811 Magneto = telephone ring generator. In period piece movies, there are those phones, wall mounted, in wooden boxes with diagonal shelf in front. Microphone mounted on arm on the box, earpiece on cable. Pick up earpiece and turn crank to generate ring signal. The crank goes on the square boss seen in the first picture. Lots of readers will recognize this.813 ? Metal detector? Find iron shrapnel pieces in WW-1 war victims?814 Air flow meter. ? Used to measure air flow in heating ducts? The multiple dials on the indicator of the first example suggest that it measures air flow rather than air speed. (counts turns for some specified time to get an accurate measure of the flow rate)816 ? It looks like a spring scale at first glance, but the hooks are strangely placed. Weight on the hooks would make the reading decrease. Also, it is hard to imagine bending the whole frame enough to use the entire scale. Perhaps it hangs by the large ring, and various weights hang on the hooks...

What is it? CXLII

DoN. Nichols 19 years ago

According to R.H. :

Aha! The link to a site selling old magnetos shows every one illustrated with the crank at the gear end as I thought -- not at the end where the square is for a slip-on crank as shown in your puzzle one.

O.K. I doubt electrical boxes specifically -- but anything made of iron or steel which is large enough to pick up a field from the Earth's field. And it would particularly point to discontinuities. (Hmm ... it might be for finding the cast-iron cylindrical housings put around buried water meters or water (or gas) valves at the entrance to a property.

O.K. The function was right -- just not the field of application.

Enjoy, DoN.

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Doghouse 19 years ago

I wonder what the crown is for and what the three-leg piece is for. I wonder why it is marked all the way to horizontal.

George A Caldwell Company Maintenance and repair of all types of hydrants

150 Old Page St, PO Box 646, Stoughton, MA 02072 Tel. (800) 695-4101

At the same address is International Metal, a scrap dealer founded in

1903. International Cable is a subsidiary.

George A Caldwell Company owns a waste-disposal site in Waldoboro ME, which suggests that it and International Metal are the same company.

If you want to be a water utility one-call coordinator in Madison, you have to know how to use a magnetic curb box finder.

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gave away watch fobs showing their boxfinder:

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's another tool for the purpose:

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in the 20th Century, the Ludlow Valve Company was perhaps the world's largest manufacturer of fire hydrants. They were in Troy NY. James H Caldwell became VP in 1892 and pres in 1909, retiring in the

1930s. Coincidence?

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Mark & Juanita 19 years ago

Ah, that, or similar function now make sense. Thanks.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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R.H. 19 years ago

The needle on the Boxfindr was locked in place and pulling up on the crown released it, if I remember correctly it was held in place with a magnet. Thanks for the links that you posted a few days ago.

Rob

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