Norton factory at the IoM

 Year 1920 Isle of Man TT Petty #61, Brown #56 and North #63 work on their Norton motorcycles in the garage.

Sidecar Sunday

 Isle of Man TT, 2017

More modern than usual but the photo couldn't be ignored. Explanation here.

Casting a chain

ICS Reference Library, International Textbook Co. 1901

 The preliminary text to this chapter points out that it would be quite difficult to cast a length of chain, the sand mold would be complicated as would the system of gating each link. The solution is to cast individual links, place them as shown and then pour each connection link. These days to make a link, we form wire into a loop and weld the ends.

Suzuki Dual purpose 125

 Lovely styling.

Family mystery/history

  In 1964 the family flew to Holland to visit family. Everything was amazing to an 8 year old boy and the cool uncle gave us kids a ride on his motorcycle. It was almost certainly my first motorcycle ride but I don’t remember being blown away or anything. It was fun cruising through the rural landscape beside canals and fields. 

Fast forward a lot of years, and I’m trying to piece together the events that led up to this motorcycle affliction I suffer/enjoy. I figured the uncle’s motorcycle had been either a Harley or a BMW but no one else remembered. 

    Well. We’re back in Holland to clean up an aunts estate, this photo appeared in an old album. Mystery solved! Cool uncle and his sister posing with the mystery motorcycle.

Volkswagen Bus

 

That’s an extravagant and aerodynamic roof rack system. The van is 1969 or 70. I think?

Stanley Surform

 

The surform-type blade was patented by a British company, Firth Cleveland in 1949, the first tools were made by Simmonds Aerocessories. Stanley acquired the rights in 1956 and subsequently bought the company. They were a popular home woodworking tool when they were released, they turn up at junk shops everywhere. I’ve found them useful for body filler.

Thanks, Derek!

And one in the original packaging! 

The automobile as part of the ecosystem

 We thought differently in the fifties. Insulation for wires was cotton and beeswax?

Motor Cycling September 8 1955

"The Queen's highway" Still making mileage from Queen Elizabeths's 1952 coronation...

 

Armstrong Whitworth Ensign drawing

 In 1934 Imperial Airways approached Armstrong Whitworth for the design of a new metal multiengine airliner. The chosen design seated 40 passengers and utilized 4 engines as that was seen to be desirable to passengers. Range was 1300 miles, suitable for the Empire routes of the day. Development took longer than expected as Imperial Airways updated the requirements several times but the first commercial flight took place in 1938. Further, the focus of the industry on military aircraft in the late 30s caused further delays. Once the airplane was flying it was found that despite the 4 engines it was underpowered and the engines were later upgraded to Wright Cyclones. However the war had started and production ended with only 14 made. The military took over the planes and they served through the war and retired in 1946. All were scrapped.

Anodized aluminum drinkware

 I don't recall any of the drinkware in this ad but does anyone remember these very cool (cold) metal tumblers? The blue anodized ones were beautiful...

Special Products Division

  Strange times in the recreational vehicle market. It seemed every company was playing with snowmobiles, AMF owned Harley Davidson, and in this ad, New Holland of Sperry Rand is making vehicles that defy description. Of these three, I think I'd pick "the Wedge" and park it on my front lawn.

Monday Mystery, Java Steel stick

 

“Steel stick” is what Google Translate calls it. The rest of the text is in the Indonesian-Dutch language. Possibly an adze type thing? 

 

Sidecar Sunday bonus, The Flying Bedstead

Thanks JP!

   But is it a sidecar? Australian Peter Dunscombe was racing a Vincent powered sidecar when he decided he needed to improve it. About that time Owen Greenwood's Mini-based "sidecar" was blowing away the competition in a very un-sidecar-like machine in England and it was that machine that inspired him to build this one.. Once again, a 3 track vehicle rather than 2, based on a Mini front end. When the Vincent started getting long in the tooth, he moved to a Suzuki GT750 Waterbuffalo engine shown here. Lack of space dictated the pipes location. It was far from ideal. The whole story here.

 

Sidecar Sunday

The Gnat, sidecar intended for Vespas. 1955

 

The Aeroplane magazine

 

Moto Major

 The Moto Major was built in 1948. Designed at an aerodynamic research facility, it was a carry over from the 1930s streamline styling trend. There was a single and a twin planned, the single was the only one built. The longitudinally oriented crankshaft facilitated shaft drive.  Unfortunately, it never went into production.  The whole story (lots of detail) here at the Vintagent.

Know your lead acid battery

 Back in the day when batteries were rebuildable. Outside connectors for each cell, this is where this weird cell tester might be used for diagnosis.

