The Blitzen' Benz

   Fitted with a 21,504 cc four cylinder engine producing 200 hp at 1500 rpm, this car achieved a speed of 127 mph at Brooklands in 1909, piloted by Hector Hémery. A year later Barney Oldfield went even faster- 131.7 mph on the beach at Daytona.

 

Octave Chanute glider test

 A.M. Herring pilots a multi wing glider built by Octave Chanute in 1896. 

   Chanute, a railway engineer, became interested in flying after seeing a balloon flight in Peoria in 1856. When he retired from his career in 1883 he began studying flying, publishing a book Progress in Flying Machines in 1894.  He built a series of gliders and tested them on the dunes near Miller Beach. The Wright brothers corresponded with him for several years before they achieved powered flight in 1903.
 

Wood plane, section view

Peter Collinette, Woodworking school, Quill Pub. 1984

 I don't do a lot of plane posts, other sites do wood planes far better- people that know their planes, know their planes.

 But this is a nice cross section drawing for someone just learning...

1956 Cadillac ad

Let's gather around the pool, gowns by James Galanos

 

Morgan 3 Wheeler 2011- 2021

Powered by  a 2 litre S&S V twin coupled to a Mazda 5 speed transmission, I expect this thing is a lot of fun to drive. The replacement model featured a Miata motor.

Morgan 3

Alnico magnets

  Before there were rare earth magnets, there were Alnico (Aluminum Nickel Cobalt) magnets.

  Flexible magnets, made by mixing ferrite magnet powders and synthetic/natural rubber binders were brand new in the mid fifties.

  They had been invented by the German company Max Baerman, Goodrich Rubber developed a way to make them in sheet form, specifically for refrigerator door seals.
 

Knott Apparatus clamp

   Here's a nice little scientific apparatus over-center clamp , one of many types the Knott Apparatus Co. of Boston made over their 36 year existence. The company started in 1896, buying out the E. S. Ritchie Instrument company after the principal passed away in 1895. They became one of the largest suppliers of scientific equipment in America but closed during the Depression.

Catalog from 1916

Monday Mystery, a cast iron scale?

The name Fairbanks is cast into it, there seems to be a curved frame, possibly to hold a bowl or something similar and a strange tippy bird foot-like base. Ideas?

 

C E Jennings Expansive bit

C. E. Jennings sold all sorts of tools under the Arrowhead label.  This expansive bit acknowledges the Steers patent of 1884 shown below.

  The company seems to have been in business from the 1880s to the mid 1930s, expanding their business in part by acquiring other companies along the way. Their office was on Murray St.in New York, the factories were located in Yalesville, Conn and Port Jervis NY.  

  Catalog of their tool boxes and tool kits here.

 

Datamp.org US Patent: 296,242

Sidecar Sunday

 Cushman...