Classic Hoover Wands

[eurekaprince]

Here's a question that has kind of mystified me for many years.

Being the Eureka fanatic that I am, I had very little exposure to the details of Hoover cleaners before adulthood (pre-1980) at which point I had more "courage and cash" to play with more vacs. Before 1980, whenever I had the rare opportunity to actually clean/play with a Hoover (cleaning up after a party at someone else's home, for example), I would notice the main differences between Eureka vacs and Hoover vacs.

One of the differences that always stood out for me was that Eureka wands were always inserted INTO the neck of the Eureka attachments, while Hoover wands were always slid OVER the neck of the Hoover attachments. Also, Eureka attachments and wands were friction-fit, whereas Hoover's hose handle and wands had a clip to securely attach the tools.

Though Eureka friction fit attachments allowed you to position the tool in any angle you wanted (sideways or upside-down, for example), the Hoover connection system forced the tool to stay in one designated position. But, at some point, I realized that Hoover provided a neat feature that made their system quite good for suction, if I remember correctly: there was an internal rubber gasket that created a suction seal inside the hose handle or the wand whenever another piece was attached.

My question: Am I remembering correctly? Did Hoover hose handles and wands have such an internal rubber gasket? And if yes, did this actually work? Did it actually create a good suction seal? Did these rubber gaskets ever cause problems? Did they ever deteriorate or break off? When did Hoover start using this air-seal system? And when did the system stop appearing on Hoover cleaners? Was the system provided on European Hoovers as well (before Candy bought Hoover Europe)?

This Eurekaprince is curious to know!

 

[vintagerepairer]

Hi there. From a UK point of view, I was led to understand that early cleaners around about the 1940s had the system you speak of, but with the clips and fittings on the back. They then changed to a push-fit system which fitted into the tube -exactly as you describe the Eureka- before returning to the old idea, except this time the clips were on the front.

There are two reasons why I think Hoover used this system. One was to ensure the attachments did not get stuck to the tubes as they so often did with friction fittings. Two, the unique design meant that other attachments from other cleaners would not fit the Hoover, meaning that the consumer would have to get their parts from Hoover. Having said that, here in the UK there were many companies who made none genuine parts for all sorts of cleaners, not least Hoover, but I suspect it drove some sales of spares towards Hoover themselves.

As to why they used the system of the wand fitting over the top of the tube & attachments, well I am not sure, unless again it was some sort of plan to make sure parts off other cleaners couldn't be fitted. You are right that the metal tubes had plastic seals, so that helped to seal the suction, but the tubes were still rather wobbly for my liking. Other vacuum cleaner companies have used pips and buttons and so on, but none seemed to have had the sort of seal which Hoover fitted to their machines.

I never liked the Hoover plastic tubes, because as well as being wobbly, there was also a good deal of flexibility in the tubing. I used to sell a lot of replacement tubes. They also did not have the seals in them. By the middle of the 1980s, some Hoover cleaners on the UK market started to have ordinary friction fit plastic tubes, and this idea was used across the range on the uprights which had on-board tools. By the early 1990s, Hoover were really embracing the friction-fit tools, going so far as to having models with metal tubes. Eventually it was only the top of the range Alpina series which had the pip fittings. When I say top of the range, I mean the whole range was top, not just certain models in the Alpina series.

I think as the 2000's progressed, at least one other type of fitting was used, but I am not overly aware of what went on with their later models. For me, I would prefer friction fitting tubes every time.

 

[eurekaprince]

Thanks for that comprehensive response, Benny. Interesting to hear that even with the clips and "suction seal" gaskets, the Hoover tubes and attachments sometimes felt wobbly. I wonder if the rubber gasket eventually lost it's "sealing ability" due to wear and tear and dirt and dust.....

