participants that they read before they type.

My neighbor's PENNCREST side by side made hallow round cubes. Perhaps it was malfunctioning.  Maybe a resident brainiac would know which manufacturer's ice maker made cubes like this.

You had to drink fast before the best parts melted away...

If a GE IM was making hollow ICs it was malfunctioning, usually an under fill condition  can cause the ice to be at least partly hollow, this also happens with crescent cube IMs, I have had customers complain after I fix their CC IMs because they liked the hollow ICs, LOL.

Cloudy vs clear ICs, when water is frozen in a mold to temperatures down toward zero degrees F you see have some air trapped in the ice making it cloudy, it does not hurt a thing and is actually pretty. Clear ice is either made with water flowing over the freezing grid or it just isn't very cold [ you will see fairly clear ice cubes in ice trays in freezers that are not working properly, this is one of the ways I can tell a freezer is not cooling properly ]

Ice made in ice machines like the one in the video melts a LOT faster and dilutes your drinks much more than cloudy 0 degree ICs from a good home freezers IM. We hear this all the time from customers that have both a clear ice machine and an in freezer IM. Yes ice from a combination refrigerator-freezer can taste bad if food is not properly stored, usually an activated charcoal filter in the ref section will greatly help or eliminate this problem.

Hi Brent, GE built this style IM from approximately 1968-1986, they were dropped because of cost to build and reliably issues, the dark gray mold is cast aluminum.

I never saw a MC ref that made round ice especially in the 90s these GE IMs were long gone by then, Most MCs [ really Adrimal ] had a flex tray IM, these did have a rounded cube on the bottom and square on the top.

I think a lot of bottled water companies tend to be regional. Sparkletts is fairly popular here in Southern California. I think the same company is known as Alhambra Water in Northern California. I assume they make ice too. Most markets here don't have Sparkletts ice but oddly enough Walgreen's has it. I'm sure most commercially available clear ice is equally as good. Sparkletts is just filtered water, not from some exotic spring at the top of Mt. Everest. 

My 70's era GE sxs made little barrel shaped cubes that were just fine. I recall having to replace the water valve at some point, but the ice maker didn't seem to have any issues. However, around 2000 I decided the GE was using way too much electricity (about 1700 kWH/yr) than its replacement (KA sxs at 650 kWH/yr) and out went the GE.

The KA makes the ice crescents, and yes, I preferred the barrel shaped cubes.

The best ice cube trays I ever encountered were in a hotel room in Japan in the 1990's. They were little bottles with one side having dimples for making ice. Once the water was frozen, there was enough room in the bottle to shake the cubes loose. The cap on the bottle kept the ice from absorbing off-odors or doing the partial remelt/refreeze frost thingie. I have been unable to locate anything like it in the USA, which is too bad. It's a great design.

If that GE cube design made a comeback across the various brands, it would be a must-have for me on my next refrigerator purchase.   We've all put up with those ridiculous crescents for far too long.

There may be a few brand names for those big spheres, which I think are a variation on the giant cube suggested for a Vieux Carre cocktail (see picture).  I find the mold difficult to fill, as you can't see what you're doing.  The type I have is a "Tovolo Clear Ice System" and makes two spheres (see further below).  The one on the top comes out partially clouded; the bottom one crystal clear.   It was a gift.   I've used it a grand total of one time.   I also have a rubbery tray that makes four large cubes.  It was also a gift, from the same person.  I've used that once or twice.

My barber and I talk booze and cars all the time.  He freezes spheres in the mold, then extracts them, puts them in a plastic bag and repeats the process so he'll have more than two available at any given time.  Still too much work for me, particularly since our fridge has an automatic ice maker.  Besides, when I mix myself a drink it rarely lasts so long as to become seriously diluted.

These did make a better shape ice cube but they were far too troublesome, the day the last patents expired on the Whirlpool compact IM GE had a Japanese company produce an exact copy [ even the parts would interchange ] of the WP IM and GE stopped making their IM over the next couple years completely.

John L.