I showed this video to my parents. My father is an engineer, my mother a teacher. They both very much enjoyed the content, and your style of presentation. A month ago, on my birthday, I unwrapped a package from them. It was a gleaming, factory-condition Sunbeam Radiant toaster. Thank you for this moment.
I was at a goodwill yesterday and one of these beauts was on the shelf for 5 dollars and somewhere in my mind i was transported to watching this video at 4 am in bed 3 years ago. I couldn't exactly remember why sunbeam toasters were elite but i bought it and came back for all the validation I could have asked for. I am now in the toast phase of my life and you are the reason why.
Sunbeam appliances are one of the most reliable kitchen tools ever , they're well made and last an incredibly long time plus they're very affordable in price which is all the reasons why the company has existed for so long
You lucky dog. Those go for $120+ on ebay. I've been trying to get one for under $75 or so since this video came out with no luck. The only ones that go that cheap are non-functional ones and the sellers never say what's wrong with them.
If they knew what was wrong with them, they'd fix them and sell them for $120 instead. It's almost always something easy to fix, so it might just be worth the gamble.
@@dereksmith8642 I think this channel, Technology Connections, has posted a video about fixing a couple of problems these toasters develop. There are also other channels with fixing videos for these toasters.
It finally happened. After 3 years of keeping my eyes open at local antique and secondhand stores I found one of these toasters. Breakfast has never been so exciting. Thank you so much for this entire channel.
When I was 3 years old, LONG AGO, my dad bought my mom a new "General Electric" toaster! I inherited this, and it STILL WORKS GREAT! It is so SAD what "home appliances" have become!
If you do not know why the Sunbeam Co. stopped making these in 1997 you do not know about "Chainsaw Al", noted as one of the worst CEO's of all time. Al Dunlap who died just this year, made his reputation through massive layoffs supposedly for cost cutting reasons, everywhere he went. The scheme was repeated in other companies, by other CEO's including the one in charge where I worked a whole career: the Hughes Aircraft Co. Al was worse, though, as his accounting frauds also contributed to his ability to generate impressive short term profits. Look him up. Now to Sunbeam. They had a great reputation and like such companies they had a loyal, but aging workforce ripe for the picking. Al and the others of his ilk specialized in mining corporate reputations, and in the sunbeam case "modernizing" the product line as cheaply as possible. That toaster needed an experienced worker to calibrate the sensitive switch, and of course the engineer/manager who oversaw the many mechanical (analogue) pieces that had to remain in tolerance to perform as the ones you have still did. They were probably among the first to be offered a packaged early retirement. The rest of the workers just had to find something else in a job market that had already been decimated by the recession of '93. In my case I survived several layoffs to eventually take my retirement after the part of Hughes I worked at had been sold for half again more than GM had paid for the whole company 5 years prior. I like to say that that deal reflected the Reagan era "Voodoo economics" made famous by George Bush Sr. way back when he ran for president in 1980 before he was invited to join Reagan on the ticket. GM had complained when they bought Hughes that the main capital of the company "Went down the elevators and out the front door every day at 4 PM." Then the first thing they did was start layoffs. Much of that "capitol" was among the first to skeedaddle, leaving behind a lesser grade of engineer, myself included due to cupidity about how the world works. Selling large amounts of the workplace buildings or leasing them to other companies followed on. Those of us remaining had to double up in our offices. Unpaid overtime became a necessity to fulfill contracts. That toaster illustrates that we once had great engineering talent, and intellectual property to hold ourselves above the ordinary, much of it now in the hands of Chinese manufacturing, while we languish in a "bean counters" paradise.
Thank you for sharing your story. I never knew about Al Dunlap, or what he and people like him did to American ingenuity. We really lost something special in that era. But not everything is lost. When the garden of creation is bare, and old crops have long since disappeared, channels like Technology Connections plant seeds in the hearts of new creators. We only need time and care for those seeds to grow.
At least we can buy inferior versions of our own designs back from countries that somehow manage to grind up workers faster than corporate America at a slightly cheaper rate then we'd pay if we just took care of own talent. Sounds like good business to me!
Under capitalism, profit seeks the lowest cost of labor and materials. -So say the works of Adam Smith and every economist since his day. The executive is incentivised to maximise profit by reducing costs, the largest of which are input materials, and workers wages. As for the plight of the worker that gets screwed, who cares, the rich are incentivised by capitalism to have contempt for those without wealth, sociopathy to protect wealth and greed to make it grow. There is no profit in empathy and altruism. There are better ways but we are never given such options: th-cam.com/video/6DNofdU4tSE/w-d-xo.html armyofall.wordpress.com/democracy/
"Unpaid overtime became a necessity to fulfill contracts." Sounds like exactly the same thing that people are complaining about happening all over the Video games industry these days.
@@Reddotzebra Unpaid labour is never a necessity. If there is insufficient cash flow then the those at the top of a given organisation should be slashing their own incomes in order to ensure everyone who does work is paid for that work. To not pay workers for their labors, is a choice, to have workers go along with that with little question out of a misguided sense of loyalty to a brand is economically suicidal for workers and Christmas for capitalists.
My Sunbeam looks even older than this one, really enjoyed finding out how it works. (Edit: I replaced the cord tonight and found out it was made in January 1951)
Imagine being the guy who came up with the idea of the wire being the tension spring for the lifter, and trying to pitch it to the boss, before making a prototype.. Boss would be like, "get outta here Jim, you and your hair-brained ideas, you be the death of this company.. I shoulda fired you a year ago!, and boy, I would have if you weren't my nephew!" Jim goes and builds a working prototype, and returns to the boss.. boss, upon seeing the mechanism: Well, would you look at that!
I’d rather retire this dangerous toaster. If old electronics used powered elements (even when off) and paper insulation on wires, who knows what other dangerous design decisions exist inside? It’s worth $20 to get a modern appliance with safety features
@@electrictroy2010 Probably asbestos paper, likely would outlast any silicone/plastic insulated wire a person might replace it with. As for the live internals, don't stick your fingers in it (just like a bulb socket). I have come across mis-wired receptacles, and some so worn out that the polarizing feature no longer works. 120V mains shock usually isn't too bad, that 60hz muscle contraction will wake you up though.
@@electrictroy2010 Who knows? *We* know. He showed us the insides. The non-polarized non-grounded plug is the only electrical flaw, that's easily fixed by changing out the cord. There are no electronics.
I saw this video when it first came out, rushed out to eBay to get my toaster only to find that they were like $75 so I decided to wait. Upon waiting they went up to $300. Finally, after waiting for 3 years, working ones are now around $150 and broken ones are around $50 to $75. I bought a broken one and it arrived today. It took a little while to figure out what all was wrong with it but all it amounted to was a screw that had fallen out and part of the darkness adjuster had gone missing so I had to make a new one. Now I've got it all tuned up and working and I couldn't be happier! Finally... I've gotten my closure on this toaster.
Yeah. Toaster manufacturers got wise to the fact that their old toasters were seriously impacting their sales. Now all they produce is cheap crap you are expected to replace every 5 years. I use a toaster from the 70's. I clean and relubricate (food-safe grease) the sliding parts about once a year, and it works great!
I know! Tell me about it. Toasters and Printers/Copiers. It is the 21st century and they still make me feel like I am stuck in a Rube Goldberg nightmare!
I love that. My dad has his dad's Rockwell bench grinder that has been working since about halfway through the 20th century. I love good solid equipment and not the disposable equipment mentality of today.
@@kdawson020279 Alot of tools today are still maintainable, sadly appliances however are getting increasingly tricky and complex. Dosent help when the "throw away" culture has seeped into so many other consumer goods.
@@kdawson020279 my dad had a lot of old 1960s to 1980s era tools and auto repair/diagnostic equipment. He had made it clear it was supposed to be mine, but my uncles and cousins raided everything before I got to it. I was way too trusting and didn't rush in to take everything that was supposed to be mine. I have absolutely nothing of his now except a couple of channel lock wrenches.
My husband found this toaster for $5 at goodwill this weekend and went through a bag of bread calibrating it, and ultimately it's everything you advertise and more. It's the best Valentines day gift ever.
One of the aspects about these old devices that I find so stupefyingly magical when I see them operate is that they didn't have microcontrollers and modern electronic sensors to rely on. They had to use some elegant, genius physical workarounds, often making use of physics I never even knew about or would have thought to utilise.
@@electrictroy2010 , I beleive what made it go down and up , was a bi-metal strip , when electrified caused one side of the metal to expand faster than the other . At least that is what I think .
@@baseduck 👍👍I Know, RIght? Reading though these comments, I am under the impression that "electrictroy2010" is a troll who doesn't REALLY have a grasp on basic electrical knowledge, in an earlier post he said that this toaster should be retired due to its ELECTRONICS! We know that there is NO electronic device in this toaster, not even a damned diode! If someone is going to be even pretend to be an expert (or JUST pedantic) about THIS subject (especially if one is using ELECTRIC in their username!), They should AT LEAST know the difference between an electronic device and an electrothermal one. 🤷♂️ I didn't go to college, Hell I can't even spell CMU or MIT, and even I know the difference. 🤦♂️
It's been 2 years since I watched this video. I finally found this toaster at a thrift store today. Just wanted to say thanks for giving me higher standards for my basic appliances.
@Alexander Ratisbona Almost didn't look at the appliances that day. Went to tie my shoes and was face to face with it at eye level. Only 14 bucks. Could not have snatched it faster. Last toaster I will ever buy.
OMG!! I just watched a video on a $400 toaster with a touch screen and wifi and this Sunbeam toaster puts it to absolute shame! The amount of engineering and cleverness in this design so long ago is amazing. It seems to be a trend before I.C's and micro transistors that everything was overcome using pure physics and analog not electronic signals and I think this shows how things that tech can give us now can be done using clever engineering and more materials.
My parents got this toaster as a wedding gift in 1969 and I've been using it for the last 20 years or so. It's always the first example cited when I go on a rant about planned obsolescence and the ever-more insipid manufacturing quality.
I’d rather retire this dangerous toaster. If old electronics used powered elements (even when off) and paper insulation on wires, who knows what other dangerous design decisions exist inside? It’s worth $20 to get a modern appliance with safety features
@@electrictroy2010 Who knows? *We* know. He showed us the insides. The non-polarized non-grounded plug is the only electrical flaw, that's easily fixed by changing out the cord. There are no electronics.
My aunt received one as a wedding gift in 1947. She used it daily until her death in 2018. That is 71 years!! She said the only repair it ever required was replacing the electrical cord and plug in the late 70s. No idea what my cousins did with it after she died. Hope someone is still using it!
Thank you sir you just solved a 50 years old mystery for me... when I was young I was watching it every morning and could not comprehend how the mechanism worked and what made it come up and down. Now that I do understand I truly am flabergasted. Incredible feat of engineering.
Me too. I used one once as a kid and was amazed by how the bread slowly went in and slowly came out as toast. Even though I never really forgot about it completely, I put it out of my mind and assumed it was some set of motors and gears.
There was a toaster made around 1950, maybe by Toastmaster, that did use a motor. It was much noisier than Sunbeam Radiant Control toasters. I bought one just to sell it on eBay. My Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster is still with me. I bought it at a thrift store for $5 and had to clean it. Imma keeping it!
I appreciate the fact that you went through the trouble of animating the patent picture to give a clear picture of how the mechanism works. This is top quality content; thank you for providing it.
What really blows my mind is how they calculated the exact coefficient of expansion necessary to expand the wire which engages a lever mechanism. It's genius because it doesn't necessarily bend anything which means it'll never break. Amazing stuff, I'll be keeping an eye out for this gem!
