Anyone still use a Twintub?

[broadgage]

One rather clever trick involves TWO similar twin tub washing machines.
Very useful if large amounts of laundry are to be dyed the same colour.

Dye is expensive, and most of it goes down the drain. To avoid this waste proceed as follows.

Put articles to be dyed in machine A, add water and dye. Run the wash cycle.
When finished, pump the dye solution, not down the drain but into machine B.
Add the second load of things to be dyed, more water and a little more dye.

Continue as needed, transferring the dye from one machine to the other.

[suebutcher]

Well, you could just pump the dye from the spinner back into the tub, you wouldn't need a second machine if you've got one that spins and washes at the same time. Or have I missed something here?

[dave walsh]

Further to the comments about Drying Frames [post 44*- known as a "Rack" in Ramsbottom/Bury] these were common when I was a child. Good for space saving in a small terraced house and lightweight-to enable hauling washing up towards the ceiling...where, as said, the warm air collects!

When I moved to my Scrap Yard/former Model Lodging House in Rammy one of the original features was/is a very substantial frame embedded in the kitchen ceiling which would be very difficult to lift if not fixed in place, even without the wet clothes!
It's nearly always the first thing people comment on and ask was it used for the washing? I'm still not sure. It's in front of a blanked off large fireplace opening so that might be a clue? I suppose the potential for a Homes and Gardens type trendy kitchen, with the rack having Copper pans etc suspended from it, exists but it hasn't happened yet.

Dave W

[kirstyd]

My mum went through at least three Hoover TT's in some 30 years. Our first house didn't have a bathroom so mum would fill the Hoovermatic with cold water and turn on the heater. Once the water was warm she would stand me in the machine and give me a bath. Next it would be my sister's turn I hasten to add we were both little more than toddlers at the time. That machine finally gave up the ghost around 1968 after washing for a family of six. The next Hoovermatic [first one to have the three controls on the top] arrived soon after. On this machine the spin motor stood on three rubber legs, after a while these rubber legs would snap. My dad got so used to replacing them he could do it in his sleep. He eventually got sick of this job and replaced the rubber legs with three empty cotton reels with bolts right through the middle. That lasted till the machine was replaced with yet another [latest model]Hoovermatic [I think this one was known as a Hoover Wash Dog]

[matthewhouse]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

Speaking of driers, does anyone remember the "Flatley" ?

Yes we used to have one, but it was scrapped about 10 years ago. Very simple device, the mains flex just connected directly to the one element. It used to live on the half landing.

There is an old water boiler still used at a local club, it is very well built indeed. The sight glass is a nice touch.

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by matthewhouse

There is an old water boiler still used at a local club, it is very well built indeed. The sight glass is a nice touch.

Nice! Though I don't think the tap is original....

[Lancs Lad]

I remember when I was a toddler in the 1970s, my Mother had a Hoover Twosome. It was a separate, but matching, washing machine and spin dryer combo (see pic)

My job on washday was to open and close the spinner lid, thereby stopping and starting it. Also, because we only had the one single socket in our kitchen, I had the job of unplugging and plugging in whichever machine Mum needed to use. Which could be quite often if there were several loads of laundry to get through.

The electric flex cables were grey, and sort of ribbed or grooved on the outside - possibly rubber maybe?

Both machines had the classic MK 1960s plugs on - in ivory, though, which I thought was rather posh!

[Lancs Lad]

Just to add, the washing machine didn't have a central agitator like twin tubs did. Instead, there was a spinning contoured disc, inset into the side wall of the washtub.

This created a sort of 'rolling boil' type of action when submerged below the soapy water. I think Hoover were quite proud of this innovative feature - it was called The Pulsator!

[matthewhouse]

We had that on ours, as a little boy I could never work out how such a flat disc moved the washing so much! To be honest, I still don't know...

[AC/HL]

When first married, we had just the washer part before upgrading to a Hoovermatic. That subsequently ended it's days in Zambia of all places.

[1100 man]

Originally Posted by Lancs Lad

The electric flex cables were grey, and sort of ribbed or grooved on the outside - possibly rubber maybe?

Both machines had the classic MK 1960s plugs on - in ivory, though, which I thought was rather posh!

Hi Peter,
The newest of my fan heaters (GEC 'Tropicana' from the early '70s) has the same rather unusual grey, ribbed mains cable- I've never seen it on anything else! It's 3 core PVC with red, black & green cores. (as it would be from that age). The MK plug met with a sticky end when I blasted a chunk out of it's pins when I was a kid, 40 years ago!
I had my lunch sitting in front of it today!

