Attachments

[real1shep]

I think....

that's probably accurate;the car OM's wind up in the house when the car is sold. A neighbor ruined my parked Olds and so when the insurance paid me for the car, I kept the OM and some other stuff I bought for the car. It was going to be crushed anyway most likely.

In another hobby, stereo hifi stuff....for the longest time when you bought something, you got a reprint(often poorly done) of the original OM. The seller kept the original like it was custom to do so. That just drove me crazy, here I paid all that money and he kept the original OM. Then HiFi Engine online got to be so big, you could find about any electronic OM or SM for free. And there were services where you could get reprints in color with pull out schematics just like the original etc.

I always sold my vacs and other stuff with the original OM's if I had them. The original OM's belong with the item....not for bilking out a few dollars more making poor copies of them for eBay sales.

Kevin

 

[detroitdirtbag]

Some how I wind up with crevasse tools from other vacs, is it crevasse or cre-vas? Maybe I got a CT fetish.
When I sell a car, if the guy gets me down in price, he gets hose, one car I kept the nice wheels and tires, the jam one drove off with steel rims and snow times. Lol. I just sold a vehicle, i got asking price, the guy got everything.

 

[jo]

It is crevice here in the US

The proper spelling is CREVICE in the United States. Since you asked. I have seen it spelled crevase perhaps in England or Canada. Also seen it crevasse, perhaps French?

I end up with crevice tools from all sorts of brands too. I do keep the ones that fit my Electrolux‘s even though they aren’t genuine Electrolux ones. Some use them a lot, others, rarely. My Mom very rarely uses the crevice tool or the combination dusting brush/upholstery tool for her Electrolux’s. Mostly these tools just sit on the shelf in her closet eternally!

When I find a vac on the trash I often keep the tools if the vac is dead or not of interest or too expensive to repair, especially if the tools are 1 1/4” universal. Sometimes I’ll find another vac that works but needs tools and if I have a supply of ones that fit then voila, the vac is now useful with a full set of attachments.

I have a little LG made Kenmore yellow and gray canister, it came with nothing but the hose and a crevice tool. I fitted it with a nice upholstery tool and dusting brush from an old Kenmore canister that I found dead on the trash, also it has no wands or floor tool, I fitted it with a telescopic wand I had gotten somewhere and lastly an Electrolux combination rug and floor tool And now I have a very nice little powerful canister with some very nice attachments.

I like the Aerus/Electrolux combination dusting brush and upholstery tools as well for fitting with any vacuum That doesn’t have attachments...the one unit solves the two missing tools in one and works with any vac that uses the standard 1 1/4” hose/wand system. I have managed to find quite a few for free or a few bucks at estate sales/garage sales etc so I grab them when I see them inexpensively and definitely when free as they can be pricey, around $15 a piece used on eBay.

Jon

 

[fan-of-fans]

You are right tools on eBay can be expensive, especially vintage tools for Hoover, Eureka, etc. But sometimes it's easiest to find them on there.

Has anyone noticed with older canister vacuums found at thrift store, garage sales, etc, that often the only tool still with the machine is the crevice tool? When I found my Hoover Constellation it only had its crevice tool. It was very dirty and looked like it had been left out for years in a garage or other dusty place.

My guess is it was used out in the shed or garage to vacuum out cars, so they just used the crevice tool for that. Many of those videos I see on YouTube of vacuuming cars, they only use the crevice tool, no upholstery tool or dusting brush. Which to me doesn't make sense! Use the right tool for the right job. Or does that require too much thought? LOL

I think these days people often don't bother using the vacuum attachments much, or if they do just use the end of the hose. People these days seem to think a vacuum is just meant to clean the floor. Hence, no carpets, no need for a vacuum cleaner.

And yes, it drives me nuts when I see vacuums come into a thrift store with attachments and then they go missing. I saw a Kenmore Intuition come into a local thrift store - with all its attachments in the right spot. A few months later they were all gone! I later found the turbo tool sitting in a bin. No idea what happened. My guess is someone saw the tools on the machine and thought Oh I could use this or that tool. Whoever got it later could have had all the tools if they got it a few weeks earlier.

