What is it? Set 468

[Rob H.]

I need some help with the last one in this set:

[Spuckle]

2720. Broken ceramic insulation of an IC engine sparkplug?

[David B]

2719 - Dry Ice/Smoke machine?

2721 - Prototype of Connector

- Bottle Corker.

[G. Ross]

2719 Tender for a miniature train. The pictures seem a little dark this week. Maybe it's my eyes.

[Stormin Mormon]

Posting from my desktop PC, as always.

2719, too dark to get much an idea what we're seeing. 2720, broken porcelean from a spark plug. 2721, too dark to see. 2722, no clue. From the picture of the old vehicle in the background, something vehicle related? Acetylene gas generator? 2723, no clue. 2724, pictures too dark to see well. Maybe a bottle corker.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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[Rob H.]

I lightened up the first, third and last photos, I guess my monitor settings are different from most, they looked ok on my screen. Thanks for the feedback.

Rob

[Rob H.]

My guess on 2724 is that it's a reloading tool, looks like a shell would fit into the top part, no idea what the fork at the bottom is for.

[Stormin Mormon]

Used to press the primer out? The fork allows the primer to go through?

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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My guess on 2724 is that it's a reloading tool, looks like a shell would fit into the top part, no idea what the fork at the bottom is for.

[DoN. Nichols]

2719) Perhaps a coin box for some kind of transportation setup, like a horse-drawn trolley perhaps? 2720) A screw-on insulator of some sort -- perhaps old post and stud house wiring, or perhaps telephone wiring from the telephone pole. 2721) It looks like the top of a fence post -- with holes to allow two rail fences to meet at right angles. And perhaps specifically for horses with riders to jump over, before they started making them with rails which were easy to knock off.

Perhaps sawn off to use as a guide in making a replacement corner fence post.

2722) It sort of looks like a holder for a galena crystal and a catwhisker (in the ball-socketed arm above) for a crystal radio.

Is there a coil wound around the barrel? Too late at night for me to take time to save an image and brighten it up.

Or perhaps there is a coil inside it, given the springs to make it easy to take apart.

2723) A tool for making round holes in thin sheet metal. You drill a hole to pass the screw, select the right size backing plate to go on the other side, tighten the nut, and then turn the upper part with a wrench and tighten the nut as the rollers force a groove into the metal. 2724) Perhaps a tool for loading wads and shot into a shotshell and crimping it closed.

Also -- with additional parts -- for pushing out the spent primer.

Time to go to bed. I'll read the other suggestions tomorrow sometime. A busy day today.

Enjoy, DoN.

[j Burns]

2721: I don't know how they wired temporarily in the knob-and-tube days. To provide power for a construction crew, this could have kept two circuits from touching where they crossed. Ceramic insulators may or may not have been put through the four holes. On each side of the block, you might put a spacer to keep the two conductors in a circuit farther apart. You'd thread the conductors through the block and spacers, hoist it up where workers wouldn't hit it accidentally, and pull the conductors tight.

[Rob H.]

It isn't for holding conductors, this would be a difficult one to guess, but long pieces of wood (possibly bamboo) were held by this item.

[Rob H.]

Correct, for use by an electrician or machinist.

[Lew Hodgett]

------------------------------------------------------ "Rob H." wrote:

---------------------------------------------------- The Greenlee "Radio chassis punch" marked a significant advance when it came to punching large holes in sheet metal.

Lew

[G. Ross]

A clothes dryer?

[Rob H.]

Nope, that's not it.

[Steve W.]

It looks sort of like an old training dummy but the spacing is wrong.

[Rob H.]

Correct, although for some people the broken pieces actually have a purpose, as described in the answers here:

[DoN. Nichols]

[ ... ]

How about for extracting spent primers? Put the shell base down, put in a piece which slides in the upper sleeve and has a pin at the bottom end to push the primer out between the tines of the fork. For this to work, we want the bore of the upper sleeve to be machined smooth.

The size is not clear enough to be sure whether it is for something smaller and short like handgun cartridges, or somewhat larger and longer like shotgun shells.

Enjoy, DoN.

[DoN. Nichols]

There are test images available for download which are usually a bar of gray steps from fully white to fully black. You display one of these and adjust the brightness and the contrast so you can just barely tell the end steps from the next one in from that end. That should give you a standard setting -- and then the problem is whether everyone else has bothered to do the same sort of thing. Such is important when processing digital images (from digital cameras or scanned from chemical process photos).

Even better is if you also have the ability to adjust the gamma (the curve from the darkest end to the lightest end) to a standard. CRTs have a different gamma by default than LCD or plasma monitors, so the adjustment needs to be made for each.

There are things available for calibrating monitors (at least one is called a "spider") which is good if you have a driver program for it for your OS. They are available for Windows and Macs, but harder to find for machines like my Sun workstations. So I have to set the contrast and brightness first, and then adjust the gamma by a command line option to get a known good image to look good on my screen.

Here is a URL for a site which walks you through the calibration (and warns you about thinks to avoid):

It looks like a good one for me to get -- and use at least on my Mac, if not on my Suns.

Enjoy, DoN.

[Rob H.]

I just heard back from the owner, they said, "The top hole is 1in. And 4 and one half inches to the bottom slot."