Chamois leather - doing things before Ettore Steccone

Bumblebee72 said:

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

Click to expand...

rugbywolf said:

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.

Click to expand...

Bumblebee72 said:

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

Click to expand...

Bumblebee72 said:

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?

Click to expand...

Bumblebee72 said:

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.

Click to expand...

Bumblebee72 said:

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.

Click to expand...