More likely than not they just tested it a bunch, or laid out a long strand and measured the shrinkage. That, and it could easily be designed to only actuate a little bit, even if the wire expands or contracts more than needed
1940s technology: it's amazing what the engineers did with mechanics before they had electronic control circuits 1960s technology: it's amazing what they did with just analog electronics before digital computers were available 1980s technology: it's amazing how they built things out of discrete logic without having microcontrollers 2000s technology, revisited in the 2020s: how could they even toast a bagel without an amazon prime subscription and giving the toaster access to your google calendar? also in the 2020s: attempting to repair that toaster is a public safety hazard and therefore sharing information about it is a felony
@@ivanavalos3911 Overblown sarcasm. Non "smart" appliances are not the norm. You will still encounter mostly thermostats, washing machines, toasters, fridges, dryers and more without digital assistant integration. It's as if now that Teslas and other vehicles are incorporating better and better self driving, you summarize the decade by saying "how did people drive places before their car drove them there?" It's a hyperbolic attack on modern technology and that is prime boomer humor.
Nick No, it's clearly not overblown boomer sarcasm, because it's not a joke about the present that boomers hate, it's more about the future we, young generations, will live in. It's not boomer humor at all, FYI.
You are my kind of writer. It's refreshing to see someone put that much thought into their English and the appropriate delivery of their lines. Now I want one of these toasters even though I can't eat wheat anymore. I would love to see a series made of going back in time and MAKING PEOPLE APPRECIATE THINGS!
He probably has Celiac disease, like me and my mother. I had the same thought, BTW, that I'd love to have one of these, but no way could a used toaster ever be safe for me... Lol.
@@LNSLateNightSaturday Yeah, before gluten-free was a "fad diet," it was the result of a horrible disease that severely limited the variety of food available to the afflicted individual.
@@jimstanley_49 But it being a "fad diet" also brought much more attention too it and opened the door for soooooo many more gluten free options. You're still semi limited, but a lot of the stuff at least has a gluten free variation now
My dad was an electrical engineer and when we opened this little baby, he was in awe at the engineering. His words " this thing is perfect". The only thing we changed was the clothed electrical cord with a new cloth electrical cord. That was 30 years ago and it's in my kitchen now and still toasting the perfect toast. Every single time
And amazingly, people weren't electrocuting and burning themselves left and right. When means that as a society, we have gotten that much more incompetent and stupid, just like our toasters have become cheap pieces of junk.
@@cowsongs, they were electrocuting and burning themselves, sure, not everyone, but a lot of people. Nowadays, society cares not only about the majority of people, but about other smaller groups.
@@A_Box It's the Cuisinart CPT-420, though I don't think it works the same way as the Sunbeam Radiant. The Cuisinart description is that it's motorized and it doesn't have a lever.
Good quality lever toasters have a brake mechanism to reduce the shut off jump scare. You just need to be willing to put down a few extra bucks on your next toaster.
Wow, I don't know if you'll ever read this but thought I'd share anyway. I grew up with this toaster and assumed that everyone had such a toaster. At some point, I was at a friend's house and they were finishing breakfast and invited me to share. They had their toaster in the middle of the table so I grabbed some bread and put it in and waited. My friend's mom noticed right away and pushed the lever down. I am smart enough (or was) to realize why she did it but thought something like "what a weird type of toaster", not realizing that OUR toaster was the odd one. Part II, we had this toaster for a VERY long time, I was born in 1951. At some point, it didn't work right (probably simply didn't brown properly and removing and reinserting the dial at a different place would have fixed it). Anyway, my mom found out it would cost a "lot" at the time, something like $15. So, she bought a brand new toaster. It lasted less than 2 years. But being the frugal folks we were, we still had the sunbeam and we got it out and THEN had it fixed and it worked properly until my mom literally polished the chrome off in places! Fortunately, they still made them and she got a brand new one! RichE San Diego, CA
How can you tell a story about the toaster without mentioning the other major difference between the toaster your friend had and the one you had? The fact that you had to change your pants if you were in the same room as the toaster when it pops!
Had this toaster too! did you ever get the issue where you would put the bread in but it wouldnt start, so you'd repeatedly jam it in until it actually lowers?
I have not used a toaster in years, nor do I have an affinity for toast, but this video has completely convinced me that I can no longer live comfortably without this Sunbeam toaster.
There are probably many of these in thrift stores that deal in used & donated products. They may need a simple clean up, repair, or adjustment but maybe not.
It's marvels like these that made me want to be a mechanical engineer (and cars of course). The fact that this is a completely mechanical toaster (the only electrical components are the heating elements themselves!) that is 100% automated is a beautiful engineering marvel! I was watching one of your earlier videos and was thinking of ideas to try to slow down the release of the toaster via a damper or some other mechanical means but this is perfection! Imagine too, if they produced 4 slice versions for families today (with updated safety standards of course)!
What he doesn't explicitly mention, although it is implied in the patent wording, is that these toaster will produce slices of the same darkness regardless of how recently the last slice was toasted. Most modern toasters won't do that.
My mother got a Sunbeam toaster as a gift at her bridal shower in 1947. I have it now and it's perfect!! I had to replace the cloth covered cord a year ago but other than that it's the most amazing toaster. My mother was always a bit regretful that she gave it to me instead of holding onto it. I can't believe the price. Knowing that now, that was one hell of a gift.
That lifting mechanism is an absolutely beautiful piece of engineering. I love looking at old machines and devices to see mechanical solutions like this.
As soon as he showed the zoomed out view with the cover off, after mentioning the lever, and I saw the other end in the middle, I knew it had to do with thermal expansion of the nichrome element. I wasn't sure exactly HOW yet, but it was obvious it was going to be an ingenius implementation. Which it was.
I.was at least expecting a motor somewhere, protected from the heat or made to be heat resistant. But nope! Not only does it do away with a motor, the control system is included too. And it's free! Using the actual toasting heat as a control and a motor at the same time! I'd love to know who invented that, and see the look on his face as he told people about it. It's pure genius!
This channel is just amazing. I clicked on this video thinking "wow, he's overreacting. It's a toaster they don't do much" then pulled out the perry the platypus equivalent of a toaster and now can guarantee I'll be raving to all my friends how cool old toasters were
@@LordBruuh Nobody was going there. There are fewer of these people in real life than what you might find concentrated on the internet, in the circles that some algorithm has served up to you. Examine your circles and the source of the mindset that draws you to them.
Things like these are absolutely fascinating. Not a single microchip or motor, yet it achieves complex "smart" movements. Purely with genius engineering based on physical principles. Minus the designflaw in the wiring...
The audio in this video is all over the place... I switched to a new recording device and set the level way too low. Lots of weird level fluctuations occurred, and there's a lot of background hiss, but hopefully the audio is overall better. I think it's a little clearer. Also--yes the inside of that toaster is filthy. I know. But please, tell me a hundred times in the comments ;)
@NotADuck I'm fairly sure it's not asbestos. I had to strip some of it off to replace the plug and while it was fibrous, to me it felt more like the sort of compressed paper that makes up a lollipop stick or the stick of a cotton swap. Even if it is asbestos, there's really nothing to worry about given that it's not going to enter your lungs or even your stomach.
As the guy with the old man ears - Nice come up on the audio! I'f you, personally, are still not pleased with it, I am looking forward to even MORE improvement. Excellent video!
That lowering/lifting mechanism is genius, but genius that relies on two of the oldest physical principles known to man; thermal expansion/contraction and levers/fulcrums. Proper old school engineering, and it's basically bulletproof. Even if the heating element wire eventually snapped, you could just buy some nichrome wire and repair it in half an hour. Designing a modern equivalent would require a microcontroller, geared servo's or a worm/wheel drive motor, limit switches, safety cutouts, an LCD display and the circuity/components to link all of that together. Plus "cool touch" body with space-grade carbon-ceramic coating, RGB lighting, and a mobile app.
Um, why would it need an LCD display? It already can sense the temperature from the bread itself so I say it just needs a louder alarm so you can hear it announce the bread is rising back up!
sixstringedthing ya gotta love the mechanical and electromechanical ingenuity of the 60’s and 70’s. You should watch Techmoan’s video on auto reverse, now that’s the most over engineered thing I’ve ever seen.
@@trainman5371 If you're talking about the Akai mechanism that actually flips the tape over inside the machine, I've seen it and it's one of my favourite Techmoan vids. So over-engineered, so unnecessary, but so elegant in action! :)
The demise of that toaster roughly corresponds to Albert J. Dunlap taking over as CEO. He completely screwed up the company, and engaged in accounting fraud. The remains of the company were sold off, so I wouldn't be shocked that that product was lost in the shuffle.
To be perfectly honest, this, and similar business practices can be seen throughout corporate america, and has only gotten worse and worse over the last several decades. I wanna say it's the result of unfettered, unregulated capitalism that has turned the entire private sector back into the wild west where no rules existed, and companies could do whatever they wanted with no consequences. That is why I think capitalism has cannibalized itself. Also vulture capitalism with CEO's running companies into the ground in a bid to make as much money as possible, and getting out before the ship fully sinks. And companies where even though they are making record profits, they still lay off thousands of workers because they can't hit unrealistically high numbers to make investors happy. Sad state we are in.
@Krunchy The Clown I couldn't agree more with you Sir! If I may add one more thing: the pursuit of ever-increasing annual profits because merely maintaining status quo would never sit well with the shareholders. It's only a question of time before capitalism collapses under its own weight because these policies have depleted all resources. Sad state indeed.
Grandparents got one of these for their wedding in 1948. They gave it to my mom when she went to college. My mom gave it to me when I went to college. Best toaster any of us have ever had!
Our latest toaster didn't just startle you when the bread was ready, it often threw the newly toasted bread out with such force that it ended up on the floor. That wasn't a great design.
That's easy. The bread companies want people to buy more bread. So they paid TH-cam to recommend bread related stuff in the hopes that people will have a craving for something bread related such as toast. Which leads to more sales of bread. That or TH-cam occasionally throws random things out to see if you like it.
I got multiple recommendations for both this and the space heater video. Then I got the FlexPlay one not long after it came out. I haven't seen daylight since.
As a electronics teacher, i find it amazing that it works only by termo mechanic means. With a few minor adjustments of current materials and security criteria, it could not be much better that it already is.
I need this toaster now. The uneven sides of toast is amazing. That means you can give extra firmness and dampness resistance directly under your toast topping, while not having as much "burn" taste on the un-spread side of the toast.
Yup, I'm also a fan of uneven side toasting, we used to have a toaster oven so I could just manually control how toasted I wanted each side, now we use one of those George Foreman-like electric grills, dunno exactly what you call those in the US, with those I use the locking latch to leave it just slightly open, it's enough to make a difference with sliced bread.
Timing is everything.. I picked up a couple of these toasters the weekend before last while on a thrift store crawl. I was surprised at the lack of in depth videos on them. then you posted yours. thanks!
@@mr2octavio right?! I paid so much less for these two than I see them selling for on epay. I actually think this video spurred the interest. the price these have been selling for since this video was posted has jumped 3 fold.
I grew up on a Sunbeam toaster and they are indeed TERRIFIC and a thing of beauty. My mom had hers for 60+ years and...it just kept toasting. And THIS is the primary reason why no manufacturer will ever build one again because it would violate their own product design obsolescence plan. Thanks for the time travel down memory lane. Makes me miss my mom and dad even more. 🙂
You know very well why they do not produce this type of toaster: They sell exactly 1 per household and that's it - the next one will be bought in like 100 years.
