Ariel 250- for 1937!

Champion spark plugs

Life, February 1947.

Speaking of spark plugs....

Sparkplug maintenance

There apparently was a time when you could dismantle your spark plug  to thoroughly de-coke it on some engines.  This is a huge 21 mm one.

Robert Ireson.  The Penguin Car Handbook, Revised Edition.  Penguin Books, 1967.

Parr of Arizona

Hmmm. Nice leather biker wear...  In the late sixties these ads were in all the motorcycle magazines every month. Is it just me or were motorcyclists possibly their secondary market?

"Speed" Powell and His Home-Made Racer

From John Monk Saunders, Wings.  Based on the Paramount Picture.  Illustrated with Scenes from the Photoplay.  New York:  Grosset & Dunlap, 1927.

All jacked up: O'Hara patent

I've had this old screw jack for ages.

The patent date cast into it is June 8, 1875.  This patent was granted to Lewis O'Hara of Oswego, New York.  His improvement consisted of building a lever actuating a rod within the screw of the jack so that the pad could be screwed up to the bottom of the item you wanted to lift, which would be then lifted off of the ground by the action of the lever.  Very clever design. It's weakness is the cast iron socket for the handle:  I managed to crack this lifting something heavy.  Nickle brazing made it good again. So cool to be using something designed well over a century ago.  I doff my hat to you, Mr. O'Hara!

The things ya find.

I found this in an unemptied toolbox at a flea market in Maine, it appeared to be a well worn, modified barrel from a Colt 45. Oddly, it's been sleeved to .25 caliber- this size round is not powerful enough to cycle the mechanism. An ill-conceived machine shop project? Another little mystery.

I sent it off to a Texas friend with experience in these things who told me that during the Viet Nam war the Viet Cong sometimes modified captured US Colts and reworked them to use more readily available ammunition such as .32 or .25 caliber. These would be strictly a "up close and personal" device as the mechanism would have to be hand cycled to work.

We used to make things in this country. #83: Canadian Locomotive Co. Ltd., Kingston Ontario

In this case, locomotives.  The Canadian Locomotive Company, located on the waterfront of Kingston, Ontario built about 3060 steam, electric and diesel locomotives between the years 1854 to 1968. The D10 steam locomotive (#1095) in Kingston's Confederation Park is all that remains of that era.

Ads from the 1870s and 1960

1910

CPR #71. Built July 1882.

A 4-6-2 Pacific for India Government Railways



Fairbanks Morse C-Liner A unit being lowered onto the trucks.



80 ton Diesel Hydraulics on the shop floor in 1967


Most of this info came from the 1999 book by Donald McQueen and William Thomson; Constructed in Kingston in which the entire history and roster of the company is described.

PzKfpw-Maus

On trials in the late 1930's.  I supposed you could argue that the PzKfpw-Maus was the predecessor of the modern ATV!

The most expensive ashtray in the world?

I was told that this ashtray was made from the gyroscopic control mechanism for a military rocket.  Beautifully machined. Imagine the actual manufacturing cost of this device, only to end up as a receptacle for cigarette ashes!  Still, I suppose that's better than blowing it up along with the war head.