Bidone Aspiratutto- Alfatec

rob_89 · Jan 4, 2011

Evening all,

I've come across this interesting Italian vacuum in a few industrial design posts over the years, and thought I'd share the link on here for everyone's viewing and to see if anybody has some further information on them.

Appear to be a very basic shop-vac style construction, with wide bore accessories, so I presume they are sold for outdoor/big jobs use.

I'm curious if they are the Italian equivalent to the UK Numatic Henry- from what I've found out so far, they have been in production since the mid 70s, and have sold around 6mil units.

Anyone out there familiar with these at all? They have obviously sold well, would be good to hear if a vacuumlander owns one out there somewhere!

regards

Rob

http://translate.google.com/transla...u=http://www.trabuccoassociati.com/bidone.htm

twocvbloke · Jan 4, 2011

Interesting looking vac, I've seen industrial style vacs like that before on ebay (modern things rather than one of these), mostly Numatics, but some other no-name vacs too...

I think they're often used by chimney sweeps, for obvious reasons, wide bore coupled with what I presume is a high-velocity motor, should be good for catching soot and stuff that falls down a chimney as it's being swept...

tolivac · Jan 5, 2011

Reminds me of the very old Shop-Vacs.Wide bore hose machines such as this were designed primarily to be just that--A Shop Vacuum-the large hose and nozzles pass sawdust,shaving and woodchips easily-and in a metal shop-metal sawdust,chips and shavings.And in the metal shop,the metal shavings could be oily-like from a lathe or milling machine-and the vac wouldn't get damaged-you just emptied it after each job to avoid fire hazards.And the big hose machines were good for remodel job cleanups.Nails,screws,chunks of wood,plaster-no problem.Just really fine dust could slow these down-if this one has the paper bag filter that goes over the motor air inlet.

vacuumboy1993 · Jan 6, 2011

I've got one...

But mine is branded Tornado instead of Alfatec, these ones are the later versions from 1989, the earlier ones from the 70s came with a white longer hose and the attachments were white too. These ones were for dry pick-up only, but there were some wet&dry models. One of the things that caught my attention is that it has a very quiet pleasant sound considering it's a shop vac, the airflow it's almost louder than the motor!

Here's a pic of it^^

gsheen · Feb 3, 2014

Seeing Guido's post about these vacuums made me do some research as I remember seeing one in the Electrolux sample room.

Whats more interesting is that we had an Electrolux version called an aqualux, It featured a different head but the same attachments and wheel set up, later the drum became plastic.

Tornado ( post above) is a company owned by Electrolux so that could be were the connections comes in.

It has renewed my search for this or the Aqualux

tommymilan · Feb 4, 2014

Bidone Aspiratutto Alfatec

Dear friends, this vacuum cleaner was extremely common in Italy in the late 70s and very popular in Italy in the 80s. I remember that many people I knew had it for cleaning their garages, cars, outdoor spaces, for blowing dead Leaves etc.
Some people thought they could clean their house with it but got quite disappointed, as the huge diameter of its hose and wands was better for large debrises collection than for deep and fine dusting. However under the motor cover there's a cylinder containing a 800 watts motor around protected by a cloth filter and a paper bag, both wrapped around and kept in place by an elastic... nothing complicated. The early version, until around 1985, had Ivory/beige attachments and a "dolly" with two fixed wheels on the rear and a pivoting one on the front, then replaced by a round ring with five pivoting wheels. Alfatec also produced other models of different sizes, also for wet/dry purposes, as soon as I find my old depliants I'll scan them for you.
Funny thing, I remeber that on a magazine called "Famiglia Cristiana" that an old aunt of mine used to buy, there were very nice illustrated ads of the Bidone Aspiratutto, I found some of them, have a look and enjoy!
Greetings,
Tommy