de Havilland Otter

Produced from 1952 to 1967, about 450 were built and many remain in service today. More here.

St. Lawrence river scene

Mid 1920s travel poster for the CPR by A.C. Leighton, who did many paintings for the railroad before becoming a noted landscape artist, painting mostly in the Rockies.

Using your motorcycle spark to start a camping fire! 1936

This has got to be the most insane idea I've seen in a long while!

Vanished manufacturers: Dole Valve Company, Morton Grove, Illinois

Above, an old radiator valve I had with some tractor stuff.  Below, the patents stamped on it.

The earliest one is from 1945 and was awarded to Sergius Vernet, an interesting guy who first invented the wax thermostatic element in 1936, receiving a U.S. patent for the device two years later.  It's now used in a wide variety of applications.

The Dole Valve Company was founded by Andrew Dole in 1923 in Morton Grove, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. (Andrew Dole was also a director of the William Wrigley Company and chairman of the Hooker Glass and Paint Manufacturing Company.  Hooker provided Mr. Wrigley with the mixing vats he first used to make his chewing gum.) The Dole company was one of the first to produce Vernet's automotive thermostat:

Life, November 1937

The company became a powerhouse, manufacturing appliances, instruments, valves, and plumbing & heating equipment.  

The Canadian side of the company was established in Oakville, Ontario in 1959. In 1963, with annual sales of $22 million, the US parent company was bought by the Eaton Corporation, which also bought the famous lock-making company of Yale & Towne, becoming Eaton Yale & Towne in 1965.  Dover was made a division of the larger company. In 1968, the original plant in Morton Grove was shut down, putting 400 employees out of work.  Production was moved to other locations in Indiana and Illinois.  One of the Illinois plants, in Hanover ("Best little village by a dam site"), was a converted woolen mill that had been originally built in 1864, becoming the largest woolen mill east of Chicago after further expansion in 1921.

When Eaton took it over, it became Valve & Control Plant No. 2, employing 700 people, mostly women.  There they made solenoid valves for use in dishwashers, refrigerators and washing machines.   In 1997, it was sold to Robertshaw Industrial Products (aka Invensys Controls). As American major appliance manufacturers faltered (Maytag, out of Newton, Iowa, went belly up and was bought by Whirlpool in 2006), the workforce dwindled. In 2015, with the plant now owned by Robertshaw, the remaining 100 employees lost their jobs when the company moved production to Mexico.  (According to a 2014 article in Prairie Advocate, "The company cited the reason for the plant closures as part of its initiatives to optimize its manufacturing footprint, leverage its investments and enhance its competitiveness."  Huh?)

The Dole Valve name continues today as a brand, but I can't determine who owns the name.  It doesn't pop up on the Eaton site.

1901 W Carroll Ave. Chicago

Pulleys & Blocks

Pulleys and blocks I've found around the farm or picked up at sales. All variations on a theme. None have manufacturer's names or marks.

The one below has its two halves held together by a steel pin secured by a cotter pin, so that you can split it apart to thread the rope over the pulley.

I especially like the looks of the next one:

Below, how the can be used to "advantage":

Garden City newspaper print-setting room, 1925

Maureen Madden (Editor).  Letchworth Recollections.  Egon Publishers Ltd., 1995.

Photograph's over--back to work!

1972 Fury

looks a bit light in the front end. I think the old boat deserves a 4 bbl 440...

Parts of a Modern Typewriter (Remington-Rand), 1953

The New World Family Encyclopedia.  Standard International Library, 1953.

The Remington company was the first to use the QWERTY keyboard, having purchased the design in 1873 from Christopher Sholes.  Two years after the picture above was published, Remington-Rand was bought by Sperry, eventually becoming part of Unisys.

Cool World War II Cover Art: The Waiting Game, 1974

First published in 1961 by Peter Davies Ltd., the first Mayflower edition was in 1970 and reprinted in 1974.  Cover illustration is by Chris Mayger (1919-1994), whose many works include The Sinking of the Titanic.  Alexander Fullerton (1924-2008) served in a battleship (HMS Queen Elizabeth) and a submarine (HMS Seadog) during World War II.  He was a prolific author.

The Waiting Game is a tense story of a British submarine's mission to enter enemy waters off of Norway to rescue important Resistance fighters being pursued by the Gestapo.  It's a page-turner!

Moto Guzzi V700 project progress

 This is one of my ongoing motorcycle projects, it arrived close to twenty years ago, minus front end and front fender, minus cylinderheads... I finally acquired a complete front end a few years ago, cylinder heads were found and rebuilt last year, it's getting closer! This bike was last licensed in 1971, possibly taken off the road after an accident, this rebuild is long overdue.

But good progress this winter. Frame is painted, front end is checked, cleaned and painted with new fork seals installed.  The whole fork is now (loosely) installed with new steering head bearings. 

Bearings checked, seals and gaskets replaced, new paint...

Assembled and ready to go. This is the last big chunk to be installed, after engine and transmission are in place. 

The engine is assembled and ready, transmission checked and seals replaced... this feels good!  Things to buy include mufflers, sidepanels and a better dual seat.  Below, the before pic... a long time ago.