Thread Number: 26676
The Design and Creation of the GE Roll-Easy Vacuum!
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Post# 298608   9/17/2014 at 07:14 (3,479 days old) by Unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)        

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Under most circumstances I will try not to highlight the same brand two weeks in a row with my blog posts, but we just uncovered this wonderful article and wanted to share it right away.

The prototype pictures are simply amazing!

Please feel free to post this article on Facebook, etc. or share this article with others who might enjoy it.

Design and Creation of the General Electric Roll-Easy Vacuum Cleaner



Post# 298610 , Reply# 1   9/17/2014 at 07:58 (3,479 days old) by hydralique (Los Angeles)        
Wow!

Great article, these are fascinating vacs . . . the photo above always makes me think of the Del Rubio Triplets, lol.


Post# 298612 , Reply# 2   9/17/2014 at 08:43 (3,479 days old) by suckolux (Yuba City, CA)        

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Great find!

Post# 298635 , Reply# 3   9/17/2014 at 13:45 (3,479 days old) by electrolux137 (Los Angeles)        

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~
~

These "Product Stats" are wonderful but I am a bit puzzled -- are they archives of actual articles from magazines or trade publications, or web pages that someone assembled from other materials?


Post# 298636 , Reply# 4   9/17/2014 at 13:47 (3,479 days old) by electrolux137 (Los Angeles)        

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~
~

P.S.: I'd love to add this to my "Roll Easy web site but don't know who to ask about it. There's no author or ownership information on the page.


CLICK HERE TO GO TO electrolux137's LINK


Post# 298637 , Reply# 5   9/17/2014 at 14:08 (3,479 days old) by Unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)        

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Hi Charles, I am the creator/assembler of all of this fabulous history. The answer to your question is D. all of the above :-). Please message me privately for more information on that, as I don't want to hijack this thread.

The Roll-Easy pages on your website are done just beautifully, btw!

Glad everyone is enjoying these.




This post was last edited 09/17/2014 at 14:40
Post# 298643 , Reply# 6   9/17/2014 at 14:43 (3,479 days old) by aeoliandave (Stratford Ontario Canada)        
Sitting Easy on a Roll...

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This is very exciting and stimulatin', Robert. As you might know I am a HUGE fan of the Roll-Easy (and other unique vacuum designs). I have posted at length about my 3 Roll-Easys; it's all in the archives.

This article, that reads like it was transcribed from an internal employee magazine, informs and answers questions I had, why & how the refined 2nd generation Roll-Easy came to be and also illuminates the development process manufacturer's used to go through. 6 years planning from inception to realization and tantalizing continuing improvements that never came to be. (so that's what the odd back bracket on the Swivel-Top caster base is for! I did not know that.)

Sadly the designer/home fashion consultant Miss Freda Diamond is not mentioned by name but perhaps that only illustrates her worthy but limited input. At least we can credit her for the championing for two-tone Turquoise & copper scheme. One wonders what other colour combos the engineers had cooked up...We have heard rumours of a Pink Roll-Easy and it stands to reason that is was a prototype that escaped the crusher. I can imagine it in yellow and green which are several of the colours that Cycolac vinyl plastic came in for GE.

Thank you Charles for posting your link to your extraordinary Roll-Easy pages for we faithful oldsters and new ones who have not yet finished mining the huge archives on Vacuumland.


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Post# 298650 , Reply# 7   9/17/2014 at 15:35 (3,479 days old) by luxman107 (USA )        

I absolutely love those machines. The roll away can be seen a few times in the early Donna Reed shows

Post# 298651 , Reply# 8   9/17/2014 at 15:35 (3,479 days old) by suckolux (Yuba City, CA)        

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Nice Dave!

Post# 298655 , Reply# 9   9/17/2014 at 15:56 (3,479 days old) by kenkart ()        
I LOVE them...

I have one of the early ones and can NOT find any attachments for it, I need the flip over rug/floor tool and the upholstery tool, and of course the gold wands and hose end are totally unfindable, but what a wonderful design.

Post# 298672 , Reply# 10   9/17/2014 at 21:12 (3,479 days old) by super-sweeper (KSSRC Refurbishment Center)        

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This is beautiful! GE really gave a care in 1955! I'll eat a dusting brush if GE still calls in home designers and prototypes for their appliances! laughing


Post# 298703 , Reply# 11   9/18/2014 at 07:51 (3,478 days old) by kenkart ()        
They cared....

And so did all the manufacturers in those days, Most of the men had fought some terrible battles for this country in war and were really proud of their products!Unlike todays..The cheapest junk we can sell is best...Then it was, The BEST we can do is never good enough!,,I know this about the Roll Easy, whoever designed it must have had stock in a screw factory, because it has about a zillion of them!!LOL..The motor is the same used in the early GE canisters, a very good double ball bearing 2 fan unit.

