Chamois leather - doing things before Ettore Steccone

[seymour sunshine]

How did the old shiners use a scrim and chamois to clean a window? There must be a few old-timers still around who use this method from time to time.

 

[mike007]

Damp Rattail leather to clean and scrim to dry.

 

[Clisty1989]

my father in law still does it on a couple of lead windows, its quicker then doing loads of detailing.

 

[Bumblebee72]

I started in the mid 60's.  Squeegees had been around for many years even then but we still used leather and scrim on 'stamps' - the endless little squares of glass on the old London '3-decker' schools that were our standard jobs on the firm I worked for.  The leather was used damp and loosened the dirt as well as absorbing most of it into the leather.  This left a film on the glass which ideally had to be polished off before it dried.

The following is an article I wrote for a long-defunct forum that won me an Omnipole!!

View attachment How to use scrim.doc

 

[rugbywolf]

I started in the mid 60's.  Squeegees had been around for many years even then but we still used leather and scrim on 'stamps' - the endless little squares of glass on the old London '3-decker' schools that were our standard jobs on the firm I worked for.  The leather was used damp and loosened the dirt as well as absorbing most of it into the leather.  This left a film on the glass which ideally had to be polished off before it dried.

The following is an article I wrote for a long-defunct forum that won me an Omnipole!!

View attachment 11844

Yep, did the same, but it never really worked, the houses I was on had great big picture windows. I gave it up after a few years. Later, when I came back to it I had a squeegee, but had to make my own applicator.

 

[Bumblebee72]

Yep, did the same, but it never really worked, the houses I was on had great big picture windows. I gave it up after a few years. Later, when I came back to it I had a squeegee, but had to make my own applicator.

Wow :1f632:   I would never had tried cleaning picture windows with leather and scrim!!  Squeegees were around a long time before I started - I think it was In the 40's or early 50's.  We used swabs (dishcloths to the uninitiated) to wash and then squeegeed the water off.  Does anyone else know the story of the 'Phantom Window Cleaner' - Scott Young's strategy to get window cleaners to accept the 'new fangled' squeegee?

 

[Redditch windy]

i got asked if i could trad a house today;wanted chamois lol needless to say i said wfp or its a non starter!

Sent using the Window Cleaning Forums mobile app

 

[Steve E]

I started in the mid 60's.  Squeegees had been around for many years even then but we still used leather and scrim on 'stamps' - the endless little squares of glass on the old London '3-decker' schools that were our standard jobs on the firm I worked for.  The leather was used damp and loosened the dirt as well as absorbing most of it into the leather.  This left a film on the glass which ideally had to be polished off before it dried.

The following is an article I wrote for a long-defunct forum that won me an Omnipole!!

View attachment 11844

Loved reading that! Spot on!

Took me right back to my wife's grandfather teaching me how to use scrim.

I don't miss boiling it and stinking out the kitchen though!

I used to use 2. One that was the best and a newer one which I was ' breaking in' on frosted glass only.

 

[rugbywolf]

Wow :1f632:   I would never had tried cleaning picture windows with leather and scrim!!  Squeegees were around a long time before I started - I think it was In the 40's or early 50's.  We used swabs (dishcloths to the uninitiated) to wash and then squeegeed the water off.  Does anyone else know the story of the 'Phantom Window Cleaner' - Scott Young's strategy to get window cleaners to accept the 'new fangled' squeegee?

They weren't around my way, my wife worked at Littlewoods Store and they had a contract man in, and he did the whole lot with a chamois and scrim.

 

[Bumblebee72]

That's because you're out in the sticks :1f61c: .  They were around in London but it took a stroke of genius by Scott Young (SYR) to get the die-hard London shiners to accept them.  He had been in Canada and California and had made a deal with Ettore to be their distributor in England.  He had a hard time!!  No one wanted to know - he couldn't get any shiners to even try his squeegee.  In desperation he hired a taxi for a day (or it might even have been for a week - I know the story but the details are a bit hazy now).  He drove round London and every time he saw a shiner working he got his driver to stop, leaped out of the cab with a wet swab and a squeegee, ran up to where the shiner was working and cleaned the next pane of glass, ran back to the cab and drove away without saying anything.  It took a while (no snap chat in those days!!) but eventually lots of London shiners were talking about 'The Phantom Window Cleaner' and like all rumours the story got more fantastic with each retelling.  Now everyone was saying how he cleaned windows in a tenth of the time it took even the best leather and scrim man and everyone wanted one of those 'magic' thingys.

