Lux Dusting Brush Bumpers

[doogie50]

Hi All,

Long ago, I gave up on finding a dusting brush for my 1949 Lux XXX with a *gray* rubber bumper that wasn't hardened, dry-rotted, or simply falling apart. Then I happened to see an evil-Bay listing for one of those late-50's Lux dusting brushes with the plastic shell and a gray bumper (pix below). The rubber looked really good and nobody bid on it, so I decided to take a chance. I had this notion that *perhaps*, late in the game, Electrolux used some sort of synthetic rubber compound that didn't harden and rot. (I've seen some floor brush bumpers like that, in a lighter gray color.) Well, it arrived today and it sure looked great. The outside rubber was soft and clean...not even yellowed! My plan was to *carefully* extricate the bumper from the plastic shell and, if it was still intact, to put it into an aluminum shell. As anyone knows who has done this, it involves some squeezing and grunting and groaning, and it's hard enough when the rubber is pliable. In the process of starting to ease it out of the plastic shell, I heard an ominous crackling noise and found, to my chagrin, that the inside "doughnut" was cracking in several places. My heart sank, especially as I found that the doughnut was the *only* place that was dry-rotted. Ah well!

Has anyone ever found a gray bumper that's still intact, much less soft and pliable? Also, I was curious as to what Lux models would have used a separate dusting brush with a cream-colored shell and a gray bumper? Model S? I know that Lux offered a white bristle dusting brush with that shell all the way into the 60's, but it would have had white bristles and probably an ivory-colored bumper. What gives here?

Doug

 

[electrolux~137]

This version of the dusting brush was an optional accessory. Some people wanted more than one dusting brush, and they could get several of this type fairly inexpensively.

 

[nick]

cream-colored shell

usually was found on the optional white bristle delicate dusting brush, along with the white bristle wall brush. may have had its bristles replaced at some time

 

[electrolux~137]

Well, as I said, the round plastic dusting brush with black bristles was an optional accessory. The plastic dome originally was done in dark grayish-gray, the color of the plastic dusting brush for the model E and AE, with a dark-blue rubber bumper. Then it was gray with a white rubber bumper, the color of the body of the Model F dusting brush, then off-white with a gray rubber bumper thereafter.

These optional brushes were available at least as late as the Silverado but I don't know when they were discontinued.

There were also optional bare-floor brushes, originally in the XXX-style brush, with black bristles, as well as, of course, with white bristles and called the "wall brush."

Then when the Model G came out, the style of the optional brushes (both of them, the bare-floor brush and the white wall brush) was changed. The housing of the brush was white plastic with a dark turquoise bumper.

Then at some point the combination rug/floor brush became an optional accessory (and quite expensive, but more cheaply made - a plastic neck instead of aluminum), and the bare-floor-only brush came as standard equipment. I believe this occurred with the Silverado but am not sure.

I actually like that later plastic floor brush very much. It's light-weight and very streamlined, easily getting around furniture, into corners and along baseboards.