Post# 298713 , Reply# 12   9/18/2014 at 09:26 (3,478 days old) by dysonman1 (the county)        

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My only complaint about the Roll Easy, and it's only because the machine was so 'thoroughly tested', is that all the hoses broke. Surely, during the years of testing, some engineer would have looked at the angle at which the hose touches the floor and realized that it was detrimental to the life of the hose. In use, the machine coupling (which threads into the hose), is always touching the floor at the point of connection between the hose and machine coupling, and the hose is bent at a considerable angle upwards. The constant rubbing on the floor, along with the force used to pull the cleaner, resulted in all the hoses breaking at the machine coupling. The very first vacuum cleaner I ever brought home was a trash find GE Roll Easy, in 1968. The cleaner was about 12 years old. I knew the family that threw it away. The hose was shot, having been shortened so often (because it would go bad at the machine coupling end), it was about 2 feet long. I still have that cleaner today, in the Museum, but with a replacement turquoise vinyl hose on it that Alex Braun found for me.

Post# 298715 , Reply# 13   9/18/2014 at 09:29 (3,478 days old) by suckolux (Yuba City, CA)        

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Just a question to anyone? It looks heavy and would strain the hose pulling it too? Lower back issues here, always on my mind how much it weighs, not that it stops me from using the Old Lux!

Post# 298743 , Reply# 14   9/18/2014 at 15:50 (3,478 days old) by super-sweeper (KSSRC Refurbishment Center)        

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Every vacuum has it's drawbacks, Tom! At least if the hose exploded in use, you'd be left with one awesome turquoise end-table! laughing


Post# 298930 , Reply# 15   9/19/2014 at 19:29 (3,477 days old) by aeoliandave (Stratford Ontario Canada)        
"one awesome turquoise end-table!"

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Good one, Alex. Lay a glass disk on it and you have a Lazy Susan end table!

Having printed and absorbed the article in detail I am struck by a few things...

"We planned a heavy schedule of television advertising, because you can grasp the advantages of the new cleaner best when you actually see them demonstrated. The advent of widespread television viewing had occurred at just the right time for our vacuum-cleaner business. Now we could use television to bring actual cleaner demonstrations into millions of American homes."

Then these commercials should still exist in the digital aether, YouTube etc. The Roll-Easy did appear in Dennis The Menace, I Dream Of Jeanie and The Donna Reed tv shows. The search begins...

Tom, your analysis of the hose problem is spot on. The cleaner always comes to rest on the hose coupler. Explains why every original hose I have inspected seems too short. More often a found Roll-Easy has a substitute cloth braided GE hose from a Swiveltop.
Or, as you say a plastic hose screwed in to the ends. It was a day of extreme happiness when I spotted a 14 VDC Dog Clipper at a junk store...in vivid Turquoise. This gives me a 11 foot length on my first generation R1.

The author of this 1957 report has a delightful sense of humour, too:

"In the stairway test, crudest of all, a husky man walked up and down a flight of stairs 100 times, pulling or pushing the cleaner. This test provided important conclusions: It taught us much about human endurance values — it also indicated that the cleaner was too heavy! Because this test proved too much for our test man, we replaced him with a suitable testing machine."

This image of the husky man is indelibly imprinted in my imagination. No doubt a burly hairy bear shedding even his wife-beater during his perspiring 100 flight exertions.

Never mind - it's my fantasy and I'll grin if I want to...Maybe even reproduce it one day.


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Post# 298933 , Reply# 16   9/19/2014 at 19:38 (3,477 days old) by kenkart ()        
Westinghouse

Solved the problem on their big wheel cleaner, and GE could have by placing some sort of wheel or roller above and below the handle/hose inlet, so when you were using it the hose wouldnt hit the floor..

Post# 298986 , Reply# 17   9/20/2014 at 10:00 (3,476 days old) by rugsucker (Elizabethton TN)        
Roll Easy

Great & amazing article on GE & many others.Keep em coming!!
Roll Easy got an early pic in Life magazine when shown at the Housewares show moving up & down stair steps.(Liz Taylor may be on cover.)
"end table"?--Why stop at a table?There was a legendary vac store in the mid west that used Roll Easys to stack up a shelf unit as others would use concrete blocks!!
As above the hose was good news - bad news.These were from Dayco rubber in Ohio and had a series of 1/4 page or smaller ads with the message that 'Your great Roll Easy(or Kirby or Westinghouse or ??)vacuum has the new colored rubber hose--'.These were flexible,light & matching colors but in real life would crack from pulling vac or being stored in a bend.And not just on Roll Easy.GE went back to a woven hose about 1960.And the good news - bad news continued in that the hose rarely broke but could steadily wear & lose suction.The wear on the Roll Easy hose was not so much from resting on floor but the pulling in all directions that any vac has.The Westinghouse Mobile did keep the hose in one position but takes more effort to move.The Roll Easy allows you to 'swing'it from side to side.
As I mentioned here in the past I found a text book of advertising that shows a sketch and picture of a set design for TV ad.I think the living room might have had 1 step and then the housewife is moving toward the hall and stairway.