That was the start, and of course Scott Young Research is still going strong, better known as SYR.  I attended a seminar once where the great man himself was giving a talk.  He compared himself and his squeegee to a London shiner as someone with a machine gun taking on someone with a bow and arrow!!  There was only ever going to be one outcome.

I believe SYR still have the squeegee Scott used, on display at their headquarters.  Scott of course went on to become a multi-millionnaire.

 

[seymour sunshine]

That's because you're out in the sticks :1f61c: .  They were around in London but it took a stroke of genius by Scott Young (SYR) to get the die-hard London shiners to accept them.  He had been in Canada and California and had made a deal with Ettore to be their distributor in England.  He had a hard time!!  No one wanted to know - he couldn't get any shiners to even try his squeegee.  In desperation he hired a taxi for a day (or it might even have been for a week - I know the story but the details are a bit hazy now).  He drove round London and every time he saw a shiner working he got his driver to stop, leaped out of the cab with a wet swab and a squeegee, ran up to where the shiner was working and cleaned the next pane of glass, ran back to the cab and drove away without saying anything.  It took a while (no snap chat in those days!!) but eventually lots of London shiners were talking about 'The Phantom Window Cleaner' and like all rumours the story got more fantastic with each retelling.  Now everyone was saying how he cleaned windows in a tenth of the time it took even the best leather and scrim man and everyone wanted one of those 'magic' thingys.

That was the start, and of course Scott Young Research is still going strong, better known as SYR.  I attended a seminar once where the great man himself was giving a talk.  He compared himself and his squeegee to a London shiner as someone with a machine gun taking on someone with a bow and arrow!!  There was only ever going to be one outcome.

I believe SYR still have the squeegee Scott used, on display at their headquarters.  Scott of course went on to become a multi-millionnaire.

What a fantastic story. Just goes to show that having the balls to do it gets you noticed. There's probably a lesson in that for all of us.

 

[Nicky]

A damp scrim , rung out is the best way to polish off the window , I see the local windys by me with hundreds of dry rags like said before 1scrim all day rinse it out in the bucket ringit out and open it up and flap it to dry and good to go again, time served window cleaners ?( proper window cleaners) old school off on commercials now have a good day

 

[rugbywolf]

That's because you're out in the sticks :1f61c: .  They were around in London but it took a stroke of genius by Scott Young (SYR) to get the die-hard London shiners to accept them.  He had been in Canada and California and had made a deal with Ettore to be their distributor in England.  He had a hard time!!  No one wanted to know - he couldn't get any shiners to even try his squeegee.  In desperation he hired a taxi for a day (or it might even have been for a week - I know the story but the details are a bit hazy now).  He drove round London and every time he saw a shiner working he got his driver to stop, leaped out of the cab with a wet swab and a squeegee, ran up to where the shiner was working and cleaned the next pane of glass, ran back to the cab and drove away without saying anything.  It took a while (no snap chat in those days!!) but eventually lots of London shiners were talking about 'The Phantom Window Cleaner' and like all rumours the story got more fantastic with each retelling.  Now everyone was saying how he cleaned windows in a tenth of the time it took even the best leather and scrim man and everyone wanted one of those 'magic' thingys.

That was the start, and of course Scott Young Research is still going strong, better known as SYR.  I attended a seminar once where the great man himself was giving a talk.  He compared himself and his squeegee to a London shiner as someone with a machine gun taking on someone with a bow and arrow!!  There was only ever going to be one outcome.

I believe SYR still have the squeegee Scott used, on display at their headquarters.  Scott of course went on to become a multi-millionnaire.

I have still got an SYR squeegee handle that I bought some 30 years ago.