Hello! Hoover Suction polisher was very popular over here in the sixties and in the early Seventies, the a new full line of polishers was introduced and kept in production, with some variations till 1990 whan a new range was lounched.
How do they work? surely not with a belt! There's a motor, flatter than the convertible motor, lower in height and very heavy,and there's a fan in a chamber that creates the suction. the pulley in the center makes move , by friction two of the three brush connectors, while the back brush is driven by one of the front brushes, yet by friction. There ae springs in fact that keep the brush bases tightly close to each other! The floor polisher is very easy to manuver and in general to use;-)
tommy

another view

another one

bottom view

side

My Another brochure thread you will see a UK version - Its an insanely rare machine over here(so much so im not aware of anyone who has one lol!!). This probably has a lot to do with the British love of wall to wall carpet ;).

Seamus

Kool! an early "dustless" floor polisher!thats a standard today-modern floor polishers now have to collect the dust generated from the polish and from the felt buffing wheels.

By any chance is that a tool port?

Wow, looks like a convertible on steroids! Really neat machine, wonder why the U.S. never got a version of this?

Yes ,I suppose that you never had anything like this in the Usa because most of the haouseholds are wall-to-wall carpeted and the small hard floor surfaces in all-carpeted homes, like entrance, kitchen etc could be trated with the standard floor-polisher-carpet shampooer, which I suppose was a best selling over there.
In Italy most homes have marble/wood floors, with rugs on them of course, while carpets were used especially in bedrooms etc. Only in the mid 60s wall to wall carpeting became very popular,but there was always need of floor polishers. Every italian brand has always produced Suction floor polishers and some were excellent. Rem, OTM, Tapies, Lesa, and electrolux were absolutely the best, but they where quite heavy.
Hoover floor polishers, especially from the 70s, were very well built, lightweight, brushes turned at about 750 rpm.
No way to convert them into anything else.
Oh, notice the similarity of those shown in the brochoure with the ranger uprights!
Another interesting thing is that other european brands, like Rowenta (germany) siemens, Aeg had to feature floor polishers but they purchased them from an italian factory. most of the floor polishers (including Vorwerk fb 32) have the same brush discs, same size, same components!
tommy

Did the suction on these suction polishers come through the center of the brushes or through that space up front just behind what looks like a stationery strip brush across the front? Or did it come through both areas?

Do they still make these machines? How common are they;do most households that have the marble floors have them? I had cousins who lived in Montemario..a suburb of Rome when I was a student there. I remember their home had only one area rug in the dining room; all the rest was marble. But they didn't have one of these polishers that I know of.

Also..Siemens??? As I mentioned in the other post, when I was a student in Rome the seminary had a Siemens vacuum cleaner. It was a canister type but quite bulky. It was cream color with red/orange colored trim. I remember that the suction was terrible, almost no power at all. I kept trying to see if there was something wrong with it but no one thought so. Or maybe they just didn't want to fool with it. My Italian wasn't good enough to really clarify what I was trying to tell them..so I just let it go and resorted to a broom, mop, and carpet sweeper to clean my room. But I couldn't imagine that a machine could be that bulky but not have any suction. Do you ever remember a Simens vacuum that looked like that?

Bruce Cinquegrani

HI BRUCE, All the hoover suction polishers (and most of the floor polishers produced) have the suctid the perimeteron in the front, where the small oscillating brush is.REM polishers have the air intake in the center, but it's not so effective.
Vorwerk pl 511 had suction in front and around the perimeter of the appliance and there afe long, soft brisles all around to help suction. the most recent vorwerk floor polisher-hard floor cleaner is triangulad (one brush in front, two back and front and rear intakes, but in this case there's a lot of suction produced by the vacuum cleaner they're used with.
tommy

Thanks for the interesting info and thread!

Tolivac, I have never seen such a thing here. Are the units you've seen for commercial purposes?

Yes,The commercial floor machines were for commercial uses.Various companies now make them.Even some of the propane powered floor polishers have a dust collector of sorts.Clients complained about the dust and debris stirred up by polishers after they were used.The felt polishing wheels many of these use generates most of the dust.

As I collect floor polishers as well I would sure love to get a Hoover like that but there are extremely rare. There was one on ther German ebay about 2 years ago and if I remember right it went for like 480.00 US dollars and fact. Mark from Austria was the winning bidder on it. He has 3 of those in his collection a blue one, yellow one and a Pink one


Skip...

makes me think of my tripple head Noreclo shaver!!

Dear Tommy:

Thank you so much for sharing the photos and the story about your Hoover suction polisher. It is fascinating that they were so popular in Europe and totally non existant here. Americans do, or at least DID polish their floors frequently. Either with a two-brush machine, a Kirby power polisher or a three-brush Electrolux. I don't know about now, but I just can't imagine that a suction polisher would not have been a huge hit over here.

I had quite forgotten about them, but when I saw your pictures it reminded me of when I was living in France and traveling to Italy in 1982 and I would notice these curious hybrids in store windows. Looking back, I cannot BELIEVE I didn't have the gumption to go inside and ask for a demonstration. I suppose I was in a dormant phase of my vacuum obsession. So thanks again for bringing back an old memory.

Martin Kaplan