Nice story, by the way!

Cheers
Nick

[Lancs Lad]

Hi Nick.

Thanks for your story, too. I'm intrigued to know what you were doing with that plug to blast a chunk out of the pins. Sounds dangerous!

[emeritus]

Grey ribbed rubber mains cable (still in excellent condition) is used on my Hornby Dublo A3 power unit, which dates from 1954. I remember dad buying some ribbed rubber mains cable in the 1960's to replace the flex of mum's iron.

[Old Sparky]

I have an old twin tub with wheels in my garage stripped out to just the outer case and the top cover. It is awaiting having the front cut up to make twin doors and the top fixing permanently in place then a shelf put inside (all by pop rivets). When finished it will be a mobile tool/parts store - meanwhile it is a movable store.

[suebutcher]

Here's the Lightburn "King Size" twin tub, based on a cement mixer mechanism. They were use commercially and by the Australian armed forces, but were also sold as a heavy duty domestic machine.

[Lancs Lad]

Ooh! I like that!

What a clever design.

[suebutcher]

This is my standby machine, a 1967 Lightburn Big Twin, after its first wash load in fourteen years. It was supposed to replace the Sanyo, but that one's still going strong after a quarter century. The wash action on these is a back-and-forth slopping powered by a swinging paddle. The water and detergent level has to be just right or you get Fury From The Deep all over the laundry floor! The three controls are spin clutch, wash motor switch, and wash tub drain pinch valve. There's a clip of the similar Lightburn Easy Twin machine on Youtube; search for "Lightburn Smackulation".

[Lancs Lad]

That's really nice, Sue.

Does it have a built in heater?

[Lancs Lad]

It was the same story with the spinning Pulsator disc in the Hoover Twosome! When the pump was switched on to empty the water out, it also powered up the Pulsator disc, which meant that, as the water level dropped, the disc gradually became exposed.

So, if the lid wasn't on the tub, soapy water was whipped up out of the machine and flung everywhere. The Pulsator disc was very powerful, so the deluge of water it created was relentless, and very far-reaching.

We very rarely forgot to put the lid on after the first couple of soapy showers.

[Croozer]

Sunday, December 199x, Morningside, Edinburgh. Event although it's 11am, the first frost of winter still grip world outside as weak sunlight streams through the kitchen window, illuminating an industrious figure at one end of the kitchen, jabbing an aggressive boiler-stick through the steam as the fire roars up the chimney.

Despite the being inhabited by the intellectual 'creme de la creme' - students of the Edinburgh University- the Mistress Cxxx is the only tenant capable of the choreography of hoses, water, buckets and basins necessary for the weekly wash for six with the Hoovermatic twin tub.

Evidence of wash day beflags the ceiling - despite warnings from Mistress Cxxx's grandmother that ladies' underwear could not be hung from the pulley without the risk of inflaming the passions of the boys in residence.

Messers Dxxx, Mxxx, and Mistress Jxxx sit round the kitchen table, sharing an eclectic variety of newspapers - Sunday Times, Scotland on sunday and (shamefully) the Sunday sport (its ironic! Honest!), nursing various stages of hangover which Mr. Mxxx aims to either cure or kill with effort from a frying pan and a gas ring at the other end of the kitchen. The smell of frying bacon competes with Persil soap flakes, and a kettle's whistle pierces through the BBC Scotland Sunday morning broadcast of Scottish country dance music (put the battery in the oven and it'll last until the 12.00 news....)

The twin tub has a black propeller-like 'pulsator' (behave now boys!) which causes usually separate items especially those with sleeves, legs etc. to be come conjoined as one long rope, and the Mistress Cxxx is fighting a losing battle with a wooden spoon and boiler stick to separate the garments before spinning.

But the observant among you will notice one of our number is missing... Six in the flat and only five in the kitchen. Where is Mr Wxxx? An early attender at Cluny Parish Church - or a Saturday night casualty?

Mistress Cxxx's voice slices through the steam from beyond the twin tub. "The clothes are done. The linen is next. I've only five sheets - whose are missing?"

The kitchen door opens with a blast of air as cold as Mistress Cxxx's stare. Not one, but two pairs of eyes appear in the frame: Mr W xx with a bundle of sheets in one hand and an unidentified young lady in the other. An uncomfortable silence descends as those of us who can hide behind our broadsheets and supplements. Mistress Cxxx points an accusatory boilerstick at the doorway. "Well - they'll have soiled theirselves noo!"