@@jacqueschappelle5857 That's capitalism, but also not helped by the nature of large scale industrial manufacturing. Tweaking your factory to produce a slightly modified version of the same thing is easy. Adjusting it to make an entirely different product is extremely expensive and time consuming. Thus you either keep making the same thing for ages, spend a small fortune redesigning factories every few years, or just keep building new factories leaving the old ones to rot. Also no product, no matter how well made lasts literally forever (especially when accidents and so on get involved), so you're still going to need a tiny trickle of continued production indefinitely otherwise at some point there will be no functioning examples of the device in question left. The fact that Capitalism demands that your company undergo constant growth to not be considered a failure also doesn't help matters. If you sold the same amount of a product as you did last year, you're in trouble, and that's sad. Still, unless something about the nature of manufacturing and economies of scale changes dramatically, this isn't likely to go away. A major problem, aside from the sheer cost of redesigning a factory for a new product, is that making one item is way more expensive per item than making 1 million. Making 1 million items instead of one is not 1 million times as expensive, no, because of the way manufacturing scales, it's probably more like 10,000 times as expensive. And that's a problem when you think about it, because it means you want the volume of production to be as high as possible. The less of something that gets made, the more expensive it is to make each one...
@@HolyKhaaaaan While the body is a dead ringer, I recall the Toaster's "Arms" being conventional push-down levers and doing the standard "Pop" when done. Odds are he was a more generic model, especially because it was a plot point that he wasn't fancy like this wonder of engineering.
The same toaster is used in the “Be Cool About Fire Safety” PSA with Gilbert Gottfried as “Seymore Smoke Detector.” They faked toast popping up out of it though. ;)
One thing you failed to mention. Although the first pair of slices takes about the same time as a normal toaster to toast. Once all that chrome and sheet metal is warmed up you can easily beat a 4 slice unit since toast go in and out in a flash. Plus that extreme heat locks in the humidity giving you the perfect combination of cripsy outside squishy inside.
"This toaster is an amazing display of engineering and is better than anything we have today! It only has one flaw..." *proceeds to explain how it's a horrifying potential electrical hazard*
But all of those issues are trivial for modern production. To produce something today with those same flaws would more than likely be against modern safety codes. Making a plastic body for thermal insulation would be bad for the environment but trivial for the toaster company that doesn't care (and already makes their toasters with plastic bodies), adding the ground cord would be no inconvenience at all. Improving the safety to make sure that nothing can be live unless it is toasting would require minimal change to the design. A bagel mode would be the hardest thing to implement because of the current design's reliance on its "eye" for timing, but installing the absolute simplest of circuitry would allow the toaster to know what's going on and run a timer instead of relying on an eye. It would be just as easy as making regular toasters for today's manufacturers.
Well, yes toast performance and safety are two different things. It is also still amazing engineering, regardless of it's flaws. Saying it isn't would be like claiming cars are not great engineering because they occasionally run people over. If a toaster with this design was made with todays standards, it would be the best toaster ever.
@@johnwang9914 Which can be easily fixed by solving the extremely few design flaws.🤷🏾♂ They could have improved on this design instead they abandoned it entirely in favor of the clunky design all toasters now have.
My parents still use that toaster a few times a week. No joke. The AC cord has been replaced a few times, as it's from the 60s, but it keeps going and going!
I have this and the matching Sunbeam 8 and 10 cup perk-o-lators (and sugar and creamers). All still work just fine. I know the toaster and 10-cupper were purchased around 1950 as they are family pieces. I bought the 8 cup one about 20 years ago as it's a better fit for daily my single-guy life. Make about 3 modern coffee mugs (coffee cups used to be smaller). I grind my beans with a 1940s Kitchen Aid grinder. Thing has a scary-powerful motor in it. Scary-powerful. Sounds like the end of the world, but works great. I have a LOT of old stuff that works just fine. Some needed a little maintenance/cleaning/lubrication, but people used to expect that after 10, 20, 30 years. Now people throw everything away. I'm listening to 78s on a 1958 Sonic record player right now. Three new capacitors and a few drops of oil and good as new. That took basic soldering skills, but still, easy enough.
If you like this check out vintage sunbeam vertical grills. Its another awesome innovative kitchen appliance from sunbeam thats not made anymore and has a cult following.
Having grown up with one of these I missed a lot of the toaster jokes on cartoons and so on where the bread flew across the room or knocked out the cat or whatever. Because, after all, I'd seen the toaster gently raising and lowering the bread every day.
utopia.png the world if you grew up like BuffyLinux contrarily i grew up toasting bread in the skillet, so i didn't get the jokes either, but for a much lamer reason. i still revert back to that technique sometimes though, there's no perfectly controlling your toast quite like toasting it on a skillet or griddle. but man i wouldve killed to have a machine gently lift my toast, perfectly browned, into my greedy hands.
@@vvkool9653 apostrophes are only possessive if used after a proper noun: Sarah's shoe the Teacher's ruler in this case 'its' is used similarly to how you might use 'hers' the shoe is hers the lever is its (it looks weird, but it's correct, english is strange)
@@vulekv93 Bad syntax. A more appropriate statement would be "That is its lever". However, yes, that would be appropriate use of 'its'. As the previous person said, English is a weird language. The old axiom is "English is parts of three other languages in a trenchcoat, pretending to be a single language".
Sunbeam was a really important Brand. So fine, you sell your toaster at not much profit. BUT, you sell Quality, and the customer then buys a kitchen Mixer; toaster oven; hand mixer; blender; you get the idea.
@@marisam9803 Interestingly I was recently reading about how Sunbeam was screwed over by Al Dunlap in Jon Ronson's book The Psychopath Test (it's chapter 6 if you want to dig it out). It's a sad and sorry tale.
I grew up with one of these in my parents house. When I finally realized how other people's toasters worked, I was greatly disappointed at how suckey other toasters are.
I grew up with one of these as well. Ours was made in the mid 50s, and never failed us. It did have a few spots of melted bread bag plastic stuck to the beautiful chrome finish, but it did not hamper functionality at all ;)
I have the same toaster, made in 1955 as stamped inside. It’s great. I had the same idea and changed the cord and added a polarized grounded plug 10 years ago. I noticed the outer shell had a slight AC voltage on it and found it kinda concerning. Probably just capacitive stray voltage, but I could definitely feel it if I touched it lightly with the back of my hand. One other comment…the original cord was 2 conductor, fabric wrapped, but the ‘paper’ on the individual conductors (and on the internal wiring) is almost certainly asbestos. I’m not worried about it as the internal wiring doesn’t really see any activity to loosen fibres. Cheers
@@TechnologyConnections I agree with Russel. I'm almost certain that's asbestos. Compare to: www.flickr.com/photos/asbestos_pix/7635649818 I can't imagine they would have been dumb enough to use paper insulation, especially considering asbestos was common at the time. Also, I believe it's accepted that you *don't* want to ground a toaster, and that the use of a two-prong plug was and is intentional. One of the more official reasons I've seen: "Toasters that may be in lunch rooms must not be grounded. Toasters do not appear in article 250 of the NEC; however, it has been addressed and tested by UL and has been found safer to remain ungrounded. UL testing and experience has shown that one will insert a knife or fork into the slots to remove stuck toast. Heating elements can easily be touched with a knife or fork while it is against the case, causing arcs, sparks, and perhaps a shock if the toaster is grounded. Therefore, toasters are to remain as they come from the manufacturer (that is, ungrounded)." www.usbr.gov/ssle/safety/RSHS/appC.pdf It's possible that newer toasters would have more/better separation or insulation between the energized parts and the case, but that's probably not a good reason to add a ground connection.
I'm still not _entirely_ convinced that it's asbestos, but it does look plausible. There are some subtle differences I'm spotting between the way it frays in that photo compared to how it stripped apart when I replaced the cord. But that might just be due to individual wire differences. Still, I wouldn't worry even if it was asbestos. I'd be worried if I worked in the factory that made the wiring, though!
if that is true it shouldn't be a concern. unless abestos when heated releases particles into the air. But if not, then there's really nothing to worry about. Since abestos when set and not being disturbed, is actually pretty safe. Though it's annoying how it's one of the best fire proofing material around, and yet that one problem have ruined it.
My parents received one of these Sunbeam toasters as a wedding gift nearly 50 years ago, and it's been our family toaster ever since. I still use it daily to this day, and it still functions perfectly! As a child, I actually thought our toaster was just old and broken because it didn't POP the toast up like I saw on TV/movies.
"Dispite being over 40 years old it still works perfectly" - I think you explained why they don't make them any more. Things that last don't make money, things that break bring in return sales. Hence right for repair is becoming an issue.
Great video and lots of good information! I've got the exact same toaster, a T35. I found it at a Boy Scout rummage sale for $5.00. The "turn on" mechanism only worked if I slammed the bread into it. Turned out, all I needed to do was to turn a screw adjustment of 1/4 of a turn. And that was over 25 years ago and it's still going strong.
I have one of those (almost) the same which I inherited from my grandmother. It still does better toast than any other toaster I know. I take great care when I pack it to move between houses, as I don't want it to ever break. So nice to see a video on it even if the video is a couple of years old now. :)
You seek the Holy Grail!?!... in the mid 1980’s, Sears (maybe Wars or Penny’s) sold a fully loaded microwave oven with built in 7” color TV, AM/FM stereo digital clock radio and there may have been a cassette deck/8 track on it as well. Had side firing stereo speakers. I cannot find this 9th wonder of the world anywhere.
I watch Techmoan as well, so it's even worse. Add to that list nixie tubes, DAT cassette players, vertical record players, a Seeburg background music system from a 1970s K-Mart...
I had one of these from about 1968 till 2005. It’s only problem was the lowering mechanism got imperceptibly worse over the years. It became really, really hard to trigger the “down-elevator” kickoff. In the end you had to drop the slice from a precise height, about 10 cm in fact, depending on the density of the bread. Never occurred to me to take it apart because it wasn’t like anything suddenly broke.
Yes I've the same model T-35 , gold emblem and gold leaf handles . Best toaster ever , fast and so reliable and hopefully last another 50 yrs ! Had bought mine used 21 yrs ago for 19 bucks and paid 27 bucks to have it shipped . The best investment I ever ever made !!! It's truly priceless
Asbestos isn't poisonous, but if you mess with it it makes dust and that might give Mesopotamia. As I like to say, I don't mess with asbestos and it doesn't mess with me.
Asbestos could still be used BUT EPA wouldn't let processors reformulate so as to eliminate it's dusting characteristics. Developed on the 50s for aerospace but never moved to commercial use because of price. Now the process is so cheap it's sinful. But EPA NEVER removes a regulation.
My wife and I bought one of these at a garage sale 25 years ago when it was already 50 years old. It appeared to be all original, including the fabric wrapped cord. It did eventually break down after 20 years, but we of course had it repaired. We also have three adult daughters and they all have the same model. These appliances run circles around anything on sale today. After watching the video, I'll instal and retro style three wire cable and plug.
"After 60 years, this thing still works. There's barely anything that can cause this toaster to break down." And now you know why modern companies don't make them like this. They want you to buy a new toaster every 10 years. It's called planned obsolescence.
Cars are much the same way. Sure, it's neat to have all these electronic gadgets and routine system checks of your car, but if even one thing slightly slips up, the entire car freaks out and beckons you take it back to a dealership to pay for expensive repairs. Even if you know how to work on vehicles, many cars nowadays are so overengineered and crammed full of parts in such tight spaces, that what would take you maybe an hour at most will likely take your several more. Can't even begin to describe how much of a joy it's been to work on my 1969 Chevelle in comparison to my 1998 Cadillac Eldorado. The fact that I found the Chevelle delapidated in some weeds up in the mountains of PA and it was still able to start, run, and has surprisingly little rust is a testiment to it's simple but effective design.
