Princess or Prince? Brian eurekaprince is gonna love this...

[aeoliandave]

Yes Brian, with no perimeter bumper strip I would have expected some major side damage from being hauled around room to room...but there is none! This one must have been used just as you describe.

I'm going to Vibra-Beat the bedroom carpets this morning.

Funny how quiet Eurekas generally are and yet they came out with the unholy racket of the Vibra-Beat and produced it for years. I guess customers figured the mental migraine was worth it - if it made all that noise it must be '3 times faster'...but it's no good at picking up anything larger or less pulverize-able than kitty litter. Again, part of the reason Vibra-Beat nozzles are so often found in almost unused condition.

Dave

 

[vacbear58]

You want to try it with a Miele

to hear it really noisy with 2200W of teutonic vacuum power running through the nozzle. Unfortunatly the carpet we tried it on was so clean to begin with it was hard to tell if there was any beneficial effect. But it was still fun

Al

 

[vacbear58]

A look into the future ....

It occured to me when I got my own version of the mobile aire (it was a Parnall in the UK) just how far ahead of its time it was, certainly as far as the UK is concerned it is still, largely the model for most "bagged" machines
Al

 

[aeoliandave]

I think my most powerful sucking domestic vacuum is 110". I'll try it.

Hey Allister, we have the same last name, Kerr! and you were borm in February of '58, perhaps a Pisces of a certain age, like Crevicetool, Compactelectra and I and so many others?
Dave...Kerr

 

[portable]

Wow, what a beautiful clean-up, Dave

It really makes you stop and pause about the long-term effects of smoking. I remember washing my parents walls when we had all been smoking for years. It was one of the more disgusting jobs I've ever had to do. You had to change the water every 10 minutes. And that sticky residue was gross. Glad I quit years ago.

Anyway...you sure have a nice, "new" vacuum after all your efforts. Congrats!

 

[briankirbyclass]

Dave,that sure brings back memories,,i remember this same neighbor lady wore out her Vibra Beat,,she had THICK heavy orange and green shag carpet. The Vibra Beat got to where it would just sputter and stop.
So, she ordered a new Vibra Beat from Eureka, thru Montgomery Wards. Guess what, they sent her a regular flat rug nozzle, saying the Vibra Beat was no longer avalible. This would have been around 1973-74.

 

[arh1953]

I had a Vibra Beat with one of the two canisters I had years ago, now I wish I had kept it and the bigger vacuum of the two. Maybe it's a silly item, but it is kind of fun.

 

[briankirbyclass]

Another funny story about the Vibra Beat - a friend of mine owns a vac service and repair shop, having bought it in the early 90s from the original owner, who opened for business in the mid 1960s.
So,of course down in the old basement there are/were boxes full of old attachments,hoses,parts,wands,ect. from every conceivable model of vac ever known.
A vac collectors dream!
I used to love to stop by there and spend a day just going thru all the old stuff.
Anyway,lo and behold, i came across a brand new Vibra Beat nozzle, that had never been used. Of course the minute i saw it, i knew exactly what it was.
I showed it to my friend, who had no idea,(he's a Kirby man thru and thru),,he thought it was just a regular carpet/floor nozzle,,had no idea it actually did something,,or made such a racket!
Of course i grabbed it up faster than lightening, and still have it.
I use it with the TriStar, or Central Vac once in awhile.
Definatly agree it cant suck up or pulverize anything larger than kitty litter.

 

[eurekaprince]

Tis indeed a thing of beauty, Dave.

I am sure this is just my personal bias, but there was something indescribable about the industrial designs coming out of the Eureka Williams Company. They created vac designs that to me were so elegant in their simplicity and modernity. Even the way the graphics and wording were printed on the control panels - it all seems so cool and understated. It could be just the fact that I grew up with a Eureka....so I am still not quite sure why there vac designs from the 1960's and 1970's have that effect on me. It's completely irrational and sentimental - just like my inexplicable love for my late grandmother's cabbage rolls or my mom's apple cake. I can even imagine the smell of those Eureka attachments.

Glad to read more "performance" info from Brian in Kansas. I always wondered about the manoeuverability of the Crown Princess. Because the hose seems to exit the machine at a different angle to the direction one would pull the unit, I often wondered how weird it would react to a pull on the hose. Now you tell me there is no bumper to protect furniture which to me is a serious oversight considering the way the hose attaches to the unit. I imagine that there would be a lot of stress on the hose material close to where it attaches to the vac since it is always being pulled at an angle to its natural positioning.

