joeynbgky said:
How many did you make?
Do you still have one left, that you use, or on display? It would be ashame if you dont have one any more.
Who takes care of astroturf now? Why do you not market to stadiums?
Joey,
All I have left of the Astroturf cleaning unit is the blower which was a #8 Sutorbilt that produced 1200 CFM.
Astroturf is being cleaned now by truckmounts and wands. A lot of people don’t know the history of Judson, but my Dad holds 26 patents in the carpet cleaning industry. He is the inventor and patent holder of the world’s first truckmount which is this Astroturf cleaning unit. He made the unit in 1965, about the same time the Houston Astrodome was constructed.
Monsanto was the producer of Astroturf and the first place they installed it was at some colleges in Pennsylvania. These football fields were outdoors. They were next to a coal-burning smoke stack. At this time, Monsanto had no real way of cleaning the Astroturf. In 1965 there was only the shampoo method, which would leave the carpet with soapy residue. This residue was unacceptable because if football players were playing in the rain, it would make for an interesting football game.
My Dad, Judson Jones is a graduate of Clemson University in Textile Engineering. He designed this system for Monsanto, and they used it to go around and clean all the football fields they had installed Astroturf in. It was used by them for about 5 years until the development of slide-in truckmounts and wands.
As I said, Judson O. Jones is the inventor of the truckmount. I’ve made this statement quite a few times and no one has ever been able to prove me wrong. I’ve had the U.S. Patent office in Washington do a search on this issue and the closest patent I’ve found is after my Dad’s. I will post it for you to see.
Another thing that I’m proud of my Dad for is that he holds the world’s first patent for a carpet cleaning wand. To this day, wands are still designed the same way.
