Cars in the 'hood, VW Beetle

Probably over restored, certainly well taken care of. The rooftop luggage rack is a nice touch.
 

Portland Locomotive, Minnehaha

Portland Company's design for a passenger locomotive, built in 1856.

 The Portland company opened in 1847 in Portland, Maine and over the next few decades built over 600 locomotives. The company also built boats, marine steam engines, even automobiles. It closed in 1978, it's unclear what they were building at that time.

 

St Louis Wrench

It looked promising, a great middle American city name, reasonable quality... flip it over and "Alloy Steel" and "China". Oh well.

 

Traffic safety in Hungary

 The text apparently reads, "Don't be surprised when the signal light is red and yellow" but I think it really means, "May the biggest vehicle win!"

Understated elegance...

 

Sebastian lathe headstock

If anyone was looking for a headstock for their older flat belt Sebastian lathe, I found this one at Liberty Tool.

 1910 catalog here. 

 Sebastian built lathes from 1891 till 1951, when they were acquired by Cincinnati Metalcrafts.  I have not seen an actual Sebastian lathe but according to Vintage Machinery.org. the company was started by Benjamin Sebastian and his wife Clara after he left the Sebastian Mays Co. in 1891. The company was located just across at Ohio border at Covington, Kentucky.
 

Upper right corner, on the back gear, wonder what those segmented teeth are for?

Maxwell #3 and 4 wrench

 Maxwell Motors started building cars in 1904 and grew quickly. Their toolkits used stamped steel tools like this one and apparently after 1921 these wrenches were only identified by numbers, 1, 2 , 3, 4. More here. Oddly, they are plentiful on ebay. 

 The company was acquired by Walter P. Chrysler and when the Chrysler Corporation was formed in 1925, Maxwell was shut down. 

Motorcycle twist grips

One of my vises is vises, 441A and 441B mystery?

  I assume the 441A and 441B are casting marks... no other markings. A thread on Garage Journal mentions to similarities to a Erie Tool Works vise, but nothing conclusive...Anyone have an idea of the manufacturer?
 

Monday Mystery, sculpted clawfoot tub

  Seen at a building salvage company, someone has gone to the trouble of carving away one side and part of the end of a clawfoot tub. There is a wooden deck cut to fit, but I'd really like to know what the sculptor was thinking...

Monorail experiments...

  Monorail accident at Pelham NY. on July16, 1910. This novel design for an electric monorail was demonstrated at an exposition in Virginia in 1907. It attracted the attention of transit interests in New York and a short track was set up in the Bronx. The system, supported on a monorail but hanging from two tracks above was tested successfully but on the opening day, the car, designed for 40 passengers, was overloaded with maybe 100 passengers during its inaugural journey.  It leaned over on a curve, causing the superstructure to collapse and cause this accident. No one was killed though there were many injuries. That was the end. Below, before the crash. More on the story here.

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Sidecar Sunday

 Vintage Rudge riders getting ready to push off on a dead engine hillclimb some time in the eighties.

Iroquois mathematics

 Dating back to the 1920s, it's just a math textbook. The Iroquois Publishing Company had a number of titles and was around after WW2. Not much real info on the company online....

Launch of the S.S. Ripogenus

Original photo of the S.S. Ripogenus. Built in 1918 at Francis Cobb Co. Rockland Maine, at a cost of $600,000. Tonnage 2369/1379; length, 269.0; breadth, 42.1; depth, 25.8. Owners Great Northern Paper Co., Millinocket, Maine, 1919-32 to carry paper from Searsport to N.Y. and Philadelphia, and coal from Norfolk on return voyages. More history may be found in McLeod's history of G.N.P. CO.

The twin screw vessel hailed from Belfast, Maine; and was schooner rigged originally. However, masts were never set because although she was planned as a schooner, she never sailed as such. A Captain Charles Saunders was her Captain for many years. On November 8, 1932 she collided with the SS EVANSVILLE, off Cape Henry, Virginia and sunk. There was no loss of life. 