Thanks to this video I knew exactly what to keep my eye out for but never in a hundred years did I ever think I would come across one but today I did! It is the AT-W model and I picked it up for a whopping 15$! It is in pristine condition, cleaner than the toaster I own, and it works completely! Gonna go pick up a cord tomorrow and a loaf of bread!
I’d rather retire this dangerous toaster. If old electronics used powered elements (even when off) and paper insulation on wires, who knows what other dangerous design decisions exist inside? It’s worth $20 to get a modern appliance with safety features
I’ve been searching for one since this video came out. Yesterday I found not 1, but 2 sitting on the shelf at my local thrift store. Just got both all cleaned up and working.
Only Technology Connections can make a 20-minute video that you can't look away from which is about nothing more than a toaster. Those are some impressive edutainment ninja skills right there.
Yes, have had one for about 30 years! My mother-in-law has one-that’s how I knew about it. I started getting into 1950’s and 1960’s appliances because I love their chrome-y, gorgeous style! All we have had to do is replace the power cord-we were able to find a new, fabric covered type like the old one. My husband took the entire toaster apart to clean it thoroughly, even though it wasn’t that bad. I was thrilled to find a date code stamped inside from the year 1950! So our Sunbeam beauty is 74 years old and going strong! I love it, along with my other vintage appliances!
We had one of those when I was growing up. It did last forever. My grandparents worked at the Sunbeam plant in Cicero, IL. We had a lot of Sunbeam appliances.
When you got quality appliances for a reasonable price. Now you get appliances sans quality but with lots of useless addons and 3 years later you throw them out.
To be fair… define “reasonable.” Another commenter found an ad for this toaster which showed it listing for $30 in 1952. That’s over $330 adjusted for inflation. There’s actually a KitchenAid toaster today which does the same thing as this old one, and it’s $250. Technically cheaper, but… would you buy it? (I’m on the fence.)
Our original T-20 is still working PERFECTLY after 72 years. It raised 6 kids. Still looks and acts like new. I will be inheriting it from my mom, and it will continue to give me perfect toast for the rest of my days. I've bought 2 spares for parts just in case it should ever have an issue, but something tells me it's going to outlive me. Not just the best toaster ever made, it's one of the best THINGS ever made. It's simply perfect.
Another example of why I like your channel. That T-35 always intrigued me, we had one when I was very young until my mom sold it at a garage sale. When I was older my dad bought another T-35 after getting sick of junk toasters not toasting bread right. It’s been a lot of year and mom and dad are gone but I believe that toaster still exists. After seeing what they sell for on eBay now, I will be looking around my sister’s house for the one dad bought so long back. 😁
![PASULOL รามเกียรติ์ ตอนที่ 4 นนทกพบรัก [Ramakien Ep.4: Nonthok in love]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tMUQgmZzf_A/mqdefault.jpg)
I showed this video to my parents. My father is an engineer, my mother a teacher. They both very much enjoyed the content, and your style of presentation.
A month ago, on my birthday, I unwrapped a package from them. It was a gleaming, factory-condition Sunbeam Radiant toaster. Thank you for this moment.
underrated comment!!
Hope you enjoy your cool new toaster and get years of use out of it
I have one and its great
I am actually both unspeakably jealous and ridiculously impressed by your parents. I hope they and your toaster give you many more years of happiness.
Wow your parents are amazing
Awesome!
1960: We'll have flying cars in the future
2019: Look at this toaster from 1960 that does much more than yours!
Crap toasters and Twitter feuds: the world of the future is a great disappointment.
@@tophers3756 Funnily enough, this toaster is the solution to both of those problems. One just needs a bathtub to go with it.
The KitchenAid Proline 2 Slice Toaster is actually the modern day version. Has all the features of this Antique Toaster in the video and more.
@@i64fanatic $209US is quite a bit of money to spend on a 2 slot toaster. Now you know why this design disappeared off the market!
If only they tried to improve other forms of technology besides computer technology.
I was at a goodwill yesterday and one of these beauts was on the shelf for 5 dollars and somewhere in my mind i was transported to watching this video at 4 am in bed 3 years ago. I couldn't exactly remember why sunbeam toasters were elite but i bought it and came back for all the validation I could have asked for. I am now in the toast phase of my life and you are the reason why.
Sunbeam appliances are one of the most reliable kitchen tools ever , they're well made and last an incredibly long time plus they're very affordable in price which is all the reasons why the company has existed for so long
You lucky dog. Those go for $120+ on ebay. I've been trying to get one for under $75 or so since this video came out with no luck. The only ones that go that cheap are non-functional ones and the sellers never say what's wrong with them.
If they knew what was wrong with them, they'd fix them and sell them for $120 instead. It's almost always something easy to fix, so it might just be worth the gamble.
@@dereksmith8642 I think this channel, Technology Connections, has posted a video about fixing a couple of problems these toasters develop. There are also other channels with fixing videos for these toasters.
It finally happened. After 3 years of keeping my eyes open at local antique and secondhand stores I found one of these toasters. Breakfast has never been so exciting. Thank you so much for this entire channel.
When I was 3 years old, LONG AGO, my dad bought my mom a new "General Electric" toaster! I inherited this, and it STILL WORKS GREAT! It is so SAD what "home appliances" have become!
If you do not know why the Sunbeam Co. stopped making these in 1997 you do not know about "Chainsaw Al", noted as one of the worst CEO's of all time. Al Dunlap who died just this year, made his reputation through massive layoffs supposedly for cost cutting reasons, everywhere he went. The scheme was repeated in other companies, by other CEO's including the one in charge where I worked a whole career: the Hughes Aircraft Co. Al was worse, though, as his accounting frauds also contributed to his ability to generate impressive short term profits. Look him up.
Now to Sunbeam. They had a great reputation and like such companies they had a loyal, but aging workforce ripe for the picking. Al and the others of his ilk specialized in mining corporate reputations, and in the sunbeam case "modernizing" the product line as cheaply as possible.
That toaster needed an experienced worker to calibrate the sensitive switch, and of course the engineer/manager who oversaw the many mechanical (analogue) pieces that had to remain in tolerance to perform as the ones you have still did. They were probably among the first to be offered a packaged early retirement. The rest of the workers just had to find something else in a job market that had already been decimated by the recession of '93. In my case I survived several layoffs to eventually take my retirement after the part of Hughes I worked at had been sold for half again more than GM had paid for the whole company 5 years prior. I like to say that that deal reflected the Reagan era "Voodoo economics" made famous by George Bush Sr. way back when he ran for president in 1980 before he was invited to join Reagan on the ticket. GM had complained when they bought Hughes that the main capital of the company "Went down the elevators and out the front door every day at 4 PM." Then the first thing they did was start layoffs. Much of that "capitol" was among the first to skeedaddle, leaving behind a lesser grade of engineer, myself included due to cupidity about how the world works. Selling large amounts of the workplace buildings or leasing them to other companies followed on. Those of us remaining had to double up in our offices. Unpaid overtime became a necessity to fulfill contracts.
That toaster illustrates that we once had great engineering talent, and intellectual property to hold ourselves above the ordinary, much of it now in the hands of Chinese manufacturing, while we languish in a "bean counters" paradise.
Thank you for sharing your story. I never knew about Al Dunlap, or what he and people like him did to American ingenuity. We really lost something special in that era. But not everything is lost. When the garden of creation is bare, and old crops have long since disappeared, channels like Technology Connections plant seeds in the hearts of new creators. We only need time and care for those seeds to grow.
At least we can buy inferior versions of our own designs back from countries that somehow manage to grind up workers faster than corporate America at a slightly cheaper rate then we'd pay if we just took care of own talent. Sounds like good business to me!
Under capitalism, profit seeks the lowest cost of labor and materials.
-So say the works of Adam Smith and every economist since his day.
The executive is incentivised to maximise profit by reducing costs, the largest of which are input materials, and workers wages. As for the plight of the worker that gets screwed, who cares, the rich are incentivised by capitalism to have contempt for those without wealth, sociopathy to protect wealth and greed to make it grow. There is no profit in empathy and altruism.
There are better ways but we are never given such options:
th-cam.com/video/6DNofdU4tSE/w-d-xo.html
armyofall.wordpress.com/democracy/
"Unpaid overtime became a necessity to fulfill contracts."
Sounds like exactly the same thing that people are complaining about happening all over the Video games industry these days.
@@Reddotzebra Unpaid labour is never a necessity. If there is insufficient cash flow then the those at the top of a given organisation should be slashing their own incomes in order to ensure everyone who does work is paid for that work.
To not pay workers for their labors, is a choice, to have workers go along with that with little question out of a misguided sense of loyalty to a brand is economically suicidal for workers and Christmas for capitalists.
My Sunbeam looks even older than this one, really enjoyed finding out how it works.
(Edit: I replaced the cord tonight and found out it was made in January 1951)
Why did you always have all cool toys?
Doesn’t matter how old it is, the important thing is that does if FLY SAFE?
Toast safe?
What kind of toaster do they use in space Todd? There's and idea for your next video or a possible colab? thank me later
I love mine (yep, only have 2 though). Yay, Sunbeam!
I work in engineering and the cleverness in this thing makes me feel inadequate.
Totally worth a patent.
Imagine being the guy who came up with the idea of the wire being the tension spring for the lifter, and trying to pitch it to the boss, before making a prototype..
Boss would be like, "get outta here Jim, you and your hair-brained ideas, you be the death of this company.. I shoulda fired you a year ago!, and boy, I would have if you weren't my nephew!"
Jim goes and builds a working prototype, and returns to the boss..
boss, upon seeing the mechanism: Well, would you look at that!
I’d rather retire this dangerous toaster. If old electronics used powered elements (even when off) and paper insulation on wires, who knows what other dangerous design decisions exist inside? It’s worth $20 to get a modern appliance with safety features
@@electrictroy2010 Probably asbestos paper, likely would outlast any silicone/plastic insulated wire a person might replace it with. As for the live internals, don't stick your fingers in it (just like a bulb socket). I have come across mis-wired receptacles, and some so worn out that the polarizing feature no longer works. 120V mains shock usually isn't too bad, that 60hz muscle contraction will wake you up though.
@@electrictroy2010 Who knows? *We* know. He showed us the insides. The non-polarized non-grounded plug is the only electrical flaw, that's easily fixed by changing out the cord. There are no electronics.
@@mattgraham4340eh depends on the person actually but feels buzzy
I saw this video when it first came out, rushed out to eBay to get my toaster only to find that they were like $75 so I decided to wait. Upon waiting they went up to $300. Finally, after waiting for 3 years, working ones are now around $150 and broken ones are around $50 to $75. I bought a broken one and it arrived today. It took a little while to figure out what all was wrong with it but all it amounted to was a screw that had fallen out and part of the darkness adjuster had gone missing so I had to make a new one. Now I've got it all tuned up and working and I couldn't be happier! Finally... I've gotten my closure on this toaster.
That’s..a little absurd
@@longebane you are not wrong
As a mechanical engineer that HATES modern toasters... thank you for this. I've been looking for a good toaster for years.
Yeah. Toaster manufacturers got wise to the fact that their old toasters were seriously impacting their sales. Now all they produce is cheap crap you are expected to replace every 5 years. I use a toaster from the 70's. I clean and relubricate (food-safe grease) the sliding parts about once a year, and it works great!
jumpanama did you ever find one?
