Retro Washing Machine

Whee! I fixed it! My very retro vintage washing machine is now working again, four months after I decided to take it to small pieces, in the name of science (it had exploded in a carpet-soaking puddle of dirty, foamy water). I'm not sure exactly when it was built, I'm pretty sure it predates the transistor and I'm guessing early sixties. Inside it is dirt, clockwork and neatly machined parts. Its cycle is controlled by grooves and lumps in a wheel which hit little levers, opening and closing circuits. This wheel is connected by more clockwork to the main axle of the thing, so timing is measured by revolutions of the drum.

I think it's kinda cool, an artefact of the twentieth century. From before cars and washing machines and toasters became computerised. It has no electronics whatsoever, it's an electrical machine. Yet it's perfectly functional. Works exactly the same now as when people were crapping themselves about the cold war while they did their laundry. Odds are this thing was making it's thumping whirring noises at the same time as Kennedy was having sex with Marylin Monroe. How amazing is that?

Created 2005-05-06 16:55:00 by 295 and filed under things