My Electrolux was similar - had all its tools but I didn't buy it at first. By the time I did, floor brush and extra wand set had gone missing.

 

[real1shep]

My guess....

is that it's always about convenience. People, the majority of, just don't like to fiddle with various attachments that much. The tool caddies and/or how you vacuum and carry all those tools around at the same time has always been an issue too....with various designed caddies or attachment 'boxes'.

I've watched male and females vacuum spaces my whole life and they may use one or two attachments at most on the average. People on the other hand that collect vacs tend to use more or all of them. We appreciate the various designs and also their shortcomings.

I love my retro Connie....but with one of the attachments, the round horsehair duster, they designed the middle hole too small and so while vacuuming, that hole tends to close up. We certainly see a lot of folly in poorly designed attachments along with some tried & true designs.

Before I started collecting, the Hoover upright I had in college had the conversion tool you slid in the bottom with a hose and some attachments. I tried it a few times and found the suction woefully lacking and so never used it again. Then I got into Electrolux tanks and never looked back.

Kevin

 

[human]

Real1shep wrote:
The tool caddies and/or how you vacuum and carry all those tools around at the same time has always been an issue too....with various designed caddies or attachment 'boxes'.

I reply:
Yes, this is the one reason my Electrolux Discovery Plus has languished in the barn for almost five years. Its onboard tool storage makes it so ungainly to use that it's almost unusable. Honestly, if I had it to do over again, I would have taken the tool brackets off the machine instead of cobbling together a set of tools for it. It wasn't until a year or two later when I rescued a Discovery II from the curb that I came to truly appreciate just how good the Electrolux uprights are.

I think this is a problem with onboard tool storage in general. People start jettisoning the tools they never use to lighten their load and those tools eventually find their way to the bottom of the closet and eventually the trash. For that reason, I much prefer the plastic tool caddies that Kirby and Electrolux used to offer with their uprights. They keep everything orderly and accessible. All in all, I think Electrolux really got it right when it came to including the essentials—tools that people would actually use and not a bunch of frivolous stuff that makes for a cool demo but in the real world will never be used.

 

[fan-of-fans]

Retro Constellation

The attachments on the retro Connie are interesting. I'm told they have the Hoover logo on them, but they seem to have been made by a third party. They look nearly identical to the fit all tools on eBay. In fact you can buy the whole set of three small tools that look identical and the holder for about $10.

The hard floor brush on those can be bought on eBay for about $12. Kenmore used the same tool with their TOL uprights. Which was kind of odd they'd include one, since the TOL models usually had a clutch or separate brushroll motor anyway.

Usually that tool and its wand are missing, since they didn't fit on board the machine like the other tools.

The Kirby attachment caddies are kind of neat. They harken back to the time when uprights and canisters would include cardboard carrying caddies. I expect most people rarely use the Kirby attachments, given it takes extra steps to remove the nozzle and put the hose on. Often times I see them in thrifts with no tools, but sometimes they have everything.

 

[real1shep]

Hmmmm.....

"The attachments on the retro Connie are interesting. I'm told they have the Hoover logo on them, but they seem to have been made by a third party. They look nearly identical to the fit all tools on eBay. In fact you can buy the whole set of three small tools that look identical and the holder for about $10."

I only have issue with that round duster. If you look at the Elux round duster design and then the Hoover, you know why there is an issue.

I bought an extra floor head because I like it so much and use it with my Elux vacs too. It has notched bristles in the leading edge so dirt doesn't build up there, like pet hair, when you move it forward. Elux did the same thing eventually, but Aerus wants $48 for theirs. My ex has the Aerus for $48 and it's not impressive for that money.

That extra floor brush I bought for the Connie was more like $18. I haven't really looked for the Hoover logo on the retro Connie tools....but it was NIB, so I know they were original. The extra floor brush looked identical to the original.

Tool caddy carries three attachments;round duster, crevice tool and smaller floor/upholstery brush. The round duster is a waste of time due to the inside diameter of the tool.