Wish I knew why we in North America have always referred to vacuum tubes as "wands"! It sounds so magical, and yet it is so weird that this word is used for nothing else but vacuum tubes and magician sticks! :-D

 

[vintagerepairer]

Hi again. When I said wobbly, I was thinking they felt this way 'as new' and not from wear & tear. Because the clip gripped the pip on the tube or attachment, and because of a rubber / plastic seal inside the female part of the fitting, the tubes did not need to fit tight, there for the tiniest of spaces would allow for a slight wobble. It is a personal thing, but I didn't care for the wobbly feel of the Hoover tubes.

Yes it is interesting that we over here don't call the tubes 'wands', although in some cases some vacuum cleaner companies did refer to the handle of the hose as being the 'wand'. The tubing we have always called tubes, pipes, rods, even pole.

Being cynical, I always thought that because the Hoover clips and pips often wore out / broke, it was another way of Hoover limiting the life span of their cleaners, or at the very least an opportunity to get people to buy spares. As a retired retailer of spare parts, I was only too glad to be able to repair Hoover hoses and sell replacement 'wands' and attachments. As an example, I only ever sold attachments and hoses for Electrolux cleaners if the original attachment was worn out, damaged, or lost. Once the pip or a clip on a Hoover part had broken off (as they so often did), it was difficult to carry on using the cleaner without parts constantly falling off, resulting in the purchase of a new part, regardless of how much useful life was still left in the part in question.

 

[kenkart]

Hoover Wands..

It has been my experience that as they age they do get sloppy, Eureka wands stay tight forever, Also the early aluminum GE wands are terribly prone to wear out .Where as Airway aluminum wands never wear out???

 

[eurekaprince]

The friction fit aluminum tubes we had for our old General Electric AVT brown cylinder vac merged so tightly that at one point, we could not even separate them - so they remained locked together forever!

The vac-makers providing friction-fit wands should really have added rubber handgrips on each end of the tube so that these would be easy to separate if they ever got too tight.

 

[vacbear58]

A bit more in the UK

From my recollection of things Hoover always had some sort of locking system up until the late 1940s. On the 160/262 and possibly 612 it was possible to swivel the connection. Then it gets a bit complicated. Friction fit tools were first seen on the 402 cannister (1947) and 119 upright. In the case of the 119 the tools look similar to those on the earlier 375 which did have lock fitting. The pip and clip arrangement was first seen on the model 417 (1953) although on this model they are on the underside rather than the top. The 417 also had the Aerodyne style rug nozzle.

When the Connie 822 (1956) was launched the 417 was downgraded in several respects (417C/417E) including a reversion to friction fit tools with a rug nozzle back to the earlier 402 style. Friction fit was retained until 1962 (or so) when the 417E was revised to the 417G.

The loopy thing was that all other Hoover cleaners from 1956 onwards (ok maybe 1957 for the 1224) all used pip and clip - even the dustette tools! So either they had a heck of a lot of old stock parts or they did not pay acttention to their cost accountants (and before you start, thats my background, so dont start!) for it was crazy to run inventory for all the variety of nozzles that this required.

I personally do not care much for the plastic twist lock tools, although again some of the TOL cannisters had these in chrome, and curiously at the same time as some US equivalent models were still using traditional pip and clip. The first model I know of to have friction fit again was the late 1980s Galaxy model, followed by the uprights with on board tools.

Al

 

[vintagerepairer]

Hi Vacbear. Yes there was a lot of variation on the Hoover fitting in the 1950's! The Galaxy was actually early 1990s and ended up for some reason being called the Constellation. Prior to this, in the mid 1980s Hoover had started using a plastic friction fit tool kit on the BOL Portapower, the Spirit, and some funny little thing called the Jet. The on into the 1990s the friction fit tubes continued as you said with the Galaxy and the Vouge. As you point out, there were some cleaners which had chrome twist-lock tubes, and also aluminium was used on 3-in-1 cleaners. However, all had plastic inserts on the female end of the tube, so whilst the issue i mentioned about the tubes flexing was dealt with by having strong metal tubing, the inserts were as prone to damage as the 100% plastic tubes were.