Post# 299070 , Reply# 18   9/20/2014 at 18:54 (3,476 days old) by williamr1248 (USA)        
The Design and Creation of the GE roll-easy cleaner

This might be a question for Dave, Hans or Charlie, but I do remember my cousin's mother got one and I remember it being much heavier than I expected it to be ( of course I was only 4-5 years old). I also remember the copper wands seeming kind of loose at the connections when in use. I spotted those cooper wands and unique color as it sat behind a swinging door from the dining room to the kitchen. I remember it being pretty quiet when she used it on her carpets and hardwood floors. Even at that young age, GE seemed like a second class vacuum like a Sears sweeper. I thought you had to have an Air-Way or Electrolux if you had a GOOD sweeper.
It sure was a looker.
Another thing that seems strange is that they are showing it in the ad with early American furniture! You would think they would have show cased it with modern 1950's furniture.


Post# 299076 , Reply# 19   9/20/2014 at 19:41 (3,476 days old) by Caligula (Wallingford, Connecticut)        
General Electric Roll-Easy.

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Hi William1248:

I really like the Roll-Easy, so I find this information very interesting. However, your comment of the early American furniture made me think. As it was sold in the mid to late 1950's, this was also the updated version of 'I love Lucy,' which was set in a Conecticut home. The decore was exactly like that in the Roll Easy add shown here.

Just a thought.


Post# 448157 , Reply# 20   11/26/2021 at 23:19 (852 days old) by pcasa (Dallas TX)        
Design and Creation of the General Electric Roll-Easy Vacuum

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The link for the "Design and Creation of the General Electric Roll-Easy Vacuum Cleaner" is broken - is there any way to access this file? thanks so much! paula

Post# 448163 , Reply# 21   11/27/2021 at 16:05 (851 days old) by Unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)        

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Hey everyone, I found the originals...







Post# 448170 , Reply# 22   11/28/2021 at 10:17 (850 days old) by Centralvacs1928 (Chicagoland)        

This is really cool! I love "inside info" like this. So much more interesting than the consumer advertisements and owner's manuals are to me.

Thank you for sharing, Robert!


Post# 448174 , Reply# 23   11/28/2021 at 14:51 (850 days old) by texaskirbyguy (Plano, TX)        

Wonderful, well-written article and a great vacuum design as well! Real thought went into making household products back then.
Thanks Robert for posting these here for us all to enjoy.
Nice to meet another Dallas area local as well - Howdy Paula!


Post# 448185 , Reply# 24   11/29/2021 at 08:20 (849 days old) by bnsd60m9200 (Akron OH)        

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thanks for unearthing the original article again robert! it was a great read an invaluable piece of history on a vintage machine anyone who loves 50's vacuums knows well! intra industry information is rare to find on product development.

Post# 448186 , Reply# 25   11/29/2021 at 08:56 (849 days old) by rugsucker (Elizabethton TN)        
"Department store-buyers-shared the salesmens confidence

There was a booklet from GE showing dept stores how they could place a Roll Easy in EVERY department at introduction to create traffic to the vacuum department.
Has anyone found TV ads?!?


Post# 448188 , Reply# 26   11/29/2021 at 10:22 (849 days old) by bnsd60m9200 (Akron OH)        
Jimmy

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is this a document you have about the roll easy marketing? itd be neat to see that

Post# 448201 , Reply# 27   11/29/2021 at 18:53 (849 days old) by rugsucker (Elizabethton TN)        
So excited about her new roll easy

That she doesn't mind waiting for her husband to explain why there is no suction



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Post# 448211 , Reply# 28   11/30/2021 at 09:52 (848 days old) by dysonman1 (the county)        

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Jimmy:
Notice she of the 'lost cord' has placed her slipper and foot directly under the hose connection, keeping it slightly off the floor.


Post# 448219 , Reply# 29   11/30/2021 at 10:37 (848 days old) by luxlife (Under a Pecan Tree)        

Didn’t Westinghouse make a 2-wheeler similar to the Roll Easy? Seems like I remember one in beige and it almost looked like it had fins.

