Thread Number: 37697  /  Tag: 50s/60s/70s Vacuum Cleaners
How to flock and de-flock a Christmas tree.
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Post# 401988   12/5/2018 at 11:02 (1,940 days old) by shag (Ontario, Canada)        

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Post# 401992 , Reply# 1   12/5/2018 at 11:12 (1,940 days old) by Lesinutah (Utah)        
Amazing

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If you can flock a tree you can flock anything
Les


Post# 401997 , Reply# 2   12/5/2018 at 12:40 (1,940 days old) by luxflairguy (Wilmington, NC)        

My family flocked tree's for years using the model 30!

Post# 401999 , Reply# 3   12/5/2018 at 12:53 (1,940 days old) by vacuumdevil (Vacuum Hell )        

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Wow so that's a thing ! I have never heard of "flocking a Christmas tree"



Post# 402261 , Reply# 4   12/10/2018 at 02:10 (1,936 days old) by Ultralux88 (Denver, Colorado)        
That’s really ‘flocking’ convenient!

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I’ve heard of this attachment before! Someone told me about the thing years ago, today so few vacuums have blower ports that you couldn’t really sell them now.

Post# 402262 , Reply# 5   12/10/2018 at 03:33 (1,936 days old) by huskyvacs (Gnaw Bone, Indiana)        

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...and flock your lungs with asbestos fibers! Fun the whole family can enjoy!

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Post# 402288 , Reply# 6   12/10/2018 at 13:02 (1,935 days old) by gregvacs28 (U.S.)        
spraying asbestos


Holy Flock !

This is flocked up!

You know people were busy smoking their brains out back then, and that only helped implant the asbestos fibers into one's lungs.

There's just no flocking way. That's some crazy, messed up schmit.



Post# 402292 , Reply# 7   12/10/2018 at 13:46 (1,935 days old) by gottahaveahoove (Pittston, Pennsylvania, 18640)        
I've never flocked anything or anyone, lolol

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I'm thinking about "spraying" one of my 4 Christmas trees, though.
I remember all of the linoleum in the house was asbestos.


Post# 402293 , Reply# 8   12/10/2018 at 14:29 (1,935 days old) by luxflairguy (Wilmington, NC)        

Flocked tree's where and are still popular. Especially in states that don't see snow! I had a call the other night from friends in Palm Desert, Ca about getting their tree flocked. I said go for it! O.K., they live in a true mid-century house and even got a color wheel! Cool!

Greg: Asbestos wasn't a know cancer cause until about the time you were born! My grandparents house was covered in asbestos siding, there was asbestos insulation in the walls. Many older homes with hot water or steam heat had the pipes wrapped in asbestos. When we replaced the hot water boiler in our home 30 years ago, it cost us almost $15,000.00 to safely remove and dispose of the asbestos from ALL the visible pipes in the house! Asbestos was a wonderful insulator ...in it's day!


Post# 402294 , Reply# 9   12/10/2018 at 14:39 (1,935 days old) by Kirbysthebest (Midwest)        

We flocked fake snow from a can on the windows of my store when I was working retail.
It looked nice at first. Then kids started picking away at it, writing their names etc.

When Christmas was over, it appears that the kids were the only ones that could get it off the windows. We had to use a razor blade and scrape then scrub with a scrubby sponge. I think that's the last time we tried that.


Post# 402298 , Reply# 10   12/10/2018 at 16:18 (1,935 days old) by scoover (Scoovstoun, UK)        
Oh yes they did..

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The dangers of asbestos were known long before any of us were born; by the end of the 19th century people were starting to note a connection between exposure and early death, in Britain by the 1920's the danger was officially recognized.

Certainly by the time that box of Christmas fun was made the dangers were well documented...

It's still all around us. I came across a guy on ebay the other week selling a 1930's Bakelite hot water bottle. He had included a picture of it dismantled with a lovely 6 inch square of crumbly asbestos inside it. He pointed out what it was but said it would be OK so long as you did not take it apart!





Post# 402302 , Reply# 11   12/10/2018 at 16:41 (1,935 days old) by Rowdy141 (United Kingdom)        

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A safer, traditional option from the past;
Brass clip-on candle holders, with little candles and naked flames on your dried-out xmas tree. What could possibly go wrong?


