What is it? Set 231

[R.H.]

Back to my normal schedule this week, the answers will be posted late tomorrow afternoon.

[Alexander Thesoso]

1296 Wet cell battery. Lead-acid or Edison. For telegraph or telephone. Wooden case gone.

1299 Fresnel lens. From/for a lighthouse.

1300 Telegraph sounder.

[Howard R Garner]

Posting from RCM Only two of the this week.

1299 - light/lens assembly for a light house 1300 - telegraph sounder

Howard Garner

[kfvorwerk]

1297. Looks like pen guns. Not sure if it's for bullets or flares. Karl

[Paul K. Dickman]

1297 are teargas pens.

Paul K. Dickman

[Andrew Erickson]

1295 - Separator for e.g. gold panning? Combination bit brace, battery terminal cleaner, and seed spreader? Very peculiar.... 1296 - Smallish six-cell wet battery, presumably putting out a voltage of (nominally) 12V, probably for laboratory or radio work.

(It could possibly also be an electrolytic rectifier, but I would not expect to see six cells wired in series in that case. If you had voltages that high, you'd presumably use a high-voltage rectifier tube (or mercury rectifier) in that era. I would expect instead either three cells, one with three electrodes, or else four cells wired in a bridge.)

1297 - Ummm...these would seem to give a measured mechanical impulse, but to what end? I've no idea. 1298 - Removable handle to manipulate e.g. large hay bales? 1299 - Fresnel Lens from a lighthouse. From it's size, I'd guess it's one used in relatively small light in a bay or inland waterway, rather than on the ocean coast proper. 1300 - This is one of two very closely related devices--either a buzzer or an interrupter used to generate a pulsed signal for an induction coil. I would tend to suspect the latter application. The frequency of operation is varied by twiddling the various adjustment screws (the limits of the swinging arm's travel and its spring tension).

Now to see other guesses.

[Smaug Ichorfang]

"R.H." wrote in news:4822b95c$0$7043 $ [e-mail]:

Some of these I actually know this week

1295. A capper of some sort? Caps go in the funnel and are screwed on.

1296. A wet cell battery. This one should produce about 6 volts. For use with railroad or telephone equipment?

1297. These are normally tear gs pens. Rob has shown similar before. The all-metal construction of the cartridge may mean it's a flare gun instead.

1298. Upholstery or carpet-laying tool.

1299. Fresnel lens for a beacon/bouy or lighthouse

1300. Could either be a relay or a telegraph "clicker"/sounder

[spamTHISbrp]

I want to say "farm battery" for the battery, but I know that's something I saw here anyway.

Dave

[Jeff Wisnia]

1297 might be some sort of spring driven vet's impliment used to squirt something down an animal's throat or up its other end. 1300 looks like it might be a telegraph "repeater". i.e. a sensitive relay whose contacts are used to regenerate a strong signal to be sent down the next length of telegraph line.

Jeff

[DoN. Nichols]

1295) *Strange* beastie. It looks like a marriage between a wrench for removing plugs from a steel drum (barrel), and a funnel with a flip-top lid.

And -- there seems to be a cap over the spout of the funnel, suggesting that it is for carrying samples to the drum, unscrewing the plug, releasing the funnel contents into the drum, an then screwing the plug back in place.

I have no idea where this would be used, but that is what its function seems to be to me.

1296) This looks like a top plate from an old lead-acid storage battery and glass containers to separate the individual cells from each other. But there does not seem to be enough stocking down into the glass containers to form the plates of the cells, so I would have to say that those are probably lost -- perhaps mostly etched away by the battery action over the years. 1297) If it were just the first photo, I would have said that it could either be a pen-gun to fire .22 LR or somewhat larger cartridges, or a tear-gas pen gun.

The second photo says that it is the tear-gas version. I once had one which fired .38 special tear gas cartridges.

*And* -- the red cartridge may be a flare gun. The smaller tapered one is a style which I had as tear gas, though the pen gun part was a bit different. 1298) A streamlined handle of some sort. I've got two guesses, and I'll put the one I consider the more likely first:

A handle which is attached to a limousine to allow security personnel to hold on (and stand on foot pads) on the exterior of the vehicle when used in parades and the like.

Or

A handle to attach to a curling stone. (I've never seen a curling stone in person, so I could be very wrong here.)

1299) The lens and light source from a lighthouse -- in a museum somewhere. This one appears to be gas fired. 1300) Telegraph repeater. Telegraph lines had a certain resistance per foot, and after enough miles there was not enough current available to operate the sounder at the receiving end. This would be placed at some intermediate spot, the sensitivity adjusted so it would reliably move with the key at the sending end (using the knurled knob which winds up a string connected to the end of the spring), and the contacts would switch the output of a new battery to send the signal on to the next relay or to the final receiving station where a sounder would be located. If the signal was weak enough, there would probably be a relay there too to feed good current to the sounder.

From the looks of the board, it was designed to be screwed to the wall -- and there might be more than one of them receiving signals from several distant sources.

Now to see what others have guessed.

Enjoy, DoN.

[Kerry Montgomery]

Jeff, Before looking back at the blogspot page, I was thinking that 1297 was the number of the first item this week, and imagining the effect it would have on either end of an animal! Kerry

[Northe]

1296: wet battery: 12 volt if lead-acid, 8 V if Edison

1299: Fresnel lens from lighted buoy

1300: Telegraph relay

Northe

[Steve R.]

1296 Remains of an old LeClanche battery 1299 Lamp from a lighthouse 1300 Telegraph sounder

Steve R.

[DoN. Nichols]

If you had looked at the final images in my article (which I pointed to at the beginning once I found them), you would have seen photos of another one (same model number on the maker's plate) which included angles which showed that there were two more terminals hiding behind the relay coils as photographed in the puzzle set. I'll leave those URLs quoted at the end, after trimming out all of the others. (And -- RH actually used a link to one of those photos in his correction to the "answers" page.)

Granted -- I saw those other impedances in what my search turned up The higher impedances would probably have operated at higher voltages, and resulted in less wear on the key's or relay's contacts since the current would be less (though more arcing when the circuit was opened.)

My comment about the impedances was based on the posted link to the sounder and the posted impedance listed on the relay's nameplate. I should have edited that out when I found more data, but it was late and I wanted to finish the newsgroup and go to bed. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

[ ... ]

[Alexander Thesoso]

DoN is absolutely correct. I was careless, hasty, and lazy. I didn't read his full message. I read down to the second divider bar and charged off with an unnecessary message. If I had been courteous enough to read a little further, I'd have seen his later links and would have kept my big yap shut.

I apologize to the group, DoN, and RH for my bad message and impolite behavior.

Thanks to RH, DoN, and everyone else.