Also, a note from ‘COMPANY REDCORDS: Coal and Sulphur Book’, reads; 

“Ripogenus put in service in 1919. Captains pay was $300/month. Crew 36 men averaged $107/month. Last full year of operation was 1926, 33 trips, 82,388 gross tons. She made 4 trips ending in February, in 1927. Early in 1927 B.L.S. made a study showing cost of freight on coal hauled by Rip. $1.94 ton, contract carriers or outside charters $.94. This is probably when she went out of GN service, probably chartered to somebody else, although there is no record.”

 Many Searsport, Maine men started their sea-going careers on the “RIP”, as she was affectionately called…” 

Info from SSarkasan

Boiler explosion again

 

Stamped wrench set

 No manufacturer name, but we can be assured they are hardened steel... They remind me a bit of the Autokit wrenches...

Indian Motorcycle parts!

 I found this classified ad in a 1987 Classic Bike, a British motorcycle magazine. What was an Indian dealer doing in an obscure part of the Canadian Maritimes thirty years after the company closed down? What happened to the stuff and where is it 40 years later? (not that I need Indian parts...)

I put the question out, did not find out his name or why the parts ended up there but apparently he sold out to Island Restoration in Long Island NY. They called it the 'mother load' of parts. Apparently it took many men several days to load 4 or 5 shipping containers. He even had complete basket case Chiefs for sale. 

However, Island Restoration is a dead end also...

Gertus micrometer

I keep finding new manufacturer names of older micrometers , this one at an antique store in western Ontario. 

 Gertus is a name that appears on Amazon selling taps and drills but I cannot find much info on them at all. 
 

Cobbler's hammer

It was labeled as a Sicilian cobbler's hammer in the store... To me its almost a cartoon rendition of a hammer.

 

The William Underwood

  I found this lovely boat in Rockport harbour in Maine. Named the William Underwood, its a 71 ft. Eldridge-McInnis converted sardine carrier, built in 1941. A little googling showed that it's been totally rebuilt and converted to a yacht. The hold, formerly filled with sardines is now luxury accommodation. And, it's for sale, scroll down for the history.

"Sardine Carriers are the queens of the Maine fishing fleet. These are good sized boats, sixty feet and up in length, and are used to move sardines, or small herring, from the point of capture to the factory where the fish are processed and placed head-to-tail into cans…Many, although by no means all, were double-enders, dictated by the need for easily-driven shapes when both light and loaded. For the same reason, the boats were long and lean, and consequently often very beautiful.” ~ Joel White, 'Wood, Water and Light'

Programs, get your programs here!

 

You heard the man, pay no more.

Sikorsky Ilya Mouromets

 The Ilya Mouromets was an early giant, with a 97 foot wingspan and 4 engines, It first flew in 1913, this early flight had a roped off area on the fuselage for people to walk about.  It was built as a luxurious airliner with space for a record 16 passengers in an insulated cabin and even had a washroom. In February of  1914 the second prototype made a long distance flight from St Petersburg to Kiev and back. Regular passenger service was being considered when WW1 broke out. The aircraft was converted to a bomber and 85 were built. It was by far the most advanced airplane in the world and during the early years of the war nothing could touch it.

After the war they continued to be built (converted back to passenger spec) but all were retired by 1922.. 

Cars in the 'hood... Porsche

 

Monday Mystery, forged hook.

The joys of a crate of random steel and iron bits at a rural garage sale. Not really a mystery but a kind of a "what is it?" question.   In the crate with some pintle hooks and hitch pins was this odd little T-shaped link bolted to a 5/16 chain hook, maybe it's a part of an old hook system of some sort? Thoughts?

 

Tabloc chain breaker

I never had much luck with these chainbreakers, they just broke!

 

Sidecar Sunday

Cycle magazine tested the Jawa Californian with sidecar in March 1970... they clearly didn't take it too seriously. 

Above; "Sir, please go away, the police have been called..."

 

Virago engine half model

 If you have dead engines, why not?

Nice hammer handle...

 The hammer head is a Plumb, but the interest here is the angular octagonal handle.