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Post# 402310 , Reply# 12   12/10/2018 at 18:03 (1,935 days old) by gregvacs28 (U.S.)        
LOL

" when Christmas was over, it appears that the kids were the ONLY ones that could get it off the windows. "

 

O dear laurd, I'm laughing nervously because in about 1983 or so, I remember buying snow in a can from Stein's Garden and Gifts, and spraying on the inside edges of the front window of our house, after putting christmas lights up. It did look nice.  

 

It did in fact require special tools to remove, and I don't think it came off the rubber parts.  In fact it never came off the lights. 

I bought some antique christmas lights from the 1960s, a few years ago, on Ebay and they had some over spray on them as well.  I tried soaking, scrubbing, soaking again.  Nothing removed that flocking snow.

 

And now I'm wondering if there was asbestos in that.  It was 1983.  I know just a few years before that, Sears was selling Asbestos blankets in their catalogs. 

It was also around this time I had a benign baseball sized hip tumor I needed to have removed. 

Could these things be related?  Who the flock knows.


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Post# 402311 , Reply# 13   12/10/2018 at 18:22 (1,935 days old) by gregvacs28 (U.S.)        
Rowdy141

 

Can we just imagine for a minute, a dried out christmas tree with say two dozen REAL candles in those clip on trays, 

 

ALL LIT.  ok.

 

Then a cat enters the picture. 

 

And let's remember, back then most people did not have indoor plumbing.

Certainly not fire extinguishers nor plumbed fire sprinklers.  



CLICK HERE TO GO TO gregvacs28's LINK

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Post# 402319 , Reply# 14   12/10/2018 at 19:23 (1,935 days old) by Rowdy141 (United Kingdom)        

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Kids weren't much safer away from the tree;
Boys playing with their new Meccano Electric Motor plugged directly into the 240v light socket. Bare thumbnut contacts with no insulation.
Girls with their radioactive Chemistry Sets with Cyanide, Sodium...

Today its all "'elf and safety gone mad"


Post# 402366 , Reply# 15   12/10/2018 at 23:57 (1,935 days old) by kirbyklekter (Concord,Ca.)        
We used to take stensils either bought or made by us

and pour a can of Gold Seal 'Glass Wax' in a tray and dip the stensils and transfer to a window. Viewing from outside the lights from Christmas tree shining through was really pretty.Too bad they don't make it any more, it worked really well on glass tables. I also remember when aluminum trees first came out.Crazy popular. The color wheels and the motorized stand so the tree would spin, yee haw! Mid-century modern Christmas!

Post# 402368 , Reply# 16   12/11/2018 at 00:10 (1,935 days old) by Rivstg1 (colorado springs)        

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Y’all are cracking me up with the ‘flocking’ term uses!! Love it. I plan on rocking the tee next year with one my blowing vacs...old school style (, thanks for the reminder /ideas fellas!!!)

Post# 402396 , Reply# 17   12/11/2018 at 15:51 (1,934 days old) by gottahaveahoove (Pittston, Pennsylvania, 18640)        
I intend to

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spray (from a can) some snow on my "peppermint tree" this year. We'll see.

Post# 402401 , Reply# 18   12/11/2018 at 16:49 (1,934 days old) by Kirbysthebest (Midwest)        

Alls I know is once you spray it, You're flocked.


Post# 402432 , Reply# 19   12/11/2018 at 22:32 (1,934 days old) by electrolux137 (Los Angeles)        

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~
~

I had one of these kits once upon a time. However, the "snow" wasn't made of asbestos but some sort of creamy stuff that kinda looked like cottage cheese. In fact, maybe that's what it was hahaha!


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Post# 402468 , Reply# 20   12/12/2018 at 16:07 (1,933 days old) by huskyvacs (Gnaw Bone, Indiana)        

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Usually any time something from that era says it's "fireproof" usually guaranteed to be asbestos - that was all they knew that was fire resistant back then.

Post# 402477 , Reply# 21   12/12/2018 at 17:42 (1,933 days old) by Rowdy141 (United Kingdom)        

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Flocking seems to have been a mainly USA-related custom?
I'd never heard of it before.
I suppose Australia would have needed it, with their Christmas in the middle of a summer heatwave!



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