Commercial Vacuums

[vintagerepairer]

Ryry, the Goblin Dogsbody was a cleaner similar in style to the Philips Carpeteer, which in itself is a cleaner sold under many names, such as Fakir, Nilco, and Genie. This machine bore an overriding resemblance to the Electrolux 170 cleaner, but I am not at all sure if the two designs were related, or made under licence, or whatever else. Your Victor machine in your pictures came under the Electrolux and Nilco brand names over the years.

 

[ryry_87]

ah that makes sense, i always had it in my heas the Dogsbody was a commercial type upright based on the 271 Electrolux, those little Fakir/Nilco/philips etc upright are still available new in germany under the Fakir brand… http://www.ebay.de/itm/FAKIR-TK-300...bsauger_PM&hash=item43b000ee5e#ht_1414wt_1141

 

[vintagerepairer]

They were still available here in the UK until recently. They may still be so.

 

[ryry_87]

interesting, what were they branded here in the UK? and who sold them lol

 

[vintagerepairer]

They were identical to that one you showed me. A company called Denis Rawlins was selling them.

 

[vintagerepairer]

There you go.

http://www.hellopro.co.uk/Denis_Rawlins_Ltd-20438-noprofil-2004604-68503-0-1-1-fr-societe.html

 

[ryry_87]

awesome! wouldn't mind one of them

 

[sebo_fan]

Slightly off topic but Sebo minded - for those hankering over the Felix Royale, it is now at John Lewis priced at £239-95, the similarly coloured Rosso model is £259 which includes the small turbo brush head.

 

[twocvbloke]

That Sebo reminds me of the retro phones sold on ebay pretending to be GPO replicas with the Union Flag slapped on them, except they're american design phones (based on the Western Electric 500 shape) and made in china.... :&#92

 

[jmurray01]

I don't think I'd find dialling using that number... Shape (I could probably think up a better name if I'd ingested more caffeine) very easy.

 

[twocvbloke]

"that number... Shape"

"Dial" is the word...

It's like dialling on a rotary phone, only you're pressing the buttons, not turning the fingerwheel...

Plus I've had a couple of those cheap chinese phones, they're pathetic, wouldn't bother with them, especially as you can buy the real thing cheaper than the knockoffs...

 

[jmurray01]

Ah yes, dial... How silly of me.

I wasn't going to buy one anyway, I'm more than happy with my Binatone Avon 300, even if I can't make sense of the memory function, or get it to work...

 

[sebo_fan]

Well, I've got a Wild and Wolf TRIM phone that I've owned for nearly 2 years. I bought it for a reminiscent tribute phone to my late Dad who loved the originals. Infact when I was growing up, we had three originals in the home - two dark blue ones and a horrible plastic-covered dark green one. The whole design really appealed to me and it still does. I've had no problem with the phone. It made well be Chinese made but it's good to see it's available again as the original one just did what it is supposed to do.

I can't see how it is possible to get the original ones though unless you seek out the rare original push button types - surely with the digital phone lines, pulse dialling isn't available anymore?

 

[gsheen]

Made in China

What most people do not realise is that made in china does not always  mean cheap junk.


Yes there are factory's that do turn out rubbish but there are other ones that don't.


 


It totally depends on what the odering company wants. There is a company called KingClean in china, they build many vacuums for many different company's. what is hard. 


 


Im not going to mention names but two competing company's medium budget vacuums come out of this factory, the one you would be hard pressed to find were it was manufactured, the plastic is good quality, it feels strong, the hose has a silcone feel to it nicely finished and good quality machine. The other machine is terrible , hard brittle plastic , rough edges, the hose is made from such poor quality plastic that if you bend it far enough it splits, nothing fits together properly every thing feels loose. yet these two machines are made in the same factory. Its what the designers and more so accountants want 

 

[vintagerepairer]

I said before that I thought there was nothing to stop China making good quality products if that was what the company purchasing them asked for, but no, others knew best. Thank you Gary for writing this.

 

[twocvbloke]

"pulse dialling isn't available anymore? "

It certainly is available, BT support it still, and most cable suppliers do too, and you can get VOIP adaptors that support pulse dial phones too...

The only issue is these days the hardware at the exchanges is all digital, so they're very exacting as to what rate the phones pulse at, and they must be around 10 pulses per second (pps), with some tolerance either way, so if the dial isn't properly looked after and adjusted, it'll not dial, my GPO 746 needs it's dial adjusting cos it's slightly out of the 10pps rate, and will not break dialtone, but all my other phones that I've used on the line happily dial...

The fun thing about the original Trimphones though is they had a lovely glow in the dark dial, and the glowing was provided by a nice radioactive source, a tube of Tritium behind the dial, though these days the stuff has past it's best and doesn't glow, it still poses a radiation hazard, and can only be disposed of in some specialist locations... :S

Later models (both rotary and pushbutton) lacked the glowing part due to the concerns about health related to the radioactivity, as it was during a time when people feared anything to do with radiation (despite the fact they were happy to have radiation in the form of TV & radio signals!!), so they dropped the Tritium to keep people happy...

Some people remove the tritium tube when they restore them,and either leave the phone as-is, or they paint the back of the dial with modern glow in the dark paints, restoring the glow, but without the dose of radiation every time you dialled...

Personally I'm not keen on the Trimphone design, or the chirping tone-ringer, I prefer my bells and big weighty phones...

 

[vintagerepairer]

You can still tap out a number using the button under the handset, if you have a non cordless phone which is connected to a BT line.

 

[twocvbloke]

"You can still tap out a number using the button under t

And I have done in the past...

It's a bit of a faff though cos get it wrong and you have to start again... :&#92

 

[vintagerepairer]

Yes but one has to consider the reasons why it was originally done. Small price to pay.

 

[twocvbloke]

"Yes but one has to consider the reasons why it was orig

Yep, it was done cos Strowger's funeral home was losing business cos his opposition's wife worked in the local telephone exchange as an operator and was passing the business over to him, so Strowger came up with the automatic exchange to cut out the operator...

Must have taken one heck of a commercial vac to clean telephone exchanges though with all those selector banks shedding metal fragments as they wore out...

(See? I got it back on topic!!!)