Post# 448227 , Reply# 30   11/30/2021 at 15:21 (848 days old) by dysonman1 (the county)        

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Westinghouse also made it in blue.

Post# 448233 , Reply# 31   11/30/2021 at 20:05 (848 days old) by pcasa (Dallas TX)        
JUST GOT MY ROLL EASY VAC TODAY!

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Thanks so much for posting the product development info - super cool! One question, I just un-boxed my "new" baby - incredibly good condition - but when I unlatch the canister I'm having difficulty latching the handle back down. I see the two pins and understand the closure concept - but mine is not smooth and I feel like I would have to force it to close it securely. What am I doing wrong??? Thanks guys! paula

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Post# 448237 , Reply# 32   12/1/2021 at 08:38 (847 days old) by bnsd60m9200 (Akron OH)        
Paula

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it's designed to have resistance to keep the handle upright when carrying it. you wont break anything. a small dab of oil at each hinge point may help, but i dont recall doing that to mine when i restored it.

Post# 448239 , Reply# 33   12/1/2021 at 08:45 (847 days old) by rugsucker (Elizabethton TN)        
Roll Easy

Marketing-I do have copy of booklet in a file box somewhere.I have 100s of ads and pieces of vac literature that I want to sort and transfer to file cabinet when time permits.
No suction-At first glance on smaller screen it looked as if hose was in right(wrong)opening.But I now see that if flipped over with handle at top it would be correct.It does look as if the lower wand is in one of the 'under furniture' slots.
Westinghouse-The WH Mobile in later 50s had tool storage,did not flip over and offered early turbo rug nozzle.
Paula-Great find.Is it complete?Just remember this is a mid 50s vac with some plastic parts that could age with some degree of problems.Be gentle!Your problem may only need minor cleaning and light wipe of lubricant.


Post# 448245 , Reply# 34   12/1/2021 at 12:10 (847 days old) by pcasa (Dallas TX)        
Closing Canister Lid

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Yes, I carefully pushed it closed - just wanted to be sure I wasn't forcing it. I'll add some oil. I purchased on ebay - attaching the seller's photos. It's a beautiful Roll Easy. I'm missing the small suction tool and the crevice tool is in rough safe - it appears to be made from a composition material instead of plastic. Proud new mama!

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Post# 448246 , Reply# 35   12/1/2021 at 12:25 (847 days old) by gottahaveahoove (Pittston, Pennsylvania, 18640)        
Great condition

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even that box!!

Post# 448248 , Reply# 36   12/1/2021 at 13:10 (847 days old) by rugsucker (Elizabethton TN)        
Nice Roll Easy!

Rare to find the attachment box and instructions with them.The belt would be from an upright vac such as Hoover or Eureka which might mean the GE was not used for carpets.The correct type bags seem generic(original bags & package would also be color styled to match).Hose is replaced with original ends(as with most).Short hose is possibly for Hamilton Beach hand vac.Crevice tool looks like 50s Hoover.Missing crevice and upholstery tools could be replaced with most GE attachments through early 70s if desired.Most would be white.
Happy Retro Vacuuming!


Post# 448250 , Reply# 37   12/1/2021 at 15:08 (847 days old) by dysonman1 (the county)        

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You have the second incarnation of the Roll Easy, like mine. Be sure not to get any oil on the black foam rubber ring that you can see when the wheel is off. It will disintegrate.

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Post# 448252 , Reply# 38   12/1/2021 at 17:03 (847 days old) by Opelgtkarl (Puyallup, Washington)        
Westinghouse MC-1

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Here’s the Roll Easy’s competitor, the Westinghouse MC-1. I also figured I’d get a photo of it with Roll Easy, which is the 3rd iteration of the machine.

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Post# 449070 , Reply# 39   1/4/2022 at 18:39 (813 days old) by mjhoshaw (Western PA)        
Does anyone have an image of the motor?

I'd like to see the motor that was used in these.  I gather it was a two-stage, double-ball-bearing unit which was typical for the day, but having worked only with Lamb/Ametek, Hoover, and 'lux motors, I can't visualize what the GE motor looks like.

 

Joel


Post# 468011 , Reply# 40   12/11/2023 at 13:05 by pcasa (Dallas TX)        
GE ROLL EASY IN SEARACH OF TURQUOISE HOSE

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My local repair place can only offer beige hose material - I realize this is a long shot - but does anyone have knowledge of or access to some turquoise hose material? thanks so much! Paula

Post# 468024 , Reply# 41   12/11/2023 at 14:57 by vacuumman (California)        
Hose material

I have seen some people replace the hose on a Roll-Easy with either a pool hose or the hose from an older model of Flow-Bee pet trimmer. I'm not sure how well this works or how viable these options are, though.


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