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Experiments With Oxygen FOR THE AMATEUR CHEMIST

A few common chemicals supplied by the druggist and simple apparatus is all that is required to produce these interesting experiments with oxygen.

by VERNON TRACEY

OXYGEN experiments form a very interesting field of adventure for the amateur chemist due to the fact that oxygen is one of the most active of the chemical elements. It readily combines with most any other element to form many different compounds. These compounds of oxygen and other elements are known as “oxides” and the process of combination is called “oxidation,” or more commonly known as burning. We see examples of oxidation every day in the burning of fuel, but this is not very active when one considers the fact that the air is only one-fifth oxygen, the rest being mainly nitrogen and a small percentage of other gases.
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Goofy Inventions Are His Hobby

By ROBERT E. MARTIN

RUSSELL H. OAKES, a Waukesha, Wis., advertising man, is the Thomas A. Edison of goofy gadgets. Out of his basement workshop have come more than fifty screwball innovations. They have no practical value on earth. They will never see the inside of the Patent Office “Gazette.” They have no standing as labor-saving devices. Yet, they are making their inventor famous!
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Escape from the pressures of modern life … Relax in contemplation after building

Your Very Own Meditator

By KEN ISAACS – PS Design Consultant

“I vant to be alone.” When Greta Garbo made her often-quoted remark, years ago, it may have had a deeper meaning than escape from pursuing newsmen. Everybody occasionally wants to be alone. We all need privacy to renew ourselves for the fast pace of modern living. As old as mankind, this inner need is today more urgent than ever before.

Mohandas Gandhi was perhaps this century’s outstanding exponent of aloneness—of personal meditation. Gandhi’s inspiration came in part from our own Henry David Thoreau, who fled to the natural solitude of Walden Pond. And Thoreau was a real soul brother of our western man of the mountains, naturalist John Muir.
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Toys from Discarded Lamp Bulbs

Spectacular Fireworks Amuse and delight the kiddies by hooking a lamp in which the filament has been broken in circuit with a spark coil. Brilliant, weird, light results.

Gravity Experiment To prove that cold air weighs more than warm, heat the air in one of two carefully balanced bulbs from which the tips have been broken. The cold end will sink.
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$97 Movie Made in Hollywood Kitchen

By A. L. WOOLDRIDGE Special Hollywood Correspondent

Stories of millions of dollars spent in producing ten-reel movie features have given the public an idea that only a big company could produce profit-making motion pictures. But Robert Florey, expending $97 produced a picture which is making him wealthy!

IF YOU have $100 or so, plus a few old cigar boxes, a motion picture camera, and a desire to break into the movies—as who hasn’t?—you can be your own director and cameraman and produce a motion picture worthy of exhibition in theaters throughout the country. That is, you can it you are as skillful and economical as Robert Florey, who cut his sets from cardboard and cigar boxes and produced in a Hollywood kitchen, at a total cost of $97, a movie which is being shown in United Artists theaters all over America.
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Bring “Ghosts” to your Home for Winter Parties

by RICHARD COKE

The author’s adventures as a “ghost detective,” ferreting out the secrets of fraudulent mediums, led him to the discovery of the ingenious methods of creating phantoms which he describes in this article. Using these simple stunts, much fun can be had at house parties, and you can easily convince your guests that you are in private communication with the supernatural.

WHEN Eddie called me up from the “Times” office, and asked me to come along to Madame Y’s “Wednesday night circle,” of course I accepted the invitation. For over fifteen years I’ve been spook hunting, but with no material success. When spooks have rattled tin cans in a cabinet in imitation of a “Model T,” I’ve always found that the spooks had bone and muscle. When nebulous images have appeared on photographic plates, I have always found the foggy patches due to exposure to X-rays, radio-active salts, or maybe to a tiny pin-hole in the bellows of the camera. Read the rest of this entry »

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Martian Invader

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s MPs interplanetary space traveler.

By Walter A. Musciano

HERE is a model that can truly be described as being “out of this world.” The Mechanix Illustrated Martian Invader, a flying saucer, is a most unusual control line model airplane patterned along the lines of those luminous disks that thousands of people have seen during the past several years.

The twin bubble canopies housing the Martian pilot and his robot and the rakish fins add to the futuristic appearance of our saucer.
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Farm Tractor and Power Plant Assembled from Old Auto Parts

This combination tractor and belt power plant was made from a Ford engine with frame and front wheels, a 1925 Chevrolet gear shift, an International Model-S truck rear end, and two binder wheels. The frame was shortened 18 in. by sawing each side in two 23 in. from the rear end and lapping and drilling for two 1/2-in’. bolts. The rear end was set on two 2 by 5 in. steel posts with U-bolts around frame and axles.
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Perform These STARTLING STUNTS with DRY ICE

by DALE R. VAN HORN

Dry ice, which might be called frozen carbon dioxide, lends itself to the performance of some mysterious and startling stunts. As told in this article, it will fire off a toy cannon, propel a model boat, make a spoon squeal like an assassinated pig, and cause a rubber band to writhe as in a terrible spasm of pain.

DRY ICE, or carbon dioxide in solid form, is an exceedingly interesting substance. We know it best as the gas that adds sparkle to our drug fountain drinks. But as a solid, it’s something else again, unique in several ways. For instance, carbon dioxide cannot exist as a liquid at normal atmospheric temperatures. It must be either a gas or solid. Only at temperatures below 31 degrees Centigrade can it exist as a liquid. Read the rest of this entry »

NEON TUBE EXPERIMENTS

Weird Stunts Performed with Simple Apparatus

By WALTER BACH

THE hand is said to be quicker than the eye, but a neon tube holds the real prize for speed. It can flicker on and off a hundred times while the eye blinks once! Because of this peculiar ability, many amazing experiments can be performed with it at practically no cost. A few of them will be described together with a home-built circuit breaker with which to do them. A storage battery or any other source of A. C. or D. C. current of from 6 to 12 volts may be used. Read the rest of this entry »

Washing Machine Motor Drives Midget Auto 12 M.P.H.

IT MIGHT be small and funny looking but it goes places, does the little midget car built by Stanley McCrary, of Seattle, Washington.

In building his somewhat diminutive auto, Stanley waylaid an old washing machine and made away with its motor. When he came to the problem of providing a clutch and steering gear, he simply made them in his own workshop. As to the gas tank, well you can see for yourself in the photo at the left. Read the rest of this entry »

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Build a 75 Foot TARGET RANGE in Your Basement

A lot of wide