December 3, 2007

Builds Playhouse From Oil Cans (Jan, 1935)

Filed under: Cool — @ 12:34 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1935
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Builds Playhouse From Oil Cans

BY SOLDERING together 1500 quart oil cans, Edgar Speer, Ohio mechanic, has constructed a novel playhouse for his small daughter.

By laying the soldered cans on their long axis and offsetting each course at the end, Speer has achieved a log cabin effect. Large enough to accommodate three or four full grown men, the cabin is 6-1/2 feet long, 4-1/2 feet wide and 6-1/2 feet high. The project took about 2-1/2 months of Speer’s spare time. The work was done with a common blow torch and soldering iron.

60 Television Tubes an Hour (Jan, 1948)

60 Television Tubes an Hour

They’re being made faster and cheaper now.

TELEVISION for everybody comes a step closer with the development of mass-produced picture tubes, the heart—and one of the most expensive components—of video receivers. RCA’s new plant in Lancaster, Pa., is already set up to turn out one of the big cathode-ray tubes every minute, and at a price that may reduce the cost of small television sets.

These tubes are lineal descendants of the ordinary neon sign, or gas-discharge tube. About 80 years ago the British physicist Crookes pumped all the gas out of a discharge tube and found that the light inside the tube disappeared, but the end of the tube itself began to glow! His interest aroused by this effect, Crookes proved that it was caused by a stream of extremely small charged particles coming from the negative electrode in the tube.
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URINALYSIS ANYWHERE BY MAIL (Feb, 1937)

URINALYSIS ANYWHERE BY MAIL

Every man and woman should have a scientific health test made each year.

The Robinson chemical and microscopical test is more complete than the tests demanded by Life Insurance Co.’s. It will enable you to

PROLONG YOUR LIFE
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Paint with Your Fingers, Find Your Hidden Neurosis (Feb, 1947)

Filed under: General — @ 12:33 am
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1947
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Paint with Your Fingers

You may not make masterpieces, but you’ll paint a picture of your hidden neurosis.

BY GOLD V. SANDERS

BECAUSE a clever school teacher invented a novel way to instruct her small pupils, psychiatrists now have a valuable new implement for ferreting out emotional disturbances and laying bare the innermost personality of the mentally ill.

Odd as it may seem, this important device is finger painting, the making of pictures by smearing paint on paper with fingers and hands. It was developed by Ruth Faison Shaw as a simple art form for children, but it turned out to be something far different and more potent.
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December 2, 2007

New Lens for Rear Auto Window Enlarges Backward View (Dec, 1930)

Or you could just make a window that goes across the entire back of the car…

New Lens for Rear Auto Window Enlarges Backward View

A MOTORIST can ordinarily get a good view of only a small portion of the road behind him, and is consequently sometimes at a loss to know everything that is going on. An English manufacturer, however, has come to the rescue and put on the market a magnifying glass, which is a large diameter double convex lens of fairly low power, that is fitted to the center of the rear window of a car.

With this lens attached the motorist is enabled to get a far more comprehensive view of the road, as shown in the drawing at the left. It is also claimed by the makers that the lens cuts out the blinding glare of the headlights of following cars reflected in the windshield. The lens is easily installed.

Hidden Flaws Bared by High Speed Movies (Dec, 1938)

Making a high-speed movie has gotten a lot easier and cheaper in the digital age. There are some really cool ones on You Tube.

Hidden Flaws Bared by High Speed Movies

THE “movie doctor” is not human. It is a machine that in its own line can do more than any human being. It specializes in diagnoses, because with its keen, rapid-seeing eye, it can peer at machines, watch the way they work, and point out just what is the matter with them.

This movie doctor is an exceedingly high-speed motion-picture camera, now used in conjunction with a precision clock. It is really a sort of time microscope. In it is used the ordinary sixteen-millimeter moving-picture film, which takes pictures of the object under examination and at the same time records the time of each frame. While the ordinary motion-picture camera is designed to run at a rate of around sixteen pictures per second, this high-speed camera
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FENDER LIGHTS WARN OF LEFT OR RIGHT TURN (Nov, 1933)

FENDER LIGHTS WARN OF LEFT OR RIGHT TURN

To make it easy for a driver to signal his intention of turning, a new warning device is controlled from buttons mounted beneath the steering wheel and within convenient reach of the fingertips. Pressing the left-hand button illuminates arrows pointing to the left on front and rear fenders of that side. The right-hand button lights up arrows on the right fenders pointing in the opposite direction.

CONVERT OLD LIGHT BULBS INTO CHEMICAL GLASSWARE (Nov, 1933)

How TO CONVERT OLD ELECTRIC LIGHT BULBS INTO CHEMICAL GLASSWARE

By Earl D Hay

EXPERIMENTS in an amateur chemical laboratory are much more interesting when they are made with the same kind of apparatus as that used in professional laboratories. As a rule, however, the home chemist experiences a great – shortage of flasks and endeavors to use various kinds of bottles as makeshifts, little realizing that he may make from burned-out electric light bulbs a great variety of useful flasks like those sold by chemical supply houses at from 20 to 75 cents each. The lamps used in the average home vary in size from 25 to 200 watts and are suitable for small Florence or boiling flasks. Larger flasks are made from 300-, 500-, and 1,000-watt lamps, which can be obtained from the janitors of stores and linemen of the city lighting companies.
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December 1, 2007

Parachutes Save Victims Trapped in Burning Building (Dec, 1932)

Parachutes Save Victims Trapped in Burning Building

THE latest wrinkle for persons trapped in a burning building comes from Berlin, Germany, where there has been developed a parachute to take the place of the slow and cumbersome type of fire escape. The device has proven highly satisfactory wherever used.

The pictures on the right show a demonstration being carried out. The victim has just flung herself from a blazing room and is about to land. The mask, seen in the close-up, resembles the type used during the World war. It is fastened securely over the head before the leap into space to protect against smoke and to prevent the face from being scorched.

NEW MERRY-GO-ROUND OF MIDGET AUTOS (Nov, 1933)

NEW MERRY-GO-ROUND OF MIDGET AUTOS

A merry-go-round of toy automobiles is proving a popular amusement in Germany. A light steel frame is pivoted on a central hub holding all the midget autos an equal distance from the center. The children do their own pedaling and steering and can govern the speed at which they go. In a few installations an electric motor turns the frame, but the ones in which the children pedal their own machines are reported to be the more popular with the youngsters.

Oldest Radio Station Celebrates Its Sixteenth Anniversary (Dec, 1936)

Filed under: Radio — @ 9:21 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Dec, 1936
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Oldest Radio Station Celebrates Its Sixteenth Anniversary

Only sixteen years ago the first regular entertainment program by wireless was broadcast. Program broadcasting originated with Station WWJ of the Detroit News in 1920, and at a sixteenth anniversary program in August one of the speakers was Dr. Lee De Forest, pioneer inventor of the industry, who talked over the original transmitting equipment he had devised.

Ship Flowers in Blocks of Ice (Nov, 1934)

Filed under: General — @ 9:21 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1934
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Ship Flowers in Blocks of Ice
THANKS to a new method of preservation, flowers shipped from Australia to London survive the long trip and arrive in perfect condition.
The flowers are first placed in a mould which is then frozen, completely enclosing the blooms in a block of ice. Although often weeks old, the flowers retain their original beauty.

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