Errrrr... I meant, TRADECRAFT.
Behold:
This even beats out the Swiss Army Shovel
and the rotary dial cell phone for
raw ingenuity!!!!
I have never wanted one so badly in my life. My neighbours are wiccans
and environMINTalists that have a bird when I
fire up the weed whacker and mower!
All hail Mike - High Priest Of The Machine!!!!!
I wonder if he could put one in a wheel barrow...?
Ha, my mama actually had one of those when we lived on a farm without electricity. You want to keep your hands away from the wringer, its other name is 'mangle' for a reason.
ReplyDeleteYou mean they really were gas powered???
DeleteI thought M was pranking us.
I’ll be darned…
No pranking at all... that thing is as real as it gets and so was the two stroke pre-mix the thing ran on.
DeleteOh yes, they had gas-powered ones. As the REC(Rural Electric Co-ops) came through, then the motors were changed out to 1/2 or 3/4 horse motors. The interesting thing is if you take all the metal off a regular top-loading washer they are still pretty much built the same way as that old Maytag.
DeleteMom also had an iron that you filled with kerosene and light it off with a match. It had a blue enamel exterior. I think it operated kind of like a blow-torch. I never saw her use it or if I did, it didn't leave much of an impression. Mom had a set of sad(flat) irons you put on the wood stove to heat up, too. We only used them as door stops.
So…this thing would be out in the barn? Or in the house with the exhaust piped outside?
DeleteAnd the kerosene irons… the fumes off those must have gotten pretty thick too…
So…this thing would be out in the barn? Or in the house with the exhaust piped outside?
DeleteAnd the kerosene irons… the fumes off those must have gotten pretty thick too…
The washer sat on the back porch so you didn't have to carry the heated water too far.
DeleteLOL Those old farmhouses leaked air like a sieve. I doubt there were many fumes unless you were standing over it while ironing. Have you never been in an old farmhouse where the wood-stove was red hot and if you were more than a foot from it you need your winter coat on?
I was driving home from work years ago and saw one of those washers in the trash curbside.
ReplyDeleteAs Judy above said, it had been converted to electric, but if it was the original gas engine I would have wrestled it into the truck and brought it home.
My grandmother had a gas-powered washing machine.
ReplyDelete