Buck Rogers Flash Blast Attack Ship

National Air and Space Museum

 Tootsietoy, 1937

Rudge Whitworth bicycles

 

Making DKW RT-1s

This doesn't look like a staged photo, does it? How about the "showroom " below?

Probably the mostly copied motorcycle ever, becoming the BSA Bantam, Harley Hummer, the Russian M-1A Moskva and the Yamaha YA-1, among others.

Elliott Erwitt photo. Karlsruhe, Germany     1951

 

Bruno Will pliers

  Here's an old pair of pliers, probably dating to pre WW2 with very unusual handles with defined fingers and thumb grips. There are other Bruno Will pliers on ebay etc, none have this handle configuration. 

 The business seems to have passed on to Harry Will who after WW2 moved the business into West Germany (Harry Will history in a previous post here). Confusing to me is the fact that Bruno Will tools continued to exist, becoming Orbis Will in 1947 while Harry Will-labeled pliers also continued to be available, though they seemed to be the same company. Orbis/Will history here.

 

Cross Transfer-Matic machine

 

  This is a Cross Transfer-Matic machine for automatic machining operations on V-8 engines. Ford introduced this machinery in their Cleveland engine plant in the early 1950s.  Though there was a large reduction in required manpower, the equipment was very expensive and inflexible. Short video here.

Golden Comet motor oil

 

Available in grades frrom 10W to SAE70.  Very little information on the can but apparently Golden Comet motor oil was a product of the Sinclair Refining Company. Not clear when it disappeared from the market.
 

Honda for 1968

 Scrambler styling for the Black Bomber. 

Almost psychedelic background.

Ford Plant Stamping Press, 1927

 Compare to this one.

Number series of machine screws

Cardon's Tools is having a fastener sale, wish I needed more small machine screws, but it started me wondering where the # screw series came from. Fractional bolts go down to 3/16 and 1/8" but those smaller sizes are little used. The number series 10-24, 8-32 etc. screws are much more common. 

So, it seems the system starts with the base size "0" being .060" and the sizes go up and down from there in .013" increments, so a #6 screw is .138" diameter, .060+ (6 x 013") and #000 is .060-(2 x.013"). Over the years the odd number series have been pretty much discontinued. Seems pretty arbitrary to me but here we are 100 years later.. 

Where did that protocol come from? I find two references. 

  In 1907 the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) defined two series that used Seller's thread, numbering the sizes by gauge numbers from 0 to 30. Who was William Sellers? He was an American machine manufacturer who, when elected to the Franklin Institute in 1864, was instrumental in the adoption of a thread form different than Whitworth and also a graded series of nuts and bolts. 

Also, apparently during and after WW1, the powers that be, the ABC (America, Britain, Canada) Council, decided there should be more standardization in threaded fasteners, part of that process was the decision in 1919, that small screws needed better defined, hence this # series. There have been other systems for small screws, but the main standard for screws smaller than #0 is now ANSI/ASME standard B1.10 Unified Miniature Screw Threads.

More than you wanted to know about threads at Wikipedia, here. 

Jaguar D-Type .

Here's two drawings of the D type by Christian Henry Tavard.   He was a technical draftsman, artist and editor-in-chief of the French magazine L’Automobiliste till October 1987.  More of his work here.

The D type was built from 1954 to1957, during which time 71-75 were built.