In-house visit by a "Rainbow vacuum" salesperson

Yes, when this Sears vacuum dies, I will buy something like an Oreck.

This is why I ask telemarketers to hold please the set the phone down

- had one still there after a half hour. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Agreed, or a secondhand Kirby, back when they were simple and light (before they succumbed to the disease of gadgetry and power driven this, that and the other thing.)

If you have allergies etc. then a HEPA filter might be worthwhile, otherwise probably not. I have to admit that once upon a time (in college, and unable to find a co-op job for the summer) I took a summer job selling vacuum cleaners and my experience was much like that of the guy that admitted to selling Rainbows. It was a good product but way overpriced and the marketing was very slim shady. The model I'm thinking of was a squat canister with a conical HEPA filter and it worked by throwing the dirt out to the side of the canister through centrifugal force rather than blowing the air directly through the filter. I can't remember now what it was actually called, or if they're still around, but I wouldn't recommend buying one simply because of the cost.

nate

Typical vacuum salesman. I was recently visited by one. I like to string salespeople along while having no intention of buying (yes I am retired and it is an amusement). He demonstrated his machine (don't recall the name), vacuumed the entire carpet, then demonstrated the shampoo attachement by doing the carpet, repeat for other attachements. Then came the hard sell push. I resisted. He started at $17xx.00 (don't recall exaclty). Resist. After several cycles he was donw to $7xx.00 and made a 'final offer' that I had to accept without knowing what it was. No sale.

I found it mighty interesting to see the amount of commission he could make on one sale.

Harry K

My parents bought one about '69. It's still around, though since they picked up a second one (second hand), the original only does half duty any more. (I think they keep one upstairs and one downstairs.)

My wife has mild asthma, and any of the bag/filter type cleaners would tighten her right up. We had a standard bag type Sears brand in the early 80's, and she had to leave the house whenever I'd vacuum... or put the other way around, I could only vacuum when she wasn't in the house. Experience with my parents' machine demonstrated that the rainbow didn't drive her out of the house though.

We listend to the spiel about '84 or so, but couldn't afford one at the time. We finally did get around to it about '89 or '90. HEPA certainly wasn't a household word in those days, or maybe since we'd already made up our minds that we'd own a rainbow once we could afford it, we just didn't look for anything else.

At any rate, the rainbow was the only solution known to us at the time, and our machine is also still going strong today... and I mean literally today, as I had the computer apart, vaccuming the CPU heat sink, power supply etc., and then blowing the whole thing out.

Yeah, the water's a bit of a bother because you can't leave it in the resevoir more than a couple days... though strangely enough, green coffee beans in the water seems to let it go longer. (Yes, that was an accidental discovery. ;-)

Plain water filters all but the very finest of dust, but a drop of detergent in the resevoir markedly improves the entrapment of that really fine stuff. Given what we knew at the time, the rainbow was really our only option. If or when the thing ever dies, certainly we'd at least look at HEPA before going out and replacing it with another rainbow. We'd also look at a second hand rainbow before buying new (which would probably still outlast us).

...

Sounds like you found some deceptive statements and practices.

Doesn't somebody (maybe Hoover) make a much cheaper water-filtered vacuum cleaner, for those who want to use that kind of filtering?

The Rainbow will pick up plaster dust and trap it in the water if you add a few drops of dishwashing liquid. I had a friend in SW Ohio that rebuilt and sold thousands of used vacuum cleaners from his home in the mid '80s. The Rainbow rarely had a bad motor or damaged impeller. He would spend a lot of time buffing scratches and other marks out of the cast aluminum Kirbys. The eurekas all needed new paint, power cords and lots of new power switches. Most of the Rainbow were missing a wheel on the dolly, or the hose or power cord were damaged. He cleaned them up, buffed the plastic case and sold them for half the price of a new machine. He usually had a six month waiting list.

As for metal content, he would give me 100 or more bad vacuum cleaner motors at a time. I would break them down and toss parts that were too far gone, then rebuild as many as I could because he was always looking for some motor he needed today to complete a sale. He was amazed how nice the armatures looked, and was convinced that i had an armature lathe hidden somewhere in my shop. Finally, I showed him how to use a variable DC power supply and an ink eraser to polish the commutators, and a modified exacto knife blade to under cut the mica between segments. I could take a a lot of motors apart to inspect the impellers, then polish and undercut the armature in under 15 minutes. Then he would buy them back for $15 or more.

I've gotten 3 Kirbys for free out of the trash. They work but weigh a ton. No Rainbows so far. I like the free Eurekas and Hoovers from the trash. You put on a new belt or orient it correctly and a new bag and your good to go. Karl

Uncle tossed grandma's old electrolux and I didn't know about it until too late. That was a sweet machine.

Wes

Back when I had a house phone, I had a lot of fun with them yahoos that called and tried to sell me shit. I'd act like a simpleton, tell them I have to ask Mother if I can but their trash, the whole thing. Had one woman ready to cry when I hung up on her.

Some years ago, I had an ebay customer that just wouldn't pay for the junk she bought from me. I didn't want a pissing contest, just wanted her to pay me, so I finally wrote and told her that I really needed the money 'cause my wheelchair had a flat spot on the tire, needed to buy a new tire (I got no wheelchair). She paid right away ;-)

John

----- Original Message -----

I am an Electrolux man myself.

Vacuum cleaners are like dogs. A man would be a fool to pay retail when people are just throwing them away.

Electrolux and Kirbys are incredibly well supported. You can get virtually any part (or a suitable replacement) for models they made in the 40's.

I get them at the Salvation Army. They usually go for under 20 bucks, but you have to come back a few times to round up all the attachments.

Stay away from Sears They are overcomplicated junk and replacement parts cost a fortune.

Paul K. Dickman

Bissel used to make some of the Oreck's. Don't know if they still do or not but the Oreck is all about marketing too...

Have you seen the movie "Secondhand Lions"? The two old guys in the movie did the same thing.

I used to LOOOOVE when door-to-door vacuum salespe>

I found a Hoover Wind Tunnel upright at the Salvation Army store, for under $20.00 a while back. It will replace an old commercial Hoover upright that dates from the 1930s. The "new" one is a current model currently on sale at the local hardware store for $164.99 CDN. As for the old one, they were hard to come by just after WW2. Dad found out that a store was about to throw out their old one. When he asked if they would sell it, they gave it to him. I came into it in the 1960s, to use in my first apartment. In all that time, it has consumed two belts, but now the pivot for the handle is badly worn. While it is easily repairable, it does raise a cloud of dust.

Steve R.

Consumer Reports do not rate them well. They are heavy and nothing special at vacuuuming. Notwithstanding a friend has one and loves it. But it broke once and repairs are expensive just like the original vacuum.

What is your opinion on using scotchbrite to polish armatures? I've used that on some dc servo motors in the past along with a bit of spinning using my leather belt to smooth things a bit afterwards.

Wes

I have only done one armature, what I did was to chuck it in the lathe and take a clean up cut with a sharp HSS tool bit. Then I hit it with a bit of sand paper about 400 grit and it was a mirror finish. I then made a tool to undercut the insulators out of a hacksaw blade.

I then turned a piece of scrap down to a little under the diameter of the armature so that when a layer of sand paper was placed over it, it was the same diameter as my shiny armature. I then use this to form the radius on the new brushes. This worked like a charm.

you may wish to do some e-bay research - I sold one old electrolux for something over $200 on ebay

Makes the $149 Eureka Smart Boss Vac or whatever it's called look pretty darn good for the $$...

Rob