What is it? CLXV

[R.H.]

This week's set has just been posted:

[Robin Halligan]

Hi Rob

953. Looks like Camera booths for a tv camera and operator for recording around Horse race tracks

954. Looks like a Vandergraph static generator.

[kfvorwerk]

Rob I emailed the Royal Society of Arts to see if if there was a gold medal when the plow plane got a silver medal. They replied explaining how medals were given out. I'll email it to you if you email me with your address. I don't have permission to publish it so I can't put it up here. I could ask for permission for you to put it on your website if you would like to.

954. Electrostatic generator and leyden jar to store charge. 955. Guess> This week's set has just been posted:

[humunculus]

950 might be a tool for stripping bark off of very large logs, or for carving telephone poles from trees.

--riverman

[efgh]

953. Training towers for prison guards. :)

955 is for carrying something. My guess would be logs.

[Dave Baker]

to a particular output. Fluid pumping, steam pressure etc.

954. A cylinder electrical generating machine. The glass cylinder rubs against a pad, probably leather or felt, just visible at the left of the picture, as it rotates which charges it with static electricity. This is collected through the spikes and stored in the Leyden jar on the right. 956. Carpentry tool maybe. Pincer, screwriver and perhaps the 'corkscrew' is for starting screw threads in wood. 958. Looks like a brush axe of some sort.

[Leo Lichtman]

As others have pointed out, 954 is an electrostatic generator. It must be an early Edison model, since it uses a cylinder--most of them used flat disks. TIC!

957 looks like car badges to be mounted on license plates. However, the Bugatti oval one is identical to the one I used to have on the back of my Bug-atti (VW, get it?) Stamped out of tin-plate like material, so I suspect it came from a cereal box.

[Leon]

Clay pigeon throwing stations. ;~)

[DoN. Nichols]

According to R.H. :

952) For something which requires setting in percentage of full circle. It locks in 5% increments. You have to pull the handle away from the circle to free it to turn, then let it back so the ring in the handle goes around one of the raised numbers.

Through gearing it could be used to control some form of valve, perhaps a steam valve to a steam engine. Or it could set a centrifugal speed limiter.

953) Hmm ... the color scheme is about the same as those other firefighter training buildings, so I will guess that these are to use training rescuing someone from a window high on the side of a building -- again perhaps with provisions for introduction of smoke. 954) An electrostatic generator. The glass drum (with the dry sand inside is turned to generate an electrostatic charge, which migrates to the exterior of the drum.

The charge then jumps the gap to the pointed collectors, which are connected to a Leyden jar (early primitive, but high-voltage capacitor), to wait for someone to reach towards it to draw off the charge.

955) It looks sort of like the gripper which goes on top of a long pole which grocers used to use to reach things on high shelves.

However -- those typically had rubber grips, not the rather narrow ones provided by these blades. Perhaps they are intended to close into the gap between a wide lid (for a preserves jar, perhaps) and the jar itself. Given the dimensions, it must be a pretty large jar -- so I would *hope* that it is lightly loaded.

Anyway -- a skinny rod is used to connect the handle shown to another down near the operator's end of the pole for ease of use.

956) Hmm ... early dental tool? Or surgeon's tool?

Or perhaps for work on a horse's hoof?

957) Hmm ... not the actual maker's badges, which would have been fired glass enamel in a sort of cloisonne type construction, so perhaps intended to go on a tapestry on the wall to show what car you really *want* to own?

The second set look about the right size to be what was offered in cereal boxes about that period -- to be used on kid's bicycles. I know that the four US based ones were offered in some cereal box -- perhaps Wheaties? I'm not sure about the other two. One perhaps for Belgum, and the other some Arabic speaking country, I think. (That looks like the same number in *real* Arabic numerals to the right side -- reading in from the right to the left. I have no chance at reading what is above the numbers -- just a guess that it is the Arabic version of the somewhat more readable (to me) text -- perhaps indicating that this is a privately owned vehicle, instead of part of a commercial or government fleet.

More of the first batch, but oval. Perhaps these and the first batch were also for kid's bicycles?

958) Perhaps for harvesting cane? Either Bamboo or sugar cane? Totally a guess. :-)

Now to see what others have guessed.

Enjoy, DoN.

[Jerry Foster]

952 is a simple counting device. It is fastened in a convenient place with screws into the three countersunk holes and the operator moves the handle with each five of whatever. Obviously, if there is more than one operator using it, it will function as a primative adding machine. The idea is that it is fairly easy to count reliably to five. It is also very easy to lose count somewhere around 47... I recall seeing something like it in a grain elevator where it was used for counting sacks stacked in a load. 953 -- towers for releasing racing pigeons???

954 Static electricity generator.

955 -- points look like they are intended to dig in. Maybe for picking up frozen fish or something???

956 -- some sort of combination tool -- I'll take a wild guess that it is used for some sort of musical instrument repair...

957 look like the tags kids used to use to decorate their bicycles back around 1950.

958 is an axe used in hewing logs square to be used for building.

[R.H.]

Thanks for the reply, I'll fix the answer page later tonight or tomorrow, I'm heading out the door in a couple minutes.

I got my description of grain shocks from the owner of the tool, maybe he thinking of a different grain other than oats. At the time when I made the answer page I couldn't find any links but just now found a good one that has photos of shocks being made. They seem to be making them about the size that you mention, I had no idea what size bundles were being used to create these shocks, but the photo marked 1:32:30 has a decent photo of someone carrying one:

[Scott Lurndal]

Good set of pictures. That's pretty much how we worked too.

Somewhere I've got a picture of us feeding the thresher that I need to dig out and scan.

scott

[Scott Lurndal]

Rob, No worries.

s

[Rich the Newsgroup Wacko]

I want to see a video of you digging out and scanning that thresher! ;-)

Cheers! Rich