 

BSA for 1971

Totally redesigned for 1971. It was not good, maybe the least appealing of any of the BSA twins.

 

Shop Tips

 Hey, that's actually a good idea!

 Hours of reading... one of a million or so "shop tips" from Popular Mechanics- BTW that was uhhh... 60 years ago. 

Better living through radioactivity

 The atomic age is upon us, let's try radioactive piston rings. What could go wrong?

Innovation from Alcoa

 Aluminum beer cans were introduced in 1958, this ad predates Ermal Fraze's invention of the ring pull tab.

J N Lapointe broaching machines

When I was about 14 years old, the female spline in the rear hub of our old Allis Chalmers B wore to nothing and that was hay mowing done for that day. I pulled the wheel hub and visited a local machine shop who tried to explain why they couldn't help (especially at the price we could afford...)

Putting new steel in where it was needed seemed simple enough to a guy who had no idea how the spline had been accomplished in the first place. When the broaching process was explained to me, I realized that it was an integral part of manufacturing, though I'm not sure I've ever seen an actual machine. Simply explained, a lathe removes metal by chiseling it away in a rotational motion, broaching chisels linearly.  No news to many of the audience, I know, but a broach is effectively a collection of single-point cutting tools arrayed in sequence, cutting one after the other.  Broaching was developed during the 1850s as the need for accurate keyways in shafts, pulleys and gears developed. in the mid 1890s, Joseph Napoleon Lapointe, originally from Ste. Hyacinthe, Québec, invented a much improved broaching process and left Pratt and Whitney to start his own company. That company, Lapointe Machine Tool, struggled along for awhile till J N was forced out in 1911. He and his son immediately started the J N Lapointe Company, making broaching machines like the ones in this post in direct competition to his former company. The original Lapointe Machine Tool company is still around.  J N died in 1928 and the son Francis shows up later in Ann Arbor at the American Broach Co. which served the automotive companies and  munitions industry, especially during WW2. It is also still active today under different ownership.

 As for that struggling, sunburnt teenager in the hayfield, he ultimately got a used hub at a wrecking yard, first experience with that world, and the haymowing resumed.

 

                     Cyclopedia of Modern Shop Practice, American Technical Society Vol III, 1919

Planes in formation, Vampires

 

Advances in visors

 We've all seen this before, I'm sure.... But every time I see it, I am always amazed that an engineering/marketing team thought it would sell...

Ariel leader body panels

 

Sidecar Sunday

 

 The 1933 model year was one of the lowest production years in Harley history, with only 2671 big twins produced and a total production of 3703 units (includes singles and small twins). Both motorcycles pictured are powered by 74 cu in. sidevalve engines with hand-shift three-speed transmissions. Of the two motorcycles used in the photo shoot, the sidecar model, is the rarest with only 164 being manufactured.

Little Tonka vans

Some kids took better care of their toys than others. I always liked the little "cabover vans" from Tonka, probably led to the string of 60's Chevy vans and Toyota vans I owned and drove over the years. 

 

Land Rover cutaway view

 Interesting angle, by Italian cutaway artist Giulio Betti.

1920's gasoline tank truck

Cute, the tank looks about the size of a furnace oil tank.

Another good use for old pistons

  From a 1958 Popular Mechanics Shop Tips magazine. If you already had enough ashtrays made from pistons you could use cut down pistons to make a tailstock or a set of indexing centers for your horizontal mill. I admire the ingenuity and amount of work done here, but have to wonder just how many of these things were made by readers.

 

Wright reciprocating saws

 

 Wright Power Saw & Tool Corporation had a different idea for chain saws. The saws at the time were heavy awkward and the chain design was prone to kickback. Their first product in 1947 was a pneumatic-powered reciprocating saw designed primarily for underwater demolition, marine dock building, and military applications, but was soon adopted for logging. Tapping into the commercial logging and farming boom of the 1950s, Wright adapted its reciprocating technology to gas engine powered units. Initially the reciprocating action was directly worked from the crankshaft with its own connecting rod, no clutch! Although the machine was refined over the years, it always cut slower than a comparable chain saw and by the 1960s, they had moved on to a conventional chain arrangement and the manufacture was contracted out to Poulan. They went out of business in the 1970s.

Granite surface plate

 I've wanted one of these for years- decades! It's not been a must-have but definitely in the nice-to-have category. Besides, it gives my vernier height gauge a home.  It had been sitting in a friend's shed for 20 plus years ago, when he bought some forgotten object, it was given to him. My son quipped that he would remove it from my shop in 20 years...