Rudge Whitworth detachable wire wheels, 1914

 

Automobile and motorcycle exhibition, Zurich 1932

Poster by Otto Baumberger

Monday Mystery, Finned metal hand tool

That's how the tag described it. It's possibly some tool for baking perhaps, but the mild steel fins would be subject to rusting, so maybe not food related at all. Guesses?

 

Despatch rider

 Somebody's grandmother.

Sidecar Sunday top view

Carbon Art

 

Four stroke rotary disc single

 Unsigned drawing of an unknown engine design. I want to see the intake side. 

 More than we ever wanted to know about rotary disc engines here.

GM New Look Buses

 Introduced in 1959, 33000 units were built in the US, 11000 in Canada before production was ended in 1977.

Epitome of civilization...

1971

 

Akron Brass Fireman's tool

 The patent shows a simpler wrench of a different shape but apparently, they felt the description would apply to both designs. 

From the patent description;  "The curved face of the hook is to better fit tapered curved lugs on fire hose couplings. The hook is large enough to catch on a ladder rung. The wide opening on the end of the handle is for a strap to connect the tool to a hose when the tool is used to hang hose from a ladder". 

A nice decorative object, not sure there would be any real use for something like this today.

Every ounce is worth a tenth

 Drag race guys and their weight reduction... 

reminds me of this one we found years ago.

They used to make things there, India Edition

Production line of the MiG-21 Ibis fighter at the HAL factory,  (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited), Sunabeda, Koraput, India. They built 840 of them.
 

A Parisienne in Toronto...

 

HD Smith Perfect Handle wrench

Henry D Smith founded the self-named company to produce castings and forgings at Plantsville, Conn. for the carriage and wagon manufacturing trade. In 1900, with the writing on the wall for horse-drawn equipment, the company reorganized to focus on a line of  tools featuring rivetted wooden handles which they named Perfect Handle tools. The line included a range of pipe wrenches, adjustable wrenches as well as hammers, plain wrenches and screwdrivers, this 1914 catalog shows a few of their products.

 In 1929, the company was sold at auction to an oilman, George Lassen who planned on continuing the tool manufacture but Trimont acquired the company a year later and the Perfect Handle line was phased out.

 More history here.

Even more at Alloy Artifacts.

Corvette 1961

 That photo is poster material!

Small adjustable wrench

 Seen at the Beaumont Mills antique market,  a small simple unnamed adjustable wrench, Wrenches of this type were known as bicycle wrenches in the late 19th C.

Aprilia V twin cross section

 What I like most about this modern cross section drawing is that it was someone's job to draw it out.

 After that, this is a Rotax designed and built 1000cc 60° V twin, with two balance shafts. One, quite obvious, is in front of the crankshaft, the other smaller one located in the rear head, presumably running half crank speed? Can we make an engine more complicated?

Planes in formation, Monday Mystery

 I'm trying to identify the aircraft and leaning towards Keystone LB-6 light bombers (biplane) but there are problems with that. The photo caption in the now-forgotten blog source suggested it was taken in 1935, by then apparently all the LB-6s had been scrapped. Are there any topnotch vintage plane spotters out there? 

This dayinaviation

Martin MB-1

Sioux Valve Grinder

   Another valve grinding tool. This one has a yet another mechanism for accomplishing the back and forth motion. The ad shows several adapters to interface to the valve head.
 

Sidecar Sunday

 

E type crash damage

Life in pre-5mph bumper times. Below, another view that Dave (in comments) found online. Wonder what the story was.

 Rumour also has it that Jaguar was unable or unwilling to fit the E type with bumpers to conform to the new regulations, so we got the XJ12 instead. 

Sidney Machine Tool

 

Lathe manufacturers from the turn of the last century continue to pop up. I swear they're like the software companies of today.  Sidney Machine Works set up shop in the Sebastian May factory in Sidney, Ohio in 1904 to build woodworking machinery. They added metal lathes to their line in about 1910 and the name was changed to Sidney Machine Tool Co. By WW2, the woodworking tools had been discontinued and metal lathes were their only product.  New owners came in 1961 in the form of the Buhr Machine Tool company who renamed the company Buhr Sidney. That company was bought up a few years later and the Sidney operation was shut down. More history here. And the whole story at Lathes.co.uk.

From the Practical Machinist forum; 

Serial Number reference book has serials from 1930 to 1962, when it says "all lines discontinued".  The first number is 5532 and the last number is 10629, so they made a little more than 5000 in 32 years, and supposedly a little more than 5000 from 1904 to 1930.  Sounds like a fairly serious effort, though nothing like the amazing output over at Monarch or Lodge & Shipley.   They made 14 to 32" medium and heavy duty lathes. Sidney was famous for their herringbone gear headstock.