kenmore visi-matic with spray rinsing wringer question

Back in the heyday of Aworg, Greg Gansky1 would treat us on holidays like Memorial Day, the Fourth, Labor day, and randomly as the spirit moved him, to gigantic threads of scans from his vintage Sears Catalogs. It took many of us back to our childhood days when we devoured every word and dreamed about the pictures. One time Greg did a scan of a spray rinsing wringer, and I nearly lost my feces. After the excitement came so many questions: How does the water get into the wringer? Wouldn't the rinse water flow back into the wash water? Do you have to keep the pump on, lest the rinsage overflow the tub? Etcetera.

Then years later, something appeared in the ephemera and it was breath-taking. The Visimatic Spray Rinsing Wringer is the most complex and highly engineered wringer in history. It attaches to the water supply by way of a standard inlet hose leading to a valve on the wringer head. A copper tube, with multiple openings travels across the width of the wringer, saturating the soapy laundry before it hits the rollers. Think about the way a 1-18 sprays a load. Next, the sprayed water falls into a much larger than usual drain tray.

AND THEN--now, hold on to your party hats!--the water exits via a short hose into the sink, diverted from the wash tub where wrung wash water usually goes. How Brilliant. It may have been a bit cumbersome, but this is only a guess, to move the wringer around with the hose attached, and thus not a crowd pleaser.
Another memory from the ephemera is that it also had a valve switch that would allow you to FILL or RINSE, and the the volume of the water flow was adjustable. Dying some day to see that fill flume.* And, the crowd be damned, there is nothing I wouldn't do, give, or pay to have this cumbersome engineering miracle some day.

* Could be confusing the fill/rinse option with the Apex version of this wringer.

PS: If I find my misplaced ephemera, will return with more info.

Good Day,

Michael, MickeyD, named not after Mc Donald's but in honor of my adored Aunt Mickey (Lenore) who let me play with her Easy Spindrier


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Post# 1125254 8/7/2021 at 09:36 (992 days old) by thedrycleaner (walton)
Checkrate/Likes hello washer friends its the old dry cleaner with a question,does anyone have the kenmore visimatic with the spray rinsing wringer? I have a 64 visimatic with the 2 speed feature and the lint filter that is under the lid. but I have only read about the spray rinsing wringer that the visimatics had. can anyone show me one of these marvels? thanks the dry cleaner

Post# 1125312 , Reply# 1 8/7/2021 at 21:36 (992 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes 1 That was only one brand like an Apex or something that had the spray rinsing wringer. It was a design fraught with weak points.

Post# 1125313 , Reply# 2 8/7/2021 at 21:44 (992 days old) by Yogitunes (New Jersey)
Checkrate/Likes our own Dick Stevenson had one of those.... View Full Size

Post# 1125316 , Reply# 3 8/7/2021 at 22:22 (992 days old) by norgeway (mocksville n c )
Checkrate/Likes *The Visi Matic spray rinse wringer* Was made in 1958 only i think.

Post# 1125320 , Reply# 4 8/8/2021 at 03:03 (991 days old) by Adam-aussie-vac (Canberra ACT)
Checkrate/Likes *How did it work? Was there a nozzle* Or set of nozzles that sprayed water onto the clothes to rinse them out right before them getting wrung out?

Post# 1125321 , Reply# 5 8/8/2021 at 03:50 (991 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There�s a Lady on Stage)
Checkrate/Likes See reply 10: www.automaticwasher.org/c...

Post# 1125324 , Reply# 6 8/8/2021 at 05:11 (991 days old) by HobartHero (New York)
Checkrate/Likes *Cool idea* Seems like a great idea in theory if it was designed properly. I wonder why it didn�t last or nobody was persistent with trying to make it work. I have a standard lady Kenmore machine just like the one described. Anyone have leads to pump replacement parts? That�s a common failure point and there�s not much available. -Shannon

Post# 1125327 , Reply# 7 8/8/2021 at 05:56 (991 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There�s a Lady on Stage)
Checkrate/Likes *Likely was more of a gimmick then useful* Having used both hand cranked an power wringers (latter being my Maytag), can see little usefulness in spraying water on items just before they go into mangle. Already many things are bunched or otherwise close together in order to fit through mangle, thus whatever water is sprayed onto things likely doesn't get to go very far before it's squeezed out. Main issue of course is one still has wash (at least with first attempt) that is laden with soap or detergent. At least with Hoover twin tubs of old (and other spin driers that rinsed) one could fill spin tub with water, slosh things about, then extract. This gave better results than merely spray rinsing. Rinsing is a process of dilution, you need to have things soak up clean water that will displace soapy and dirty water in fabrics. We know know from another thread in this forum how important rinsing is to good wash days.

