Answer - with a vacuum in the motel room, Butler is 'Person of Interest'...

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Lovely long wandering drive home, hitting every Thrift Store in sight. 9 of 'em. Quite pleased with what I found.

Hoover Can Opener/sharpener with no dings, just food grease.
Hamilton Beach mixer in its own little wall mount cabinet.
Target Brand Mr Clean Magic Erasers.
At the Hobby Shop, two slightly different shades of Transparent Blue enamel spray paint - I got a half dozen of each. Will do tests over light and dark grey Hammertone spray. I just know one combo will match the Monitors near perfectly.

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The smallest cutest could be useful Shop Vac 1X1. it does run well and strong and clearly that is a one gallon bucket...but...

The motor's normal filter basket with Ball valve practically fills the entire bucket all by itself, leaving only one inch of bottom & side clearance. LOL

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Interesting observations. Sooo many RVs and boats for sale along every road and street.

There was very little to no traffic all day other than transport trucks and 'salesmen' on the freeways. When I got into Buffalo at rush hour there was no rush crush. Folk's driving habits seem to have improved with plenty of space between cars, tho hiway speeds were a good 15 mph over the limit. Same on the Canadian side. The QEW to Hamilton and the 403 to Woodstock were deserted but for transports and I had to go 120-30 kph to keep with the flow. And I was on Cruise Control most of the time but no one was tailgating, just driving smoothly and changing lanes with room to spare.

Shows how hard the gas hikes have hit casual drivers.

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1 Gal Shop Vac...

I have one of those in my office! Great to pick up all the little pieces of junk that collect on my work bench....

The switches were garbage though......mine's been replaced with a metal toggle-switch.

Interestingly those have the same motor as the 5 gallon plastic-bucket models of the time. Mid-90s model.
 
On hiway 8 north of Butler on the way to Franklin there is this astounding building that looks like a Stealth Bomber. It is entirely clad in Stainless Steel sheeting.

The rear end with the entrance doors painted up like a rocket exhaust faces the road. Out back is a large lumpy hilly cleared field that looks to be a ATV/moto cross area.

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So I went inside...

These two vehicles are parked by the entrance.

The entire building is a shell over a vast area. (Anyone ever see the Spruce Goose in its dome in Long Beach CA when it was still there? I did in 1986.)

Turns out its a Toy & Hobby Shop - Playthings-etc.com - heavily weighted to RC airplanes, helicopters, boats and cars - i mean the really high end stuff that can cost thousands. They also have the fun $40 type helicopters and foam airplanes.

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Ahh... the rare model, not mid 70's budget keeper I thought, not that there's anything wrong with them either LOL
 
This 87 is at least 48 years old. We should all strive to lo

The 87 is a rare bird, Pete. The hose is even more rare; they just don't exist any longer. The 87 production numbers were A70000001 to 0085397. This one is Serial No.0025275. They took off the "A" at some point. There is no other way to date them. This is how many they made so I know roughly where it fell in the production. Hoover made them with the electric hose feature from 1/1/59 until 4/4/60 and why they are so hard to find, particularly in this fine cosmetic and operational condition. Thanks go out to Tom A for the production info.

It came with only the crevice tool so for this Glam Shot I gathered together some appropriate accessories and a few different rubber bodied Hoover dusting brushes and nozzle tools from the Partz Bins. Gonna have to find wands with that rubber thumbpad on the steel spring catch. And I suspect there's supposed to be a small colored Hoover logo to hide the screw on the handle switch trim housing? There's a round depression filled with brown goo.

And to think I found my very first Connie due to you, Pete, the Canadian Canton Red trimmed Pearl White Model 438 lying in the dirt with the yellow Eureka Roto-matic in Petrolia.

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The variflex hose is a single coil unlike the usual double coil used in electric hoses, so to carry current to the switch a thin single strand of copper is imbedded in the coil's vinyl coating before the vinyl flexi hose tube is added.

Discovered this this morning when I took the handle apart to remove 1.5" of split hose. Cut the coil back a few turns, exposed the wire strand and formed the bend in the coil to undetectably duplicate the original connections as seen in a previous picture above. Works like a charm.
 

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