I know! Tell me about it. Toasters and Printers/Copiers. It is the 21st century and they still make me feel like I am stuck in a Rube Goldberg nightmare!
Anything made in the USA is superior to modern products.
At least in Germany we have two sizes of toast - so it would not be that big of a problem to find toast that fits :)
Heh, my grandpa still uses one of those daily. He learned how to fix it and it's been going strong since 1961.
Learn how to fix it
I love that. My dad has his dad's Rockwell bench grinder that has been working since about halfway through the 20th century. I love good solid equipment and not the disposable equipment mentality of today.
Make a video!
@@kdawson020279 Alot of tools today are still maintainable, sadly appliances however are getting increasingly tricky and complex.
Dosent help when the "throw away" culture has seeped into so many other consumer goods.
@@kdawson020279 my dad had a lot of old 1960s to 1980s era tools and auto repair/diagnostic equipment. He had made it clear it was supposed to be mine, but my uncles and cousins raided everything before I got to it. I was way too trusting and didn't rush in to take everything that was supposed to be mine. I have absolutely nothing of his now except a couple of channel lock wrenches.
"Oh god, he has a third one" The somewhat self-deprecating humor there is just funny as hell.
You wanted one of these toasters? Too bad, some guy from TH-cam bought them all.
@CyDragonGM It's an idea made up by people to control other people.
It's a completely different format (of joke).
CyDragonGM it's not an actual place.
For me at least. I respect your beliefs btw
You can bet he bought a 4th one, just in case!🤣
My husband found this toaster for $5 at goodwill this weekend and went through a bag of bread calibrating it, and ultimately it's everything you advertise and more. It's the best Valentines day gift ever.
1 year later, hows your toast?
One of the aspects about these old devices that I find so stupefyingly magical when I see them operate is that they didn't have microcontrollers and modern electronic sensors to rely on. They had to use some elegant, genius physical workarounds, often making use of physics I never even knew about or would have thought to utilise.
This toaster has a modern sensor (didn’t exist for the first 5000 years of recorded history). That temperature sensor is a fairly recent invention.
@@electrictroy2010 , I beleive what made it go down and up , was a bi-metal strip , when electrified caused one side of the metal to expand faster than the other .
At least that is what I think .
@@electrictroy2010 it’s a bimetallic strip, not a sensor in the modern sense of the word.
@@electrictroy2010 You know what they meant, being pedantic for the fun of it isn’t really helping anyone.
@@baseduck 👍👍I Know, RIght? Reading though these comments, I am under the impression that "electrictroy2010" is a troll who doesn't REALLY have a grasp on basic electrical knowledge, in an earlier post he said that this toaster should be retired due to its ELECTRONICS! We know that there is NO electronic device in this toaster, not even a damned diode! If someone is going to be even pretend to be an expert (or JUST pedantic) about THIS subject (especially if one is using ELECTRIC in their username!), They should AT LEAST know the difference between an electronic device and an electrothermal one. 🤷♂️ I didn't go to college, Hell I can't even spell CMU or MIT, and even I know the difference. 🤦♂️
the kinda faint _"oh god he has a THIRD one"_ instantly made me love this
The marshtomp in your pfp looks like he is trying to imitate Salsa from Mother 3
Makes me think there are multiple of Him
Was looking for this one in the comment section
Wait why is there 2 guys posting in the same time? The same thing?
OK wait nevermind there is a glitch when a comment you saw before appears on another comment... Most often on mobile
It's been 2 years since I watched this video. I finally found this toaster at a thrift store today. Just wanted to say thanks for giving me higher standards for my basic appliances.
@Alexander Ratisbona Almost didn't look at the appliances that day. Went to tie my shoes and was face to face with it at eye level. Only 14 bucks. Could not have snatched it faster. Last toaster I will ever buy.
@@quncle lol like a scene from a movie
@@quncle poor salesman, let's pray for him not to have seen this very video.... I bet you'd easily reached out 114$, but were lucky enough
@@quncle 14 bucks?? I hope the guy who sold it didn't steal it
@@brrrrrr goodwill, so it was donated. Probably handed down and then considered junk by the new owner.
OMG!! I just watched a video on a $400 toaster with a touch screen and wifi and this Sunbeam toaster puts it to absolute shame! The amount of engineering and cleverness in this design so long ago is amazing. It seems to be a trend before I.C's and micro transistors that everything was overcome using pure physics and analog not electronic signals and I think this shows how things that tech can give us now can be done using clever engineering and more materials.
Its fun how everyone is roasting that thing in the comments xD
For what POSSIBLE reason could a TOASTER need WIFI?!?!
@@Devin_Stromgren I know right.
@@Devin_Stromgren So they can charge you more money for it..
...whatever is a TOASTER using WIFI for?
My parents got this toaster as a wedding gift in 1969 and I've been using it for the last 20 years or so. It's always the first example cited when I go on a rant about planned obsolescence and the ever-more insipid manufacturing quality.
I’d rather retire this dangerous toaster. If old electronics used powered elements (even when off) and paper insulation on wires, who knows what other dangerous design decisions exist inside? It’s worth $20 to get a modern appliance with safety features
@@electrictroy2010 Who knows? *We* know. He showed us the insides. The non-polarized non-grounded plug is the only electrical flaw, that's easily fixed by changing out the cord. There are no electronics.
My aunt received one as a wedding gift in 1947. She used it daily until her death in 2018. That is 71 years!! She said the only repair it ever required was replacing the electrical cord and plug in the late 70s. No idea what my cousins did with it after she died. Hope someone is still using it!
@@electrictroy2010 for a guy with electric in your name you sure weren't paying attention to the design of this toaster, inside or out
@@electrictroy2010 I suspect that paper is actually asbestos.
Thank you sir you just solved a 50 years old mystery for me... when I was young I was watching it every morning and could not comprehend how the mechanism worked and what made it come up and down. Now that I do understand I truly am flabergasted. Incredible feat of engineering.
Me too. I used one once as a kid and was amazed by how the bread slowly went in and slowly came out as toast. Even though I never really forgot about it completely, I put it out of my mind and assumed it was some set of motors and gears.
@@theclearsounds3911 , yup, me too. Far more clever than I knew.
There was a toaster made around 1950, maybe by Toastmaster, that did use a motor. It was much noisier than Sunbeam Radiant Control toasters. I bought one just to sell it on eBay.
My Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster is still with me. I bought it at a thrift store for $5 and had to clean it. Imma keeping it!
I appreciate the fact that you went through the trouble of animating the patent picture to give a clear picture of how the mechanism works. This is top quality content; thank you for providing it.
I know right
I know wrong
I know left.
@@eatingsteakisfun I know north.
@@TheOtherCiphbruh he knows north
What really blows my mind is how they calculated the exact coefficient of expansion necessary to expand the wire which engages a lever mechanism. It's genius because it doesn't necessarily bend anything which means it'll never break. Amazing stuff, I'll be keeping an eye out for this gem!
In all likelihood they just got a rough guess then tried different lengths until they dialled in on the correct one.
More likely than not they just tested it a bunch, or laid out a long strand and measured the shrinkage. That, and it could easily be designed to only actuate a little bit, even if the wire expands or contracts more than needed
1940s technology: it's amazing what the engineers did with mechanics before they had electronic control circuits
1960s technology: it's amazing what they did with just analog electronics before digital computers were available
1980s technology: it's amazing how they built things out of discrete logic without having microcontrollers
2000s technology, revisited in the 2020s: how could they even toast a bagel without an amazon prime subscription and giving the toaster access to your google calendar?
also in the 2020s: attempting to repair that toaster is a public safety hazard and therefore sharing information about it is a felony
ok boomer
@@scalycopperhead1674 shut up
@@scalycopperhead1674 It's just sarcasm.
@@ivanavalos3911 Overblown sarcasm. Non "smart" appliances are not the norm. You will still encounter mostly thermostats, washing machines, toasters, fridges, dryers and more without digital assistant integration. It's as if now that Teslas and other vehicles are incorporating better and better self driving, you summarize the decade by saying "how did people drive places before their car drove them there?"
It's a hyperbolic attack on modern technology and that is prime boomer humor.
Nick No, it's clearly not overblown boomer sarcasm, because it's not a joke about the present that boomers hate, it's more about the future we, young generations, will live in. It's not boomer humor at all, FYI.
You are my kind of writer. It's refreshing to see someone put that much thought into their English and the appropriate delivery of their lines. Now I want one of these toasters even though I can't eat wheat anymore. I would love to see a series made of going back in time and MAKING PEOPLE APPRECIATE THINGS!
wait, why you can't eat wheat?
He probably has Celiac disease, like me and my mother. I had the same thought, BTW, that I'd love to have one of these, but no way could a used toaster ever be safe for me... Lol.
The Mechanical Philosopher
That's a cool user name. No relation, I suppose, to The Philosophical Mechanic.
@@LNSLateNightSaturday Yeah, before gluten-free was a "fad diet," it was the result of a horrible disease that severely limited the variety of food available to the afflicted individual.
@@jimstanley_49 But it being a "fad diet" also brought much more attention too it and opened the door for soooooo many more gluten free options. You're still semi limited, but a lot of the stuff at least has a gluten free variation now
My dad was an electrical engineer and when we opened this little baby, he was in awe at the engineering. His words " this thing is perfect". The only thing we changed was the clothed electrical cord with a new cloth electrical cord. That was 30 years ago and it's in my kitchen now and still toasting the perfect toast. Every single time
Going on 4 years and the “oh god he has a *third* one” still makes me bust up laughing 😂😂😂
14:40
loololollool
🤣
🤣🤣
"Through the Arcane Dark Magic of buying a THIRD one..."
Reliable, rugged, simple, easy to fix, yet if you touch it while it's working it'll burn you and/or shock you at mains voltage.
Ahh, I love the 1950s.
And amazingly, people weren't electrocuting and burning themselves left and right. When means that as a society, we have gotten that much more incompetent and stupid, just like our toasters have become cheap pieces of junk.
@@cowsongs, they were electrocuting and burning themselves, sure, not everyone, but a lot of people. Nowadays, society cares not only about the majority of people, but about other smaller groups.
@@MrPaukann I never met a single person who accidentally electrocuted themselves to death with a toaster!
@@saveusbloodymess, ok. How large is your sample size? 100 people?
@@MrPaukann read what he sent again
A jump scare free toaster?! Take my money!!
So, apparently... Cuisinart makes one. AND it has a bagel mode!
@@AndrewThibeault this is critical: what is it called?
@@AndrewThibeault Answer please, the world needs to know.
@@A_Box It's the Cuisinart CPT-420, though I don't think it works the same way as the Sunbeam Radiant. The Cuisinart description is that it's motorized and it doesn't have a lever.
Good quality lever toasters have a brake mechanism to reduce the shut off jump scare. You just need to be willing to put down a few extra bucks on your next toaster.
You made me giggle so hard when I heard "Oh God he has a third one." I love this channel.
My parents had a toaster like that when I was a kid in the 1960s. And yes, there were the partial remains of a Wonder Bread bag melted on the side.
Wow, I don't know if you'll ever read this but thought I'd share anyway. I grew up with this toaster and assumed that everyone had such a toaster. At some point, I was at a friend's house and they were finishing breakfast and invited me to share. They had their toaster in the middle of the table so I grabbed some bread and put it in and waited. My friend's mom noticed right away and pushed the lever down. I am smart enough (or was) to realize why she did it but thought something like "what a weird type of toaster", not realizing that OUR toaster was the odd one.
