Acetylene lighting

    Calcium carbide produces acetylene gas when it is exposed to water. In a lamp like this a chunk of calcium carbide is placed in the gas generator water from a water tank above it is dripped onto it, the gas produced passes through a tube to a lighting jet in the lamp, where it burns with a bright white light. 

   Below, acetylene was available in cylinders to eliminate the carbide/water step.

Grenade patent

Application filed by the A Kimball Co.

A. Kimball Co. was a Chicago company known for producing a range of musical instruments, including pianos. What they were doing patenting something like this is not known...

 

Monday Mystery, Big wrench

Here's a nice big 24 inch pipe wrench with no markings except a square on the handle which may or may not be a logo. Guesses?Anyone recognize the tool? 

Update, possibly a wrench by Oswego, third one down. (Thanks Dave!) I like that the individual parts are available.

US.archive.org

Milwaukee shipyards, 1880

 I'm trying to find this location in modern Milwaukee. The Mathew Brothers furniture company shown across the water is listed at 407-411 East Water St. in 1880, which doesn't seem to exist today. 

Update: Then Dave found this...  "Down the river from the Oneida street bridge" Which is also no longer.

IBM goes electronic

 The Hollerith Tabulating Machine Company was incorporated in 1896, after Herman Hollerith invented the punch card and the tabulating machine that read the holes in the card.

 In 1911 it was merged with two other data-processing technology companies and was called the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, changed in 1924 to IBM. In the 1950s the company developed an electronic way to read the punch cards, this was the beginning of modern computing.

IBM 650

Sidecar Sunday

 

The Time and Temperature Building

 This is where all the temperatures and time of the world is figured out.

Actually, it was originally known as the Chapman building, nicknamed more recently because of the large clock and weather sign installed in 1964. The 14 storey building was built in 1924 and is currently empty.

More here.

The people's convertble

 

Farrier's Butteris

 This is basically a one inch wide chisel fitted with a handgrip and shoulder stock. It's known as a butteris, used by farriers to trim horse's hooves. 

Conestoga wagon jack

Earl F. Robacker, Old Stuff in Up-Country Pennsylvania, As Barnes, 1978

 No maker's name, Pennsylvania, 1830

Fashion Friday

Cold weather gear for the upcoming winter, 1923.

I'd never heard of the P&P but just found a picture in a 1936 magazine of a P&P chassis sporting an old Royal Enfield engine. The motorcycle was definitely different.

 

The old Turnpike, 1907

Alan L. Radcliff,  Adventures of a Vintage Car Collector, E A Seeman Pub. 1972

 

Loud pipes errr...

Whew, is it hot in here??

 

Koeth's Interchangeable Tool (partial)

   A good solid handle assembly without any apparent use.

 This might be the most complicated of multitools, part of a kit consisting of various jaws that attached to these handles- it might be easier to just own a few pliers and shears.  Bottom image is from a post at Papawswrench. 

 

Party at Bugatti

Ettore Bugatti, (center) with friends and and staff pose for a photograph in front of his house, celebrating the completion of the 100th Type 46 Bugatti touring chassis in 1930.

 

One of my vices is vises, Eclipse

  Eclipse is the name William Marples uses for their line of vises, this one would be categorized as an amateurs vice, with exposed screw and light build, it's rather flimsy looking. I expect the cast-in V7 and V6 are casting numbers, not a stock or model number.

Marples vise catalog here.

 

Suzuki 1964

 She looks demented but I'd probably go out with her.

Laird-Turner Special

Exciting times in aviation…

 

Sidecar Sunday

 

Medicom Toy RAH No.784 Kikaider & Side Machine Ultimate Edition Set Figure

Athlet chisel

 Found in a Nova Scotia tool box. How it got here is anyone's guess. It's a tool company name we've not seen before, seems it's a company from Germany specializing in edge tools that has been recently taken over by Netherlands company Rotec.

Triumph Twenty-one, 1957

By 1964 the bathtub enclosure (and the rocket) were long gone.

Article at Motorcycle Classics

Early Acrylic

Plastic windshields started showing up during the early part of WW2, acceptable optical quality was difficult to achieve in the vacuum or blow molding processes of the time, so the windshield was still a flat piece installed in a frame, as seen in this view of a Stuka cockpit.

Mototrack Engineering, 1974

 This looks like a potential competitor for the Tracy custom bodies- with a slant towards the café racer trend of the time. It's a little suspect, no photographs of the actual parts, does anyone remember ever seeing these parts installed on a motorcycle?

Rockport, Maine

1938 Packard, the hood ornament may not be original...

 

Popular Stillson wrench

There are a lot of Stillson and Stillson pattern wrenches, I've seen Walworth Stillson and Genuine Stillson marked wrenches but this a very well-used Popular Stillson. More Stillson info at Alloy Artifacts.

 

Self-defrosting fridge, 1950

   A genuine innovation.  How many of these type of fridges were ruined by someone impatiently trying to pry the ice out of the freezer section, I wonder. 

   Just a timer that switched off the compressor and switched on a heating element in the heat exchanger 2 or 3 times a day but what an improvement.  

As an aside, the illustration is signed Lima, no info that I can find...

Simmons Pelican shears

 

Here is a nice shapely pair of shears made by E. C. Simmons. Buy them for the sculpture. 

E E Simmons has been making and sourcing scissors and shears since 1874, adopting the trademark Keen Kutter in the 1880's.  The company sold a full line of hardware including wood planes, more information here. It was acquired in 1940 by Shapleigh Hardware which closed up in 1960.

1953 Desoto

 Now with power steering, power brakes and well... power.

Villiers, 1960

 Below, Engine cutaway. Artist is signed Johnstone, I don't see that name in the Motoring Artist directory. I had to look twice to make sure the primary chain didn't disappear between the crank webs!

Speed Age, April 1948

Here's a magazine from before my time, not too much interesting content 7 decades later. I don't recognize any names in the editorial staff, but on the cover that's Rollie Free fully clothed on what looks like a Harley, and we know Bill France from his promotion on the back cover...