I'm guessing that $10 set you found is probably a knock-off. A third party/contractor might have made the original set, but it's quality compared to other vac sets of that period.

Kevin

 

[eurekaprince]

I did not like storing the 3 small tools on my stainless steel retro Constellation. They stuck out too much and would scratch my walls and furniture every time the cleaner would go sailing into them. Those black tools must be coming out of one factory in China because they are all over the place on different vacs. They are the same three small tools you get with each Numatic Henry vac.

I also did not care for the dusting brush: the bristles were not soft and though they are meant to look like the old “horse hair” brushes we used to get on Kenmores and Eurekas, they are not nearly as soft.

 

[fan-of-fans]

That's disappoining the bristles are not soft. I bought what I assume to be a generic round dusting brush on eBay to go with a Bissell Plus I have that was missing. It has horsehair bristles and I was pleased with how soft they are.

I have a TOL red Kenmore Progressive canister I got about 8 years ago and it was noted as having horsehair bristles on its dusting brush as well as floor brush but they literally feel about as stiff as my toothbrush! I also ordered another brush for it recently from one of the newer Elite models, because its smaller. Bristles on that are much fuller and also horsehair, but not much softer either. Very disappointing. They are not like the 80s/90s gray dusting brush horsehair bristles were. They really need to improve on whatever material they are using. At least you can still get those as replacements, but they won't fit my Progressive with its weird hose end.

 

[real1shep]

I think they.....

can't make the horsehair soft again or the process is lost....or maybe it's even material available to them now etc. In any event, that horsehair duster is too stiff.

I have many Elux horsehair dusters, so it's no problem. I certainly wouldn't pay for another Hoover horsehair duster....lol.

Kevin

 

[jo]

I noticed

Aerus changed the bristles on the hard floor tools to plastic from horsehair but they are multicolored to look like horsehair. No fond of this change. The dusting brush is still genuine horsehair thank goodness.

I think those of us who really enjoy vacuuming And really doing a good job of cleaning all the dirt everywhere end up enjoying using all the tools, especially the ones we like!

Always bugged me that Electrolux never thoroughly addressed crevice tool storage on board the canister until the late 80s and even then it was an easily breakable clip on crevice tool clip mounted to the handle of the main unit. I am fortunate to have one on my Marquise and am very careful to slide the crevice tool off, not lift, otherwise the clip will break right off! Even the current design on the Aerus Lux Classic is easily broken unless you slide the crevice tool towards the back and don’t lift. I do like the Epic/Lux legacy canister top design the best though for on board storage...addresses both properly in a design that works and doesn’t break. But still no storage for the floor brush or the sidekick.

I decided to buy and use an Electrolux/Aerus upright Tool caddy With my Electrolux model F tank because I need the machine portable to take with me to remodeling jobs and it keeps everything stored neatly together and ready to carry. Everything goes in the caddy except the canister...even a few spare bags...I can carry the entire vac with one hand if needed, but usually I do it with two, canister in one hand, caddy in the other. I rarely use a power nozzle with the vac but do sometimes and that gets carried separately and I have a blue pn-1 retrofitted with a long pn cord from a first gen pn-1 so I can just tote along the pn head itself and use it with the plain metal wands and don’t have to have an electric wand or electric hose. It works in a jiffy but the long pn cord gets kind of annoying with no clips to hold it on the wands or hose.

I just decided to get a centralux wall mount tool caddy to store my attachments for my daily driver Marquise in, in the hall closet...but not sure the sidekick will fit, I think it was designed for a sidekick ll which is slightly smaller. I decided to get it anyway since I have a Lux Legacy also and everything will surely fit in it with that machine should I decide to use that as the daily driver.

