The Historic District

I thought I'd share some pictures of our "daily driver" vacuum for cleaning the rugs in our house. It's a 1929 Hoover model 725, which was the replacement for the model 700. The model 725 had a slightly more powerful motor than the 700 and was produced from 1929-1931. The service life of this vacuum is a testament to the quality that went into these things. A repairman made notes on the bottom of six times the vacuum was serviced, the first time being 1934 and the last in 1982. The neat thing is all the dates appear to be in the same handwriting. This was found in a small town in West Virginia, so it's entirely likely the vacuum was taken to the same repairman over the 48 year period it was serviced. All motor parts appeared to be original, so it wouldn't surprise me if the service calls were to replace a belt or the beater bar brushes.

Restoration of this vacuum required only a good cleaning, re-greasing of all the bearings, new brushes in the beater bar, new belt, and a replacement bag due to the old one losing a battle with moths. The motor on these vacuums do not need regular oiling like some others of the era did. Hopefully she'll provide another 88 years of service!

Well I hope our Dyson lasts that long. But I won't be around to find out.

Wow - that's so great. You should contact Hoover to let them know. It's pretty amazing, and a testament to the superiority of old things that were made right.

Amazing longevity! They really made them to last, and look good doing it.

That's really neat, especially the maintenance record.

1918 - What a snappy looking Hoover - just love it!

I never imagined I would say this, but I have vacuum cleaner envy now

as a young man, my father sold and repaired vacuum cleaners....he moved on to sell and repair larger industrial tools but always knew his way around an Electrolux vac or tornado polishing machine...as a young woman, I worked in my father's shop...when an armature (the copper coiled 'guts' that were surrounded by a magnetic 'field') got worn by the carbon brushes we would perform a 'T&C'...T&C stands for 'turn and cut'...the brushes wear down on the copper commutator and cause a 'saddle' to form...in a lathe, we would 'turn' down the copper to make it smooth then 'cut' a separation in the bars...put the motor back together with a new set of brushes and off you go for another decade of service before the armature needed another T&C... http://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.dU-Wq ... h&pid=15.1 see the small separated sections at the left with a black mark? the black mark is from the brushes... this is what it looks like after a T&C... http://tse4.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.5ysg_ ... s&pid=15.1 TAAADAAAHHH!

...jade...wow, that brings back some fond memories!

The hoover looks nice! I bet with a good belt and brushes it works fine.


I have a Rexair.

I laugh at Dyson ads. they seem to try to convince people they were the first to invent this revolutionary method of the bagless system and trapping dust with water and air currents.. but it was invented long ago. to me , that claim makes me just feel like dyson are liars.

"In 1936, T. Russ Hill joined Rexair. Inspired by street cleaners in Kentucky, Hill came up with the idea of incorporating water into the Rexair design, claiming that this would trap dust and dirt. Rexair developed a new slogan: "Wet Dust Can't Fly!" Rexair claims that, by the late 1930s, medical professionals recognized it as a breakthrough product for allergy and hay fever sufferers."

the separation idea came from the 20's and is mentioned below:

http://rainbowsystem.com/rainbow-system ... beginning/


mine looks like this I think it was the predecessor to R2-D2

http://www.vacuumland.org/TD/JPEG/SMK/2 ... 4-14-3.jpg

and the company still survives.. http://rainbowsystem.com/

Dyson makes no secret about where he got the idea for the dual cyclone vacuum - he copied it from industrial dust collectors... but he was the first to put it in a household vacuum cleaner and hence got the patents. His struggle with then trying to stop the big companies using it without paying royalties was epic. It's a great betting the shirt off his back kind of story

maybe you are right on the patent. I recently saw a program on netflix that was about the first upright vacuum being invented by a carpet cleaner. it was called famous inventions that changed the world or somethign similar.

The thing I could never figure out about this sort of bagless vacuum is where do you empty them? it can't go down the drain as there are bits of gravel and whatnot, and I dont' want to dump water in my garbage can so I find myself trying to wash the thing out on the lawn with the hose.. the one I had wasn't a dyson but being able to throw the dirt out has it's advantage. I hated the clear container it had, it looked disgusting unless I really cleaned it well, finally I chucked it out.

the rexair uses the "cyclone" technology as well so how is it that dyson claims to have invented it? it has sort of a rotor thing with fan blades that whirls the air against the water which catches it. I think maybe he could get an industrial design patent as with anything that you change the shape of but I dont' really see how he invented anything new.. I'm still on the opinion that they just spend a lot on fancy advertising but maybe I dont' know the details of the full history of his claims.

when I empty my shop vac I just stick my hand in a garbage bag along with the filter, then I can bang it about without the dust cloud.. then once I get most out I take it outside and whack it around..

I got ahold of a big blower like a furnace blower only larger. I set that up so it has a furnace filter so I can run it to collect the dust in the air. what i do if it is nice out is just create a huge airstream with it and blow it outside the door as the sawdust can get pretty thick in the air otherwise. I put another fan in a back window to feed it and get cross currents where I stand, this works ok, not perfect but at least it's cheap.

in woodworking some use a shop vac to suffice for dust extraction. I do it that way since I dont' really have the room for a dust extractor. one guy on a forum made a comment about putting panty hose over the filter. then you just pull them off and most of the dust comes out.. of course someone piped up that he is thankful to have an excuse for having panty hose around his shop lol...

There is a cyclone lid that you can get . What you do is hook the shop vac to the lid and the lid goes on a garbage can. most of the dust gets trapped by the cyclone and stays in the garbage can, that reduces the frequency of emptying the shop vac. they are pretty cheap. some just use a 20L bucket. they might find some use here for stripping etc.

here's the cyclone lids. i would like to try one for shop tools like the tablesaw and thickness planer. the planer fills the shop vac pretty fast. you can get a switch too so it turns the vac on when the machine starts by sensing the current through the cord. saves switching the vacuum on and off at the same time with the tool.

http://www.busybeetools.com/search.php? ... ne&Search=