Building Your Own Gasoline Station
By Fred T. Anderson
Gasoline can be obtained at the wholesale price only when a storage tank of 50 gals, capacity is available. With such a tank it is possible to buy directly from dealers at a cost usually about three cents a gallon less than the retail price. Read the rest of this entry »
Wow, I think they got ripped off. That’s $9661 in 2011 dollars.
Junior High School Students Build This Model Dirigible
FLYING on a swivel under its own power, this model dirigible shown above was made by members of a class in aeronautics in Hamilton Junior high school, Long Beach, California.
A vacuum cleaner fan and motor were attached to the model and propel it about in a circle at a rapid rate of speed. It was made of wood and metal at a cost of $750 to the school.
The model demonstrates the newly dis- covered principle of aircraft propulsion invented by F. Slade Dale. The rapidly revolving blades of a centrifugal fan whirl the air away from the bow center. This causes a partial lowering of air pressure at the bow and the atmospheric pressure on the rear portions of the ship drive it forward.
The miniature dirigible was built under the supervision of John Hodgson, former engineer and aviator, now an instructor.
Digging a Pirate’s Cave
By HI SIBLEY
WHILE excavating for a new house in the weed-grown lot next door, workmen unearthed a surprising maze of caves and trenches. Evidently they had been dug many seasons before because bushes and weeds were growing luxuriantly from the soil spread over the roofs. Considerable grading and no end of fancy language were required before the lot was in shape to build on. But it proved that a well-made cave is about as substantial a clubhouse as a boy can make. Read the rest of this entry »
Mini-Cannonry
FIVE years ago Harold Herd’s son Howard, now ten, asked his Dad if they could build a cannon at their Pasadena, Calif., home. They began making tiny models which actually fire and today they have a collection of artillery ranging from the year 1400 to the Civil War. The father-son team has been so successful that they have now found a ready market for them in kit form.
That’s some pretty extreme DIY.
Builds Plane in Parlor While Neighbors Wonder at Noise
THE mystery of all the pounding and sawing neighbors heard in the home of Peter Lepicer, of Brooklyn, N. Y., was solved when he moved a two-seated monoplane which he built in his parlor. Workmen were required to tear part of the building away in order to get the plane out of the house.
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Easter Eggs Masquerade as Cartoon Characters
Easter eggs may be transformed into likenesses of cartoon and nursery-tale characters, with attractively colored cut-outs now available in book form. Each design provides both a base and a headpiece for a tinted egg, as shown, and the book contains materials for dressing up twenty eggs in different guises.
HOW TO BUILD A GEIGER-MUELLER URANIUM SURVEY METER
By F. L. Brittin, S.M.,I.R.E.
ANYONE can build and operate this simplified Geiger-Mueller survey meter, which is an instrument for detecting the presence of radiations emanating from radioactive substances such as valuable uranium and radium. Specifically, the Geiger-Mueller tube, which is the most important component of the instrument, detects X-rays, cosmic rays and gamma rays. Beta rays can also be detected by Geiger tubes with very thin cathode walls.
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This is another one of those things that gets much better and cheaper with a digital camera. This poor guy only got one shot per launch and had to carefully time it so the kite would be at the right hight for the camera to be focused.
Even Google Earth is getting in on the act now.
KITE TAKES AERIAL PHOTOS
You don’t have to hire a plane and pilot to get good air shots of ground objects.
By E. J. Roy
FOR many years, the idea of making photographs from a kite has been in my mind. This year, I decided to do something about it. First was the kite design, and having had considerable experience with various types of kites, I finally selected a design for a triangular box kite with wings. Read the rest of this entry »
Alas, cats are not the same. I bought my cat a cardboard plane and he refused to ever get in it.
Coming Generation Is Growing Naturally Into the Idea of Flying
WASH tubs, wheel barrows, newspapers—in fact anything young children can lay their hands on—are being converted into transport planes, fighters and gliders of the queerest shapes and designs. Youngsters have accepted aviation as a permanent fixture and are preparing for it in their own way. Instead of playing policeman, cowboy or house, both boys and girls are pretending they are pilots, guiding a ship through the sky.
Remember that safety standards and knowledge of long-term chemical effects on people were VERY different in 1931. Please refrain from actually trying any of the pranks here. Besides possibly hurting yourself or others, it’ll just make you look like a dick.
JUST for FUN
by Kenneth Murray
The practical joker is always with us, but unfortunately for the gayety of nations, he sometimes runs out of ideas. Here are a few joke novelties which are entirely mechanical and which you can make yourself in no time at very little expense.
SPEAKING of jokes, here are some that you can have a lot of fun with. Have you ever “bit” on the old one of picking a thread off the lapel of a friend’s coat, to find that it is connected to a concealed spool holding yards and yards? Well, here are some more good ones; entirely mechanical so that you needn’t possess unusual dexterity to secure a laugh, and you can turn them all out in the workshop in a couple of hours. Then for some fun! Read the rest of this entry »
$500 FOR ONE PAPER DOLL
Jack Eisner might make you a doll for $200, but his regular price is more, and his customers keep him very, very busy.
BY Louis Hochman
SOUNDS silly for a man to spend his time cutting out paper dolls. Stuff for kids and crazy people. But it’s silly like a gold mine for Jack Eisner of Kew Gardens, Long Island. He cuts out paper dolls and sells them for $500 apiece.
His first paper doll was a caricature of Jack Oakie, the film comedian. Eisner admits it was pretty crude, but it impressed the art director at Paramount Pictures.
“You’ve got something there,” the art director told Eisner and doled out twelve whole dollars for his paper doodle.
That was Eisner’s first paper profit. Since then, he has bettered both his technique and his income. Now he gets from $200 to $500 for a single caricature. Read the rest of this entry »
This is a pretty sweet clubhouse.
Prop and Tiller CLUB HOUSE
By HI SIBLEY
HAVING selected the site for this novel clubhouse, preferably in a more or less open space in backyard or vacant lot, stake off the floor plan and locate the tower foundation.
Dig a pit about 5 ft. square and 18 in. deep and raise the four upright timbers, 4 by 4 in. by 17 ft. 6 in., one at a time by means of poles and ropes. When the first is up, guy it with four wires and by means of a plumbline see that it is absolutely vertical. When the second is up, secure this to the first temporarily by means of boards nailed diagonally, and so on with the other two.
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