Part II, we had this toaster for a VERY long time, I was born in 1951. At some point, it didn't work right (probably simply didn't brown properly and removing and reinserting the dial at a different place would have fixed it). Anyway, my mom found out it would cost a "lot" at the time, something like $15. So, she bought a brand new toaster. It lasted less than 2 years. But being the frugal folks we were, we still had the sunbeam and we got it out and THEN had it fixed and it worked properly until my mom literally polished the chrome off in places! Fortunately, they still made them and she got a brand new one!
RichE San Diego, CA
@Ahek it was a brave little toaster
did you jump when the toast popped out instead of rising up slowly? 😂 i feel like thatd scare me to death, especially if i didnt even expect it
Hey Rich, do you still have this toaster? If you do I'd be willing to buy it off ya!
How can you tell a story about the toaster without mentioning the other major difference between the toaster your friend had and the one you had? The fact that you had to change your pants if you were in the same room as the toaster when it pops!
Had this toaster too! did you ever get the issue where you would put the bread in but it wouldnt start, so you'd repeatedly jam it in until it actually lowers?
"Oh god he has a third one"
That KILLED me.
Much like exposed mains.
XD
I have not used a toaster in years, nor do I have an affinity for toast, but this video has completely convinced me that I can no longer live comfortably without this Sunbeam toaster.
Imagine they could use this video as their ad in the 1970s, like here's a man from the future saying our toaster is the best even in 2020s
@@marypalmer00 okay wait but why havent products done that comically…does it fall under false advertising laws?
There are probably many of these in thrift stores that deal in used & donated products. They may need a simple clean up, repair, or adjustment but maybe not.
@@livelongandprospermary8796 but what if you tell people in the ad to kill your grandfather? what if the toaster was inspired by this video?
Oh, you COULD!
It's marvels like these that made me want to be a mechanical engineer (and cars of course). The fact that this is a completely mechanical toaster (the only electrical components are the heating elements themselves!) that is 100% automated is a beautiful engineering marvel! I was watching one of your earlier videos and was thinking of ideas to try to slow down the release of the toaster via a damper or some other mechanical means but this is perfection! Imagine too, if they produced 4 slice versions for families today (with updated safety standards of course)!
What he doesn't explicitly mention, although it is implied in the patent wording, is that these toaster will produce slices of the same darkness regardless of how recently the last slice was toasted. Most modern toasters won't do that.
And regardless of what bread is put in.
He literally says it in the video
4:32
And regardless of whether the bread is frozen or room temperature!
It does not. Unless spaced out. The thermostat needs time to cool, otherwise the second batch gets a head start with the heat.
I love this channel. There's no way I woke up today thinking I was going to be riveted to a 20 minute documentary about a 70 year old toaster.
You've probably driven the price up on ebay for these toasters now.
He most definitely has....I checked.
The Techmoan Effect? Nah... the TechConnect Effect.
He did buy three, after all.
Soon one will be $300 on eBay even if non working
It's almost 150 USD buy it now😂
My mother got a Sunbeam toaster as a gift at her bridal shower in 1947. I have it now and it's perfect!! I had to replace the cloth covered cord a year ago but other than that it's the most amazing toaster. My mother was always a bit regretful that she gave it to me instead of holding onto it. I can't believe the price. Knowing that now, that was one hell of a gift.
Can't believe I just watched a video about an antique toaster.
I'm even more shocked at how much I enjoyed it.
Thanks dude.
That lifting mechanism is an absolutely beautiful piece of engineering.
I love looking at old machines and devices to see mechanical solutions like this.
As soon as he showed the zoomed out view with the cover off, after mentioning the lever, and I saw the other end in the middle, I knew it had to do with thermal expansion of the nichrome element. I wasn't sure exactly HOW yet, but it was obvious it was going to be an ingenius implementation. Which it was.
And without a single resistor or capacitor or transistor.
Try Techmoan.
I.was at least expecting a motor somewhere, protected from the heat or made to be heat resistant.
But nope! Not only does it do away with a motor, the control system is included too. And it's free! Using the actual toasting heat as a control and a motor at the same time!
I'd love to know who invented that, and see the look on his face as he told people about it. It's pure genius!
@@rambleon3698 nope, our toaster aficionado is the techmoan of household appliances.
I hope he'll upload more content about those gadgets!
This channel is just amazing. I clicked on this video thinking "wow, he's overreacting. It's a toaster they don't do much" then pulled out the perry the platypus equivalent of a toaster and now can guarantee I'll be raving to all my friends how cool old toasters were
@@LordBruuh You're not funny
I will now be using Perry the Platypus as a metaphor for everything.
@@LordBruuh yeah, people were awful back then, but you're awful now, sooo. Dont be a dick.
@@LordBruuh Nobody was going there. There are fewer of these people in real life than what you might find concentrated on the internet, in the circles that some algorithm has served up to you. Examine your circles and the source of the mindset that draws you to them.
"a toaster?"
puts hat on:
"SUNBEAM THE TOASTER?"
Things like these are absolutely fascinating. Not a single microchip or motor, yet it achieves complex "smart" movements.
Purely with genius engineering based on physical principles.
Minus the designflaw in the wiring...
The audio in this video is all over the place... I switched to a new recording device and set the level way too low. Lots of weird level fluctuations occurred, and there's a lot of background hiss, but hopefully the audio is overall better. I think it's a little clearer.
Also--yes the inside of that toaster is filthy. I know. But please, tell me a hundred times in the comments ;)
Just out of interest, what audio device have you switched to now? Thanks!
@NotADuck I'm fairly sure it's not asbestos. I had to strip some of it off to replace the plug and while it was fibrous, to me it felt more like the sort of compressed paper that makes up a lollipop stick or the stick of a cotton swap. Even if it is asbestos, there's really nothing to worry about given that it's not going to enter your lungs or even your stomach.
Hey, hey, hey. You there, yeah you with the great videos..
Yout toasters are filthy..
I didn't notice anything, so it can't be THAT bad :P
As the guy with the old man ears - Nice come up on the audio! I'f you, personally, are still not pleased with it, I am looking forward to even MORE improvement. Excellent video!
That lowering/lifting mechanism is genius, but genius that relies on two of the oldest physical principles known to man; thermal expansion/contraction and levers/fulcrums. Proper old school engineering, and it's basically bulletproof. Even if the heating element wire eventually snapped, you could just buy some nichrome wire and repair it in half an hour.
Designing a modern equivalent would require a microcontroller, geared servo's or a worm/wheel drive motor, limit switches, safety cutouts, an LCD display and the circuity/components to link all of that together. Plus "cool touch" body with space-grade carbon-ceramic coating, RGB lighting, and a mobile app.
But you need the app. How else would you know your toast is done?
Um, why would it need an LCD display? It already can sense the temperature from the bread itself so I say it just needs a louder alarm so you can hear it announce the bread is rising back up!
I know you are exaggerating but today we could also just copy the system and make it better.
sixstringedthing ya gotta love the mechanical and electromechanical ingenuity of the 60’s and 70’s. You should watch Techmoan’s video on auto reverse, now that’s the most over engineered thing I’ve ever seen.
@@trainman5371 If you're talking about the Akai mechanism that actually flips the tape over inside the machine, I've seen it and it's one of my favourite Techmoan vids. So over-engineered, so unnecessary, but so elegant in action! :)
The demise of that toaster roughly corresponds to Albert J. Dunlap taking over as CEO. He completely screwed up the company, and engaged in accounting fraud. The remains of the company were sold off, so I wouldn't be shocked that that product was lost in the shuffle.
We had one of those, but without the gold logo, but I remember vividly the engraved writing for "one slice toasting".
To be perfectly honest, this, and similar business practices can be seen throughout corporate america, and has only gotten worse and worse over the last several decades. I wanna say it's the result of unfettered, unregulated capitalism that has turned the entire private sector back into the wild west where no rules existed, and companies could do whatever they wanted with no consequences. That is why I think capitalism has cannibalized itself. Also vulture capitalism with CEO's running companies into the ground in a bid to make as much money as possible, and getting out before the ship fully sinks. And companies where even though they are making record profits, they still lay off thousands of workers because they can't hit unrealistically high numbers to make investors happy. Sad state we are in.
@Krunchy The Clown I couldn't agree more with you Sir! If I may add one more thing: the pursuit of ever-increasing annual profits because merely maintaining status quo would never sit well with the shareholders. It's only a question of time before capitalism collapses under its own weight because these policies have depleted all resources. Sad state indeed.
I guess we kinda got lucky in Australia - the Aussie arm of Sunbeam went rogue in the 1970s and has sorta been doin' its own thing ever since.
I thought maybe it was the low carb craze back in the days that was the death knell to all things that was associated with bread.
Grandparents got one of these for their wedding in 1948. They gave it to my mom when she went to college. My mom gave it to me when I went to college. Best toaster any of us have ever had!
Our latest toaster didn't just startle you when the bread was ready, it often threw the newly toasted bread out with such force that it ended up on the floor. That wasn't a great design.
I had a toaster like that too. Put a plate in front of it, more often than not the toast would land on the plate, once every while still on the floor.
this bread toasted
*YEET*
TFW you don't know if you need a mechanic or a priest...
@@khatharrmalkavian3306 why not both?
*The Mechanicus has arrived*
Journal, April 24th, 2019: TH-cam now thinks I need to learn about 20th century toasters. Motive unclear.
That's easy. The bread companies want people to buy more bread. So they paid TH-cam to recommend bread related stuff in the hopes that people will have a craving for something bread related such as toast.
Which leads to more sales of bread.
That or TH-cam occasionally throws random things out to see if you like it.
I don't think "why is this in my recommended" applies here. We all know why. This toaster needs to be seen because it is better.
@@Nirrrina These were my exact thoughts!!!!
Unicorn!!🦄🦄🦄
need one for my Vegemite toast
I got multiple recommendations for both this and the space heater video. Then I got the FlexPlay one not long after it came out.
I haven't seen daylight since.
“Oh god, he’s got a THIRD one?!?!”
THAT gained a sub from me.
same here
14:39 for anyone that missed it
@@andreasdettkjelston7415 that freaks me out when it happens
As a electronics teacher, i find it amazing that it works only by termo mechanic means. With a few minor adjustments of current materials and security criteria, it could not be much better that it already is.
This might just be the second greatest thing since sliced bread
your joke genuinely made me groan lmao
What's the first thing since?
@@SeanFrisbey sliced bread
Dad joke for the win.
Now sliced bread can be utilized to its full potential!
I need this toaster now. The uneven sides of toast is amazing. That means you can give extra firmness and dampness resistance directly under your toast topping, while not having as much "burn" taste on the un-spread side of the toast.
Yup, I'm also a fan of uneven side toasting, we used to have a toaster oven so I could just manually control how toasted I wanted each side, now we use one of those George Foreman-like electric grills, dunno exactly what you call those in the US, with those I use the locking latch to leave it just slightly open, it's enough to make a difference with sliced bread.
it's not a defect, it's a feature!
Timing is everything.. I picked up a couple of these toasters the weekend before last while on a thrift store crawl. I was surprised at the lack of in depth videos on them. then you posted yours. thanks!
Now sell them on eBay for a big buck
@@mr2octavio right?! I paid so much less for these two than I see them selling for on epay. I actually think this video spurred the interest. the price these have been selling for since this video was posted has jumped 3 fold.
@@BretFrohwein Yeah it's like the redlettermedia effect on bad movies.
I grew up on a Sunbeam toaster and they are indeed TERRIFIC and a thing of beauty. My mom had hers for 60+ years and...it just kept toasting. And THIS is the primary reason why no manufacturer will ever build one again because it would violate their own product design obsolescence plan.