 

[ridgidwd0670]

I've had good luck finding genuine Compact/TriStar tools (crevice, dusting & upholstery) in clear/glitter (even the upholstery tool grille) & white.
Unfortunately they weren't available in turquoise

I also found 'greige' Aerus/Electrolux combo tools & crevice tool for my 2100, which happens to b my daily driver lately

I have 3 spare sets of teal Electrolux combo tools & crevice tool (1205-era)

However I haven't bothered looking for the above-floor hose & tools for my Eureka ESP bcuz I use it ONLY for vacing carpet

 

[fan-of-fans]

Yeah, I'm the same way with my Eureka Boss F&G. I was just thinking about this when I used it last weekend. I haven't had any interest in getting a set of tools for it, as for me it's a carpet vacuum only, and I don't really think about using an attachment converter with it. If I had a more vintage upright I'd probably get a tool set though just to have.

I have only one upright in my collection that I use regularly that has onboard tools and I don't use those much either. And I never really have for any of my mom's either, I prefer using a canister for that kind of cleaning. The only time I do use them is if I just happen to notice a small area like a baseboard or piece of furniture that needs dusting while I'm vacuuming the carpet.

That's probably because I find the hoses on them too short and springy. My mom's previous Kenmore Quick Clean bagless upright had a habit of falling over on top of me when I tried to use the hose on it.

My Kenmore Progressive upright is less prone to that, but I still think the best upright hose setup is a really long hose.

 

[paul]

Manufacturing of Plastic Parts & Attachments

I discovered that Eureka Williams purchased Napco Plastics Company (1954) of Napoleon, Ohio in 1960, just prior to being purchased itself by National Union Electric Company of Greenwich, Connecticut. Napco was retained by AB Electrolux/White Consolidated until early 1996 when it was sold to Small Parts, Inc. of Logansport, Indiana.

That makes me wonder if surface care appliance companies like Eureka owned their own plastics companies, had their own plastics divisions, or if parts and attachments were outsourced?

 

[dysonman1]

When I repair a vacuum, I purposely do NOT use the 'correct' color replacement part. It's how I know what I fixed the next time I see the vacuum.

Yesterday, a woman came in with her G5 Kirby. It has a G4 handle grip, a G3 upper cord hook, a G4 mini-emptor, and a G6 power cord.

With respect to vacuums I sell, I couldn't care any less about 'matching' anything.

The only thing I want original on my vintage vacuums is the cloth bag. Stan Kann taught me that. That's the only thing he was a stickler for. He threw away all the hoses from his tank cleaners, and had one vinyl hose he used for all of them. "As long as it gets the schmutz into the hose, who cares?", as he used his Lux 30 dusting brush with virtually all of his cleaners.

I'll agree it is hard to find original cloth bags. I'm blessed to have original bags on all my cleaners, thanks to Stan.

 

[2011hoover700]

It depends on the mood I'm in and if I happen to have matching attachments and even parts. I often customize my equipment as I play around with them.

 

[collector2]

I always try to make my machines as original as possible. So I am always looking for parts for them. If possible I like to have the original hoses as well just for display. A new one can be used if the machine is to be used.

As far as boxes of spare attachments at thrift stores that seems to be hit and miss. Most dont do anything like that but I have come across 3 or 4 stores in my travels that still have boxes for spare parts. I try to hit those stores every time I go through those cities.

 

[human]

The timing of this thread's resurfacing is good for me as I'm finishing up the long overdue refurbishment of my Eureka 1746A canister vacuum. At this time, I have only a floor nozzle that came with it, and a Rotomatic power head that I recently acquired. A pair of wands will be delivered next week to make the thing operational once again. I have an overabundance of Kirby and Electrolux tools that will fit onto the end of the hose, so I'm not exactly champing at the bit to get more, but there is the lingering question of the Eureka's lock buttons, which both Kirby and Electrolux lack. I could easily "Eurekaize" some of my tools by drilling a hole in their necks, but that would be counterproductive, since the whole purpose of this refurbishment has been to get away from using an Electrolux wand and Power Nozzle with this machine. Of course, the other argument is I don't really need any of those tools anyway, because I can accomplish any task requiring them with a different vacuum. I think all of this qualifies as a "first world problem".

 

[gottahaveahoove]

Luckily, I have boxes and bins of

genuine Hoover attachments. Being that I'm not 'in the business', I try very hard to make sure everything matches.  I've helped other, over the years, too, to have their Hoovers all match.


One of my 'things'.