BSA Starfire

   Always thought these were a well proportioned motorcycle, the styling works better on this single than it does on the bigger 650. They do have a reputation for being fragile.

J T Slocombe Micrometer

  John Tibbits Slocombe was born in New Brunswick but moved to Maine as an infant. At 16 he started at Bangor Foundry & Machine Co. as a machinists apprentice. From there he worked at several machine companies and while working with the highly crafted measuring devices of the day developed the idea for making a precise, affordable micrometer. He also seems to have been influential in setting the standard of measuring in thousandths of an inch. 

 He and a partner,  C.E. Barlow set up J.T. Slocombe Co. and started selling measuring tools in 1893.  The company was sold to J.H. Drury in 1914.

Catalog No 12.

How to adjust a Slocombe micrometer

Patent 559,820

Buick Regal Sport

 Who writes headlines like that?

Tools of the carpenter and joiner, 1813

 

Thomas Martin, The Circle of the Mechanical Arts, Richard Rees, London, 1813.

  In 1813 Thomas Martin compiled a large handbook outlining the trades and manual skills used in manufacturing in early 19th century Britain. In this post, looking at just the woodworking section, the tools of the carpenter and the joiner are shown on one page:

The tools most useful to the carpenter, the axe (7), adze (6), saw (24), socket chisel (13), firmer chisel (5), auger (1), gimlet (3), gauge (16), square (9), compass (36), hammer (21), mallet (22), hookpin (11), crow (12), plumb rule (18), and level (19 ). 

 The tools most often associated with joinery;  the jack plane (30), trying plane (31), smoothing plane (34), tenon saw (25), compass saw (26), keyhole saw (27), square (8), bevel (23), gauge (17), mortise chisel (4), gouge (14), turnscrew (15), plow plane (29), molding plane (35), pincers (37), brad awl (10), stock and bit (2), sidehook (20), workbench (28), and rule (38).  Most of these tools are virtually the same 200 years later. Is the turnscrew (15) a screwdriver?

Minute parcel delivery

 He really wanted a truck.

Jamestown ain't looking so good these days...

Homelite chain saw with bowbar

  The idea was less pinching of the bar, but it doesn't seem safety was much of a factor. 

 History of bow saws here with safety notes, scroll down.

Glider issues

Long after the Wright brothers achieved powered flight in 1903, they continued playing with gliders. Here in a 1911 test, things get a bit out of hand with a gust of wind. No issues though, the next day they achieved a 9 min 45 second flight, a record that lasted 10 years.

 

Fiat Spyder by Pininfarina

  Nice little car, designed by Pininfarina in 1966, who after Fiat discontinued it in 1982, took up manufacturing it under their own name.  Pininfarina had always produced the bodies which were shipped to Fiat for completion.

  In 1982 the company took the whole assembly in-house and sold them as a Pininfarina Azzurra for the North American market and Pininfarina Spidereuropa for the European market. 

  The very fine print in the top corner of the page credits the turbocharger setup to Legend Industries of New York. That must have only been for the American market.

Monday Mystery, casting number

  One of the good thing about old cast iron is that it seems like every time someone made a casting they used it as an excuse to cover it in text, so we can frequently identify patent dates as well as long-gone foundries and manufacturers. Not exactly the case here but the patternmaker did do a nice raised panel so this ESH-010 number remains clearly marked.  

  I found this while scouting for firewood candidates. I was considering a clump of deteriorating older soft maple trees growing on a rock outcropping in the woods. One tree had broken off at the roots and in among the rocks and rotting roots was this foot-long chunk of iron.  What was it doing there? That outcropping is next to a bit of valley that could possibly have been cleared as a pasture or field in the 19th century so is it a piece of farm machinery? It does vaguely resemble a ploughshare. But that region of Ontario also experienced a minor mica mining industry around the turn of the last century so maybe it's related to that.   

  Anyways, I can't quite get myself to scrap/recycle it just yet.

Taft-Peirce gauge

   This would probably be an adjustable go no-go gauge made for some specific job in a production environment. Taft-Peirce started out making sewing machines in 1875 but as the market became too competitive they moved into making special machinery, jigs and gauges on contract to other manufacturers. The company closed in 1995.

 History at Vintagemachinery.org