Thread Number: 70941
/ Tag: Vintage Automatic Washers
POD 5/19/2017 |
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Post# 939337 , Reply# 1   5/19/2017 at 07:25 (2,505 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!)   |   | |
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The extraction (using the term loosely) was worse than a wringer. The '47 bolt-down I had was a miserable performer by most any standard. You could still wring a bit of water from clothes by hand when the cycle was over. The small drum didn't allow much tumble space for a large load of clothes and the poor extraction made for terrible rinsing. Anecdotal accounts of being able to spot the "Bendix wash" on lines in neighborhoods for the gray and dingy color was the most telling. Bendix attempted to alleviate this by advising users to hang the washing in bright sunshine for the natural bleaching action. Nice.
Despite all of this, Bendix sold millions of them for exactly the reasons you point out, fully automatic, less intensive labor and no chapped hands, wet laundry rooms, etc. Bruce, we saw there were some big storms around Tulsa, hope all is well with you :-) |
Post# 939349 , Reply# 2   5/19/2017 at 10:23 (2,505 days old) by Mrsalvo (New Braunfels Texas)   |   | |
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Bruce, yes, we hope you survived the storms that moved through the area yesterday with no problems. Down here in Texas we were under sever weather watches all day yesterday. I never saw a Bendex washer. That was back before my time. |
Post# 939482 , Reply# 5   5/20/2017 at 07:01 (2,504 days old) by Frigilux (The Minnesota Prairie)   |   | |
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For all its faults, can you imagine how exciting it must have been to own the first automatic washer? The ability to put dry laundry into the machine, walk away, and come back to a (very) damp-dried load ready to hang on the line must have been mind-blowing.
This 1936 Bendix was a game-changer in the world of laundry. |
Post# 939520 , Reply# 7   5/20/2017 at 13:27 (2,504 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)   |   | |
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The first automatic washers in Europe were American machines, some years before the European machines came on the market here. The very first one was a Bendix frontloader that entered the country in 1947 and that was installed in a house in Rotterdam. I know of several families that had a GE toploader washer and sometimes a GE dryer. And I've seen ads for Westinghouse washing machines.
Constructa is considered the first manufacturer who brought out a European frontloader. here's a video of an early model from 1953. IIRC, the first one came out in 1951. The machine would have been bolted down under normal circumstances. |
Post# 939522 , Reply# 8   5/20/2017 at 13:37 (2,504 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)   |   | |
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The first fully automatic (H-axis) toploader came a few years later on the market in Switzerland. It was a V-Zug Unimatic, a beast of a machine. H-axis toploaders were more popular in Europe than the V-axis machines, except for the UK in those years.
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Post# 939524 , Reply# 9   5/20/2017 at 14:18 (2,504 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)   |   | |
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In the first few years that the European automatic washing machines were on the market, they were very expensive. The machine that made automatic washing affordable was the AEG Turnamat especially in the Netherlands and I think also in Germany. It was an H-axis twintub. Two drums, a washing and rinsing drum on the left and the spinner on the right. Washing and rinsing (5 or 6 rinses, depending on the brand) were done fully automatic. No spinning between rinses, therefor lots of water was used. After that you only had to put the wet laundry in the spinner. The Turnamat and similar machines from other brands were relatively cheap. And soon huge trade in sums were paid for old wringer washers and the not so very popular V-axis twintub. It made an automatic affordable, around 1960 they were not much more expensive than a non-automatic twintub like the Hoovermatic. Although machines like the Hoovermatic were very popular in the UK, they didn't appeal to the customers on the continent. On the other hand, the Turnamat never really caught on in the UK. Perhaps that has something to do with the bigger size of the Turnamat. In the UK a lot of people have the washing machine in the kitchen, a Turnamat wouldn't really fit in a kitchen, but that is only a guess. Here's a commercial for a Turnamat (in Dutch).
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Post# 939635 , Reply# 10   5/21/2017 at 08:22 (2,503 days old) by brucelucenta ()   |   | |
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Thank you, that bit of history is quite interesting. I always thought it interesting that different types of washers were popular in some places, but not others. |
Post# 939747 , Reply# 11   5/22/2017 at 09:44 (2,502 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)   |   | |
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You're welcome Bruce. The European market was very different from the American market. Every country had it's own manufacturers and therefor it's own preferenced type of machine. France was a typical H-axis toploader country like this VEDETTE 834 Super:
In Italy however frontloaders were more popular. But to go back to the first Bendix machines and the first Constructa's, they were totally different. The Constructa was hooked up to cold water only and had a huge built in heater. Most early European frontloaders ran on 380V. Lots of power there to heat water up to boiling point or just below that. The Constructa was also different that it had a soak, prewash and main wash cycle and I think it spins a bit faster too. On the other side the Bendix was most likely more affordable than the more complicated Constructa. Now if you have any questions, just ask. |
Post# 940761 , Reply# 12   5/29/2017 at 05:49 (2,495 days old) by deconstruction (WEESP, The Netherlands)   |   | |
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Does anyone have technical information (e.g. technical parts drawing) of the drain-pump used in the AEG Turna S? * |
Post# 940772 , Reply# 13   5/29/2017 at 08:44 (2,495 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)   |   | |
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Post# 940777 , Reply# 14   5/29/2017 at 09:09 (2,495 days old) by deconstruction (WEESP, The Netherlands)   |   | |
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