Thanks for the time travel down memory lane. Makes me miss my mom and dad even more. 🙂
You know very well why they do not produce this type of toaster:
They sell exactly 1 per household and that's it - the next one will be bought in like 100 years.
ain't planned obsolescence a thing of beauty?
The sad thing is that it is probably true. I myself still use an old reliable toaster.
@@jacqueschappelle5857 That's capitalism, but also not helped by the nature of large scale industrial manufacturing.
Tweaking your factory to produce a slightly modified version of the same thing is easy.
Adjusting it to make an entirely different product is extremely expensive and time consuming.
Thus you either keep making the same thing for ages, spend a small fortune redesigning factories every few years, or just keep building new factories leaving the old ones to rot.
Also no product, no matter how well made lasts literally forever (especially when accidents and so on get involved), so you're still going to need a tiny trickle of continued production indefinitely otherwise at some point there will be no functioning examples of the device in question left.
The fact that Capitalism demands that your company undergo constant growth to not be considered a failure also doesn't help matters.
If you sold the same amount of a product as you did last year, you're in trouble, and that's sad.
Still, unless something about the nature of manufacturing and economies of scale changes dramatically, this isn't likely to go away.
A major problem, aside from the sheer cost of redesigning a factory for a new product, is that making one item is way more expensive per item than making 1 million.
Making 1 million items instead of one is not 1 million times as expensive, no, because of the way manufacturing scales, it's probably more like 10,000 times as expensive.
And that's a problem when you think about it, because it means you want the volume of production to be as high as possible.
The less of something that gets made, the more expensive it is to make each one...
But for the magic of buying 3 of them...
Nothing beats the simplicity of a camp fire toast. The wonderful taste and smell of these black carbonized burnt bread loafs. 😏😆
Fun fact, this exact toaster makes an appearance in the movie Mortal Engines. It is even called out by name and praised for how awesome it was.
I know that scene! Makes a lot more sense now.
Also a lot less.
I came here to post this. I wonder if they watched this video...
Isn't it also the toaster that the eponymous Brave Little Toaster movies is based on?
@@HolyKhaaaaan While the body is a dead ringer, I recall the Toaster's "Arms" being conventional push-down levers and doing the standard "Pop" when done. Odds are he was a more generic model, especially because it was a plot point that he wasn't fancy like this wonder of engineering.
The same toaster is used in the “Be Cool About Fire Safety” PSA with Gilbert Gottfried as “Seymore Smoke Detector.” They faked toast popping up out of it though. ;)
One thing you failed to mention. Although the first pair of slices takes about the same time as a normal toaster to toast. Once all that chrome and sheet metal is warmed up you can easily beat a 4 slice unit since toast go in and out in a flash. Plus that extreme heat locks in the humidity giving you the perfect combination of cripsy outside squishy inside.
It truly toast the perfect toast.
@Nunya Business well shit. i guess i'll have to eat more toast!
It's true, once it's hot, you can turn the knob down. Toast will be done sooner.
Through the years and decades, that toaster has proven itself to be dependable and hard working. Such a brave little toaster!🎉😊
I see what you did there. Worthless!
The price of these toasters after this video was a proper Brave Little Toaster goes to Mars moment frfr
"This toaster is an amazing display of engineering and is better than anything we have today! It only has one flaw..." *proceeds to explain how it's a horrifying potential electrical hazard*
But all of those issues are trivial for modern production. To produce something today with those same flaws would more than likely be against modern safety codes. Making a plastic body for thermal insulation would be bad for the environment but trivial for the toaster company that doesn't care (and already makes their toasters with plastic bodies), adding the ground cord would be no inconvenience at all. Improving the safety to make sure that nothing can be live unless it is toasting would require minimal change to the design. A bagel mode would be the hardest thing to implement because of the current design's reliance on its "eye" for timing, but installing the absolute simplest of circuitry would allow the toaster to know what's going on and run a timer instead of relying on an eye. It would be just as easy as making regular toasters for today's manufacturers.
Well, yes toast performance and safety are two different things. It is also still amazing engineering, regardless of it's flaws. Saying it isn't would be like claiming cars are not great engineering because they occasionally run people over.
If a toaster with this design was made with todays standards, it would be the best toaster ever.
Best Toaster in the world, but it can kill you... well, classic trade off. Worth it imho.
@@cavaronev4869 It could "toast" you...
@@johnwang9914
Which can be easily fixed by solving the extremely few design flaws.🤷🏾♂
They could have improved on this design instead they abandoned it entirely in favor of the clunky design all toasters now have.
Plot twist: This video was filmed with his 4th Sunbeam toaster. They make much more decent footage as well!
Mikosch2 I’m reading this on a 5th toaster that I got at a Technology Connections garage sale
Depends on how dark you want the video
He also lives inside one now, of course.
He has 8 let’s just be honest
I'm waiting for him to turn one into an air conditioner through some little-known thermal design trickery.
My parents still use that toaster a few times a week. No joke. The AC cord has been replaced a few times, as it's from the 60s, but it keeps going and going!
You might wanna watch his video on adding an earth connection and making it safer.
I have this and the matching Sunbeam 8 and 10 cup perk-o-lators (and sugar and creamers). All still work just fine. I know the toaster and 10-cupper were purchased around 1950 as they are family pieces. I bought the 8 cup one about 20 years ago as it's a better fit for daily my single-guy life. Make about 3 modern coffee mugs (coffee cups used to be smaller). I grind my beans with a 1940s Kitchen Aid grinder. Thing has a scary-powerful motor in it. Scary-powerful. Sounds like the end of the world, but works great. I have a LOT of old stuff that works just fine. Some needed a little maintenance/cleaning/lubrication, but people used to expect that after 10, 20, 30 years. Now people throw everything away. I'm listening to 78s on a 1958 Sonic record player right now. Three new capacitors and a few drops of oil and good as new. That took basic soldering skills, but still, easy enough.
Finally, someone else who understands why I love my vintage Sunbeam toaster.
If you like this check out vintage sunbeam vertical grills. Its another awesome innovative kitchen appliance from sunbeam thats not made anymore and has a cult following.
Having grown up with one of these I missed a lot of the toaster jokes on cartoons and so on where the bread flew across the room or knocked out the cat or whatever. Because, after all, I'd seen the toaster gently raising and lowering the bread every day.
Accidental utopia
utopia.png the world if you grew up like BuffyLinux
contrarily i grew up toasting bread in the skillet, so i didn't get the jokes either, but for a much lamer reason. i still revert back to that technique sometimes though, there's no perfectly controlling your toast quite like toasting it on a skillet or griddle. but man i wouldve killed to have a machine gently lift my toast, perfectly browned, into my greedy hands.
The toaster snob has spoken, lol
Ironically these "no lever" toasters have more levers than their "with lever" counterparts.
its*
@@TheAechBomb In this case the apostrophe is used to indicate possession as opposed to a contraction
@@vvkool9653 apostrophes are only possessive if used after a proper noun:
Sarah's shoe
the Teacher's ruler
in this case 'its' is used similarly to how you might use 'hers'
the shoe is hers
the lever is its (it looks weird, but it's correct, english is strange)
@@TheAechBomb
So If I write " The lever is its' ".
Is it correct?
@@vulekv93 Bad syntax.
A more appropriate statement would be "That is its lever".
However, yes, that would be appropriate use of 'its'.
As the previous person said, English is a weird language. The old axiom is "English is parts of three other languages in a trenchcoat, pretending to be a single language".
My mind just automatically keeps thinking of all the toast this guy made just for the vid. I wonder if he ate all of it…. This is what I think of.
Best toaster ever. My grandma had one now I have hers. It’s over 50 years old. Still works great.
My Grandma had one as well I had 3 one quit left one @ my old house and still have one. Great toasters!.
Yeah, they worked too well, so they couldn't make money from planned obsolescence.
@@goopah ^this
Did I just watch an 18 minute video talking about a toaster?
Yes. Yes you did.
Yes. Yes we all did. And I thoroughly enjoyed those ~18 mins
I don't know. Also, this video is 18 minutes AND 28 seconds long.
It could be worse, it could be a talking toaster. "Can I just ask one question... would anyone like any toast?"
first time?
Came here via Tom Scott's Disconnected. Wasn't disappointed. Subbed.
Same 😆
@@thatsinteresting7041 Welcome, brother!
Go watch the video on Brown!
Same! Never knew how challenged my current toaster was. Such shame.
Same
I once aspired to be a nuclear engineer. But now I want to be a toaster repair man.
😂
A nuclear powered toaster 😲, now that I would like to see !
Toaster manufacturers: "$60 once in 50 years? mmm, we'll skip this one...."
10$ Every Ten years?
Hell yeah
@@matthias18 $5 every 5 years? I'll take em!
@@DumDoDoor $1 every 1 year?! SIGN ME UP!
Sunbeam was a really important Brand. So fine, you sell your toaster at not much profit. BUT, you sell Quality, and the customer then buys a kitchen Mixer; toaster oven; hand mixer; blender; you get the idea.
The saying that poor people can't afford to buy cheap appliances has been lost sadly.
That toaster was discontinued about the same time Sunbeam fell victim to a huge accounting scandal.
Bankruptcy followed.
Yep thanks to Chainsaw Al Dunlap, Sunbeam was run into the ground, and had to be bought up by competitors.
@@marisam9803 Interestingly I was recently reading about how Sunbeam was screwed over by Al Dunlap in Jon Ronson's book The Psychopath Test (it's chapter 6 if you want to dig it out). It's a sad and sorry tale.
@@MTB_Martin wow... it would have been interresting to know more about that!
I grew up with one of these in my parents house. When I finally realized how other people's toasters worked, I was greatly disappointed at how suckey other toasters are.
All hail the superior toaster!
I realized I probably burned my finger on one of these as a kid. It is indeed superior.
Now I KNOW that I am suffering from toaster PTSD, since I did not grow up with an amazing beyond belief toaster...
I grew up with one of these as well. Ours was made in the mid 50s, and never failed us. It did have a few spots of melted bread bag plastic stuck to the beautiful chrome finish, but it did not hamper functionality at all ;)
ctvxl I am suffering from toaster jealousy
I have the same toaster, made in 1955 as stamped inside. It’s great. I had the same idea and changed the cord and added a polarized grounded plug 10 years ago. I noticed the outer shell had a slight AC voltage on it and found it kinda concerning. Probably just capacitive stray voltage, but I could definitely feel it if I touched it lightly with the back of my hand. One other comment…the original cord was 2 conductor, fabric wrapped, but the ‘paper’ on the individual conductors (and on the internal wiring) is almost certainly asbestos. I’m not worried about it as the internal wiring doesn’t really see any activity to loosen fibres. Cheers
"Give me a lever and I'll lift the bread" -Archimede
Oh, there was more than one Archimede?
s
Wait, wait, wait...
This means that it would toast a before frozen toast as well, as a normal temperatured toast?
Wow. Thats so nice 😍
Holy....you're right. You're so, so right.
(Thought his would acerbate the minor inconvenience of one side toasting faster than the other)
@@tomc.5704 Probably something that could be fixed 🤔
Before frozen toast??? Tf is that
well it can toast a frozen waffle so I imagine it ca.. uh. before frozen toast? sure that's a thing apparently..
It just can't toast wheat bread.
Paper insulation on that wire? Considering its age it might be Asbestos.
Ehh... I don't think so. It looks like the sort of compressed paper that makes up a lollipop stick.