Post# 1125328 , Reply# 8 8/8/2021 at 06:01 (991 days old) by HobartHero (New York)
Checkrate/Likes *I agree* Definitely not as effective as a soaking rinse but I�m more surprised it didn�t catch on with customers who wanted to save time, despite the diminished rinse results. After all many �average� folks don�t care about proper wash techniques as most of us do. -Shannon

Post# 1125636 , Reply# 11 8/12/2021 at 13:35 (987 days old) by Kenmoreguy89 (Valenza Piemonte, Italy- Soon to be US immigrant.)
Checkrate/Likes Same doubts Launderess expressed. I say that water doesn't penetrate clothes enough to rinse then wringing afterwards. Different is for TT's spinners and TL's, with TT's you usually had to fill the spinner all the way, plunge the stuff a little bit fire the spin and keep the spray going for several minutes. Spraying as they pass through a wringer would be nearly useless

Post# 1125339 , Reply# 9 8/8/2021 at 10:36 (991 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There�s a Lady on Stage)
Checkrate/Likes 2 Well if Madame or anyone else was doing laundry with soap, then first rinse must be in hot or at least warm water. I for one would not want to be standing over that mangle as hot water was being constantly sprayed over laundry. Oh and think of the creases...... Next consider how much water that spray rinse thingy used. To have all that water spraying down as each item was lifted from tub and put into wringer likely added up to significant usage. Better results and likely using less or maybe same amount of water could be had by rinsing in tubs. Finally other point is all that spray rinsing sent water down into tub. This would dilute suds. Unless one was planning on draining water anyway, how you've got colder water (if used cool water for spray rinse), and it's cleaning power is diluted as well. Most using wringers tried to get two, three or more wash loads done from same water. You just added a bit more soap/detergent for each successive load. Long as water remained hot or warm you were good to go. Maytag and others advertised their TOL models kept wash water hotter longer (insulated tubs), to make this easier. Once diluted and cooled from all that spray rinse water tub would have to be partially drained, then filled with hot water and more detergent or soap. Another thing.... One assumes this spray rinse contraption required connection somehow to a steady supply of water. One reason many housewives stuck with wringer washers well into post war era was they didn't have indoor plumbing, or not at least where they did laundry. Beauty of a semi automatic washer is you didn't need permanent water connections. This post was last edited 08/08/2021 at 12:05

Post# 1125613 , Reply# 10 8/12/2021 at 09:39 (987 days old) by mickeyd (Hamburg NY)
Checkrate/Likes *Hello, Bill the Dry Cleaner* Back in the heyday of Aworg, Greg Gansky1 would treat us on holidays like Memorial Day, the Fourth, Labor day, and randomly as the spirit moved him, to gigantic threads of scans from his vintage Sears Catalogs. It took many of us back to our childhood days when we devoured every word and dreamed about the pictures. One time Greg did a scan of a spray rinsing wringer, and I nearly lost my feces. After the excitement came so many questions: How does the water get into the wringer? Wouldn't the rinse water flow back into the wash water? Do you have to keep the pump on, lest the rinsage overflow the tub? Etcetera. Then years later, something appeared in the ephemera and it was breath-taking. The Visimatic Spray Rinsing Wringer is the most complex and highly engineered wringer in history. It attaches to the water supply by way of a standard inlet hose leading to a valve on the wringer head. A copper tube, with multiple openings travels across the width of the wringer, saturating the soapy laundry before it hits the rollers. Think about the way a 1-18 sprays a load. Next, the sprayed water falls into a much larger than usual drain tray. AND THEN--now, hold on to your party hats!--the water exits via a short hose into the sink, diverted from the wash tub where wrung wash water usually goes. How Brilliant. It may have been a bit cumbersome, but this is only a guess, to move the wringer around with the hose attached, and thus not a crowd pleaser. Another memory from the ephemera is that it also had a valve switch that would allow you to FILL or RINSE, and the the volume of the water flow was adjustable. Dying some day to see that fill flume.* And, the crowd be damned, there is nothing I wouldn't do, give, or pay to have this cumbersome engineering miracle some day. * Could be confusing the fill/rinse option with the Apex version of this wringer. PS: If I find my misplaced ephemera, will return with more info. Good Day, Michael, MickeyD, named not after Mc Donald's but in honor of my adored Aunt Mickey (Lenore) who let me play with her Easy Spindrier