Black and Decker CA1440 found.

[blackheart]

Years and years ago before I was even a teenager (I think) my cousin had informed me of a vacuum sitting next to a local dumpster. I, of course, being a kid just had to check this out. I ended up bringing home one of these Black and Decker canisters. It was so different for me having grown up with a Kirby and seeing predominantly uprights.
It lacked a bag and never having seen any black and decker canister bags at the grocery store or local hardware store improvised by putting a folded rag over the motor inlet thus making it a very improper bagless system.
I remember thinking the suction on it was so powerful and accidentally sucked up an entire sock with it with no issue. In truth the suction was powerful compared to what I was used to but is pretty run of the mill by today's standards.

I would occasionally search for them on ebay and other sites with little to no luck, the only ones I had seen were very pricey.
I did run across some information on this forum that said they were made by Sanyo, this however doesn't appear to be true. In recent conversations with Bill wood this machine bears more resemblance to a Samsung, especially in the hose setup. Interestingly the wands seem to be a reverse 35mm with a button lock.

After years of looking I found this one on marketplace, and the seller agreed to ship it. Here it is post restoration, new bearings in the main motor, new front bearing in the nozzle motor. and a trimmed Oreck magnesium bag in the unit. I've heard Panasonic C/C3 bags may fit it so I've got some of those coming. I also put a FQ belt in it which isn't ideal it's just a tish loose for it.

 

[human]

It's always cool when you can reacquire a vacuum like one you had that got away. I recently got hold of a Eureka Power Team canister similar to, but not exactly like, one that got away from me a little more than 20 years ago. Enjoy your find.

 

[huskyvacs]

Wow that is so beyond rare! And I never even knew they made full size vacuums beyond the Dustbuster!

 

[huskyvacs]

Also I believe your date stamp is 1988, May.

 

[huskyvacs]

I mean 1988, 50th week. Dec. 12, 1988

 

[kirbyclassiciii]

Up until 1988, Black & Decker made mostly cordless (battery-operated) household vacuums such as their popular Dustbuster. This is why some catalogs that featured this made a special "Not Cordless" mention.

They did have one corded household vac earlier, too: the Collector hand vacuum, in 1982.

~Ben

 

[eurekaprince]

In Canada, we had a lot more corded canister vacs branded as Black and Decker. It seems that this may have been the result of Canadian General Electric appliances being bought by Black and Decker in Canada some time in the 1980’s. All our CGE toaster-ovens and irons became B&D items at some point. I think the Switson vacuum factory in Welland, Ontario (near Niagara Falls) was the source of our Black and Decker canister vacs. Hop over to Doug Smith’s great vacuum collection website to see one or two of these unique Canadian cleaners.

 

[louvac]

I could be wrong...

Hey guys.....I could be off the mark here but I was once told that earlier Kirby motors were made by Black&Decker. Does anyone know if there is any truth to this?

 

[panasonicvac]

Very interesting

Other than the central vacs and wet dry units, I've never seen another full size machine from B&D besides this 1400W bagless canister which reminded me of a Panasonic but it wasn't made by them.

 

[cheesewonton]

Very cool. Yep, they were made by Samsung. The power nozzle is a derivative of their PH-90 power nozzle sold with upteen Quiet Jet and Quiet Storm canister vacs. Samsung made the same machine for Singer, which called it the Quantum. That is a Kenmore Style Q synthetic HEPA dust bag in the bag chamber and a CF-1 pre-motor filter too.

 

[rugsucker]

B&D, etc

I may have a Singer hiding in the corner. Anyone want to come look?

 

[blackheart]

Cheesewonton

That is neat I've still not found the Samsung equivalent but it's neat to see another variation!
It also has a slight different tool storage mine has space for an upholstery tool, dusting brush, and crevice tool.

Did they have an on/off switch for the brushroll? It just seems so backwards to have a more advanced feature like a speed control but lacking a basic feature.

 

[cheesewonton]

Blackheart

I am not aware of a Samsung branded version of this vacuum and I too noticed the difference in attachments and their storage. Sadly finding attachments for these is extremely difficult and as you see I am missing two. You are down by a crevice tool.

No on-off switch for the power nozzle. Worse to me is that there are no brush rolls any more for these and I have not yet found another manufacturers brush roll that fits. The PH-90 power nozzle is a Filter Queen copy, so much so that you can swap parts with some Filter Queen parts ( the Singer version has a headlight and height adjuster, the latter I was able to repair on mine using Filter Queen parts ) but the brush roll is an odd length, 12 1/2 inches. F-Q brush rolls are either 12 or 13 inches long. The brush roll from a Riccar Supralite is oh so close but just a smidge too narrow to fit. The motor and belt are available as they are common to F-Q, old Tristar and old Eureka power nozzles but no brush rolls.