@@TechnologyConnections I agree with Russel. I'm almost certain that's asbestos. Compare to:
www.flickr.com/photos/asbestos_pix/7635649818
I can't imagine they would have been dumb enough to use paper insulation, especially considering asbestos was common at the time.
Also, I believe it's accepted that you *don't* want to ground a toaster, and that the use of a two-prong plug was and is intentional. One of the more official reasons I've seen:
"Toasters that may be in lunch rooms must not be grounded. Toasters do not appear in article 250 of the NEC; however, it has been addressed and tested by UL and has been found safer to remain ungrounded. UL testing and experience has shown that one will insert a knife or fork into the slots to remove stuck toast. Heating elements can easily be touched with a knife or fork while it is against the case, causing arcs, sparks, and perhaps a shock if the toaster is grounded. Therefore, toasters are to remain as they come from the manufacturer (that is, ungrounded)."
www.usbr.gov/ssle/safety/RSHS/appC.pdf
It's possible that newer toasters would have more/better separation or insulation between the energized parts and the case, but that's probably not a good reason to add a ground connection.
Asbesto is (kinda) safe in solid form, it's when asbesto becomes a powder you should be worried
I'm still not _entirely_ convinced that it's asbestos, but it does look plausible. There are some subtle differences I'm spotting between the way it frays in that photo compared to how it stripped apart when I replaced the cord. But that might just be due to individual wire differences.
Still, I wouldn't worry even if it was asbestos. I'd be worried if I worked in the factory that made the wiring, though!
if that is true it shouldn't be a concern. unless abestos when heated releases particles into the air. But if not, then there's really nothing to worry about. Since abestos when set and not being disturbed, is actually pretty safe. Though it's annoying how it's one of the best fire proofing material around, and yet that one problem have ruined it.
My parents received one of these Sunbeam toasters as a wedding gift nearly 50 years ago, and it's been our family toaster ever since. I still use it daily to this day, and it still functions perfectly!
As a child, I actually thought our toaster was just old and broken because it didn't POP the toast up like I saw on TV/movies.
I had to pause it while I'm losing it over the, "oh God he has a 3rd one."
same
X2
I completely lost it. The timing is so perfect.
"Dispite being over 40 years old it still works perfectly" - I think you explained why they don't make them any more.
Things that last don't make money, things that break bring in return sales. Hence right for repair is becoming an issue.
Saying “hence why” is like saying “and this is why why”
This isn't software or phones they don't loose money in toaster sales
@@GeddyRC yes?
Zackary Strange you can’t loose money, but you can have loose pocket change
@@GeddyRC you can also use 'hence' to mean 'therefore' though
Great video and lots of good information! I've got the exact same toaster, a T35. I found it at a Boy Scout rummage sale for $5.00. The "turn on" mechanism only worked if I slammed the bread into it. Turned out, all I needed to do was to turn a screw adjustment of 1/4 of a turn. And that was over 25 years ago and it's still going strong.
I have one of those (almost) the same which I inherited from my grandmother. It still does better toast than any other toaster I know. I take great care when I pack it to move between houses, as I don't want it to ever break. So nice to see a video on it even if the video is a couple of years old now. :)
Okay, now I'm looking for a laserdisc player, an 8 track player, and one of these damn toasters.
They are all over eBay - in addition to t-shirts and wall prints of the art from the patent - and they are all well over $100. :-)
🤣
You seek the Holy Grail!?!... in the mid 1980’s, Sears (maybe Wars or Penny’s) sold a fully loaded microwave oven with built in 7” color TV, AM/FM stereo digital clock radio and there may have been a cassette deck/8 track on it as well. Had side firing stereo speakers.
I cannot find this 9th wonder of the world anywhere.
I watch Techmoan as well, so it's even worse. Add to that list nixie tubes, DAT cassette players, vertical record players, a Seeburg background music system from a 1970s K-Mart...
@@gavincurtis do you know what the product was called? I wish to seek this loot
I had one of these from about 1968 till 2005. It’s only problem was the lowering mechanism got imperceptibly worse over the years. It became really, really hard to trigger the “down-elevator” kickoff. In the end you had to drop the slice from a precise height, about 10 cm in fact, depending on the density of the bread. Never occurred to me to take it apart because it wasn’t like anything suddenly broke.
You need to tighten the wire, just open the crumtray and turn the screw ij the middle
Sounds like you just have to tighten it again. I dont think it ever actually broke on you
Hopefully you still have it.
*patent filed march 28 1942*
USA: Let's mobilize industry to win this war!
Sunbeam: TOAST
I just uncontrollably laughed too hard.
Thanks for that. Also fuck you for that
There may be a war going on, but for keeping up morale on the homeside, you gotta have toast!
1942 : Companies working hard to make both bread and Nazis toast.
@@ethanlamoureux5306 Soliders need to eat, too!
@@souta95 The US entered December of 41 dude.
Yes I've the same model T-35 , gold emblem and gold leaf handles .
Best toaster ever , fast and so reliable and hopefully last another 50 yrs ! Had bought mine used 21 yrs ago for 19 bucks and paid 27 bucks to have it shipped . The best investment I ever ever made !!!
It's truly priceless
"Through the magic of buying two of them..." cracks me up every time!
"Oh god he has a third one!"
Ikr ?! 😆
And then he brings out a third one
This channel always cracks me up…his humor is very similar to The IT Crowd show and i love it :)
12:25 That might actually be asbestos... they didn't stop using it till 1970's and it was used as a fire-resistant insulator in many cases...
Fairman
Even though it’s poisonous we still haven’t found a better insulator than asbestos. (Except of course an air gap)
Asbestos isn't poisonous, but if you mess with it it makes dust and that might give Mesopotamia. As I like to say, I don't mess with asbestos and it doesn't mess with me.
Asbestos could still be used BUT EPA wouldn't let processors reformulate so as to eliminate it's dusting characteristics. Developed on the 50s for aerospace but never moved to commercial use because of price. Now the process is so cheap it's sinful. But EPA NEVER removes a regulation.
@@kosie1991 It's probably more likely to give you mesothelioma than Mesopotamia.
@@kosie1991 IF YOU OR A LOVED ONE HAVE BEEN SUBJECTED TO CUNIFORM SCRIPT AND MIXED-RADIX NUMBER SYSTEMS YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO COMPENSATION
That shot at 2:16 with your set reflected in the chrome is just beautiful.
Andrew Bobulsky Did you see the thumbnail for the followup video?
@@Asdayasman I was gonna say "Dang he lost the chance to make his face reflect on it" but no, he didn't, and I'm glad in a weird way
My wife and I bought one of these at a garage sale 25 years ago when it was already 50 years old. It appeared to be all original, including the fabric wrapped cord. It did eventually break down after 20 years, but we of course had it repaired. We also have three adult daughters and they all have the same model. These appliances run circles around anything on sale today. After watching the video, I'll instal and retro style three wire cable and plug.
No Redbull in the 40's, imagine how much coffee and cigarettes it took the engineers to come up with that.
red bull is gentrified coffee
Cocaine gum
There was fairly legal cocaine and heroin though so there is that...
don't forget cocaine that was probably totally legal.
@@Huels yeah, coke was made illegal in 1961, so in the 40s it was definitely still legal
"After 60 years, this thing still works. There's barely anything that can cause this toaster to break down." And now you know why modern companies don't make them like this. They want you to buy a new toaster every 10 years. It's called planned obsolescence.
Capitalism.
@@jamesgaming7198 It happens under every economic system.
@@jamesgaming7198 "greed didn't exist before capitalism"
10 bucks every 10 years is still cheaper than 250 dollars for 60 years 😂
Cars are much the same way. Sure, it's neat to have all these electronic gadgets and routine system checks of your car, but if even one thing slightly slips up, the entire car freaks out and beckons you take it back to a dealership to pay for expensive repairs.
Even if you know how to work on vehicles, many cars nowadays are so overengineered and crammed full of parts in such tight spaces, that what would take you maybe an hour at most will likely take your several more.
Can't even begin to describe how much of a joy it's been to work on my 1969 Chevelle in comparison to my 1998 Cadillac Eldorado. The fact that I found the Chevelle delapidated in some weeds up in the mountains of PA and it was still able to start, run, and has surprisingly little rust is a testiment to it's simple but effective design.
Thanks to this video I knew exactly what to keep my eye out for but never in a hundred years did I ever think I would come across one but today I did! It is the AT-W model and I picked it up for a whopping 15$! It is in pristine condition, cleaner than the toaster I own, and it works completely! Gonna go pick up a cord tomorrow and a loaf of bread!
Found one at the flea market myself only a few weeks after he made the video. :)
I’d rather retire this dangerous toaster. If old electronics used powered elements (even when off) and paper insulation on wires, who knows what other dangerous design decisions exist inside? It’s worth $20 to get a modern appliance with safety features
@@electrictroy2010 Completely disagree. Some of these were made in the ‘90s and never had any of those problems.
@@electrictroy2010 Wow you really don't like this toaster, may I ask if you have a horse in this race?
@@emmettturner9452 He's just trolling -- this makes at least the fourth time I've seen the exact same comment in different sub-threads here.
I’ve been searching for one since this video came out. Yesterday I found not 1, but 2 sitting on the shelf at my local thrift store. Just got both all cleaned up and working.
Man, his videos are so well made. They all feel like a special on the Discovery channel
As a mechanical emgineer I'm fascinated and need one.
Yes the best type of sophistication is the most simple one
Look up a kenmore elite, does the same auto up and down thing
Only Technology Connections can make a 20-minute video that you can't look away from which is about nothing more than a toaster.
Those are some impressive edutainment ninja skills right there.
Yes, have had one for about 30 years! My mother-in-law has one-that’s how I knew about it. I started getting into 1950’s and 1960’s appliances because I love their chrome-y, gorgeous style! All we have had to do is replace the power cord-we were able to find a new, fabric covered type like the old one. My husband took the entire toaster apart to clean it thoroughly, even though it wasn’t that bad. I was thrilled to find a date code stamped inside from the year 1950! So our Sunbeam beauty is 74 years old and going strong! I love it, along with my other vintage appliances!
This channel is like watching Captain Disillusion doing tech videos instead of VFX
Oh wow you watch him!
I was just watching him
it's true :D
So true.
I've never seen anything more accurate. WE MUST HAVE A CROSSOVER!
We had one of those when I was growing up. It did last forever. My grandparents worked at the Sunbeam plant in Cicero, IL. We had a lot of Sunbeam appliances.
When you got quality appliances for a reasonable price. Now you get appliances sans quality but with lots of useless addons and 3 years later you throw them out.
To be fair… define “reasonable.” Another commenter found an ad for this toaster which showed it listing for $30 in 1952. That’s over $330 adjusted for inflation. There’s actually a KitchenAid toaster today which does the same thing as this old one, and it’s $250. Technically cheaper, but… would you buy it? (I’m on the fence.)
Our original T-20 is still working PERFECTLY after 72 years. It raised 6 kids. Still looks and acts like new. I will be inheriting it from my mom, and it will continue to give me perfect toast for the rest of my days. I've bought 2 spares for parts just in case it should ever have an issue, but something tells me it's going to outlive me. Not just the best toaster ever made, it's one of the best THINGS ever made. It's simply perfect.
Another example of why I like your channel. That T-35 always intrigued me, we had one when I was very young until my mom sold it at a garage sale. When I was older my dad bought another T-35 after getting sick of junk toasters not toasting bread right. It’s been a lot of year and mom and dad are gone but I believe that toaster still exists. After seeing what they sell for on eBay now, I will be looking around my sister’s house for the one dad bought so long back. 😁