Just posted a new set of items:
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What is it? Set 320
Jan 21, 2010
19 Replies
1831 Spark Gap Radio Transmitter.
1836 Guess: Piezoelectric igniter. I've seen piezoelectric igniters that looked very much like this, but this thing seems to have more 'stuff' than is needed.
1831 : Prototype for
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1836. A lighter for a stove -- uses a friction wheel and a magnesium "flint."
Misch metal (a cerium alloy) surely? Magnesium is quite hard to light on its own. Magnesium firelighters are usually a combination of three things, flint, steel and magnesium. The "hot spark" that sets it off is actually a fragment of burning steel, which then in turn sets off the magnesium shavings.
Misch metal (and I believe uranium, but I've not found an "Atomic Frizzen" to try it) is one of the few metal alloys that can reduce this to a reliable two-part process: hard steel wheel directly against the alloy.
A good read is Primo Levi's collection of chemistry-themed autobiographical short stories. One of those is on his survival in a concentration camp, aided by having acquired some cerium alloy and so being able to make cigarette lighters for trade.
Don't think so. "Mouse Trap" was actually based on a Rube Goldberg drawing.
I don't know what it's made from, but yes, it's a lighter that shoots sparks for a stove or grill.
Rob
To get technical, it's ferrocerium: an alloy of Misch metal, iron oxide, and magnesium oxide. Sometimes called a "magnesium flint," as a nickname, but technically incorrect.
"Rob H." wrote in news:hj99e7025k6 @news6.newsguy.com:
I'm sure it's not right but 1831 looks like a primitive bug zapper.
1831) A rotary spark gap radio transmitter.
Totally illegal to use now, as it spreads noise over most of the radio spectrum.
A knife switch has been connected in place of the key normally used for sending Morse code. (There was no way to send intellegable speech through one of these things. Normally, the two binding posts would accept wires from the key so it was in a convenient location.
Looks as though the antenna was on the wood base shown behind it to the right.
1832) A mouth and lungs powered foghorn for small water craft moving in the fog. 1833) At a guess -- for tromping grapes to make wine. Until I saw the view from the top showing the wood slats, I was thinking an old cistern for accumulating rainwater. 1834) This looks to me to be a tool for shifting long flat belts running to overhead shafts (and powering machine tools) to different pulley steps for different speeds. The hook on the back is for hanging it somewhere within easy reach. These were common in shops powered by overhead shafts, run by either a single electric motor for the whole shop, or by a steam engine to power the whole shop.The shafting had "grease monkeys" (large leather discs) around the shafting running back and forth to take up oil which ran out along the shafts and prevent it from dripping down on the workers and the workpieces.
1835) For winding up wire or steel tape on the ends of the square radial boards, and being turned by hand on the round cross-section circle.Knowing the size could determine how much would be wound up per turn.
1836) Perhaps designed for spring-loaded lancing to get a blood sample? Somewhat akin to the tiny things used with blood sugar checking kits?Now to see what others have suggested.
Enjoy, DoN.
1831 - Interesting looking gadget. The oval thing with the two high voltage terminals on the right I take to be a high voltage transformer or coil; the square box next to it I'm guessing is a high-voltage capacitor. The motor driven wheel appears to be a contactor/circuit breaker in connection with the big spring coil thing on the left, which is also connected to a meter of sort. It's not clear what the other object on top of the open coil is, but it almost looks like a "bug" code key. Likewise, the thing on the platform in the back isn't very visible, but its shadow makes it look like an old square radio antenna. All this would seem to suggest a very early radio transmitter, probably some variant on the spark gap designs. It looks as though it would be rather dangerous in operation, too, if only from the unguarded spinning fan thingy that would seem to have a fair bit of finger-chopping momentum. 1832 - Very long skinny funnel? 1833 - Horse watering trough (obviously no longer functional)? Planter? Part of the business end of a cheese or other press? 1834 - Belt shifter for flat belts? 1835 - There's not much sense of scale here, unfortunately. Perhaps it's a foot or base for something, like a chair or table or outrigger for leveling a machine. The circular shape would help spread out the load. 1836 - Pocket clip cigar(ette) lighter?
Now to read other guesses...
1831 is obviously for doing something electrical... but with the knife switch doesn't seem to be for Morse Code. 1832: A horn (as in blown by the mouth) of some type, but not an orchestral instrument. 1833: A 17th Century planter for ornamentals? A pickling vat? 1834: Not a clue.
1835: See 1834.
1836: This is easy. Before butane lighters existed, we used one of these to light our naptha stove when we went camping. Circa 1970 or so. Pressing the lever with your thumb rotates the wheel at the end which rubs against a flint and creates a series of sparks.
I wasn't being serious. :o)
I had asked the owner for the diameter but never heard back, not many guesses on it so it's still a mystery for now.
The link below is supposed to take you directly to the answers halfway down the page but that doesn't work when I click on it, it ignores the #answers and takes me to the top of the page. Not sure why it doesn't link correctly, but if you copy and paste it then it should take you right to the answers.
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Sorry, I posted the wrong link in my previous post:
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not understand HTML and has no linkage to a browser (by my choice), but if I cut and paste it to a command line following the browser invocation, and if the line is in quotes, it works fine. I can tell you why it would not work without the quotes on a unix system -- the '#' is a character which says "the rest of this line is a comment, so ignore it."
I'm presuming that you run Windows, so I don't know whether the same applies there or not.
Enjoy, DoN.
The "#" is a standard part of HTML and has been for more than a decade.
Time to join the '90's, Don.
Of course it is -- and was so when I first started writing my own HTML for my web sites.
*But* -- it also has a separate meaning in a command line in unix -- if you type something like:opera
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start the browser and get to the later point in the web page. Opera happens to be my choice of browser, FWIW.
It may have the same effect in a command line in Windows' MS-DOS window (the only place you get a command line in standard Windows, unless you have installed Cygwin and are using a unix style shell like bash.)
You mean having an e-mail client which understands HTML? Why would I *want* such a thing, which can send me places where I don't want to go without giving me a chance to say no? I believe in a firm separation between e-mail and HTML.
I was not *complaining* about the '#' in the URL.
What I was *trying* to do was to show why the '#' in a URL in an e-mail *might* be interpreted by the e-mail client as a comment delimiter before it was passed to the browser. It *did* appear as though it was being interpreted as a comment delimiter in the cases which the original poster (our puzzle master) was complaining/commenting about. This is probably e-mail client dependent -- even within Windows.
Enjoy, DoN.
Yeah, I do too. But reality keeps interfering.
Oh well.
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