As much of a Eurekaprince as I am, I must face the fact that Eureka often did not innovate - they often copied and improved design concepts. And the Crown Princess may be another example of this. A vac that offers a way to store a hose on board is a concept also found in the Hoover Portable which I believe was on the market at the same time as the Crown Princess. It suffered from the same difficulty in handling and potential hose breakage because of how the hose needed to be connected to the unit. I wonder if someone might be able to figure out which one came first - Hoover's or Eureka's. The Portable had one up on the CP - it also could store the wand in the unit!

One final note - those Tool Pak "hubs" or "stubs" or "nipples" may have worked well in the first years of use. But eventually they lost their grip on the tools and could no longer hold onto them when any of the Eureka canisters were put on their rear ends. Eureka finally fixed this Tool Pak flaw in the late 1970's when the on-board Tool Paks with plastic covers were introduced.

Still...what a beautiful renovation to a great looking machine! So photogenic!

 

[vacbear58]

Family connections

Dave,
When I realised your surname I did wonder if there might be a family connection, as I have American cousins some of which with the Kerr name (one of my father's brothers and one sister both emigrated from Northern Ireland in the late 1930s) and as you are almost the same age as my sister it set me thinking.

However my uncle settled in the US, whereas you are canadian born. I do know that my Grandfather Kerr was born in Glasgow, somewhere around 1870 or so, and although he had two brothers I believe both were childless - but I currently do not have any information regarding my great grandfather and prior. Have you researched your family lineage at all?

And yes I am "of a certain age", as my nick on here indicates, although not Pisces - my birthday is February 2nd so I am very my much an Aquarian, and although I dont really hold much with that sort of stuff I do apparently exhibit a number of Aquarian traits

Al

 

[sleepdoc]

Vibra-beat

I've used a couple of those nozzles, but they are decades old and ran for only a short time until the beaters jammed. I had no way to tell if they actually picked up any dirt cuz this was at John Pease's house, whose carpets already are so clean all the time a tornado couldn't suck a speck of dust out.

 

[briankirbyclass]

EurekaPrince, i have the same feeling about the 60s-70s Eureka's as you.We didnt have one, but alot of neighbors and relatives did, and i remember being facintated with the different makes and models,,and attachments,,and who had what. HA,guess it didnt take much to amuze me as a kid.
The VibraBeat attachment is really strange, like that one neighbor lady who wore one out,within just a few years, but then now,all these years later, you will still find them in very good condition. Must have something to do with the kind and thickness of carpet they were used on, and how much use/abuse they took. I guess we have to keep in mind that alot of the shag, and even regular carpets back then were very very thick and heavy.
Another thing that facinated me as a kid was many neighbors had Central Vac. There was a Beam dealer in the town, so most everyone that had Central Vac, had a Beam, with a brownish hose, and a Preco Power Brush. Plus a rack of attachments that included a Eureka style regular carpet nozzle, the extra long floor brush, and all of the "Deluxe" Eureka made attachments.
I remember thinking that was REALLY cool! haha,,like the ULTIMATE of what you could get in a vacuum cleaner. Why oh why couldnt WE have one of those!
(all we had was a Hoover Connie, and then a DAM powerdrive, which i hated at the time),,i mean, compared to a Beam with all those cool attachments, i thought we were severly lacking in the vacuum department!
Until the advent of E-Bay (where i finally found a Preco), i thought maybe i had just dreamed up such a thing. Was totally facinated with those Preco Power Brushes.
I remember seeing a hand held Hoover version of a Preco in the Hardware store once,and knew it would work on our Connie. Begged my mom and dad to get it,,of course they said NO!!

 

[stricklybojack]

What a thread...

glad to resurrect it. And even more glad i have something to add, yesterday's Eureka Cordaway Canister find. I literally walked past the particular thrift shop i found this in because although i did once find a great deal there, 95% of the time i come away empty handed. So after initially passing it i thought, "you never know" turned around, walked in and was rewarded once again.[this post was last edited: 8/6/2014-21:55]

 

[eurekaprince]

Nice member of the Princely Eureka Royal Family!

I can imagine that special Eureka Williams aroma emanating from the beautiful powder blue tools....

Interesting interpretation of the classic Eureka "trilogy" three-part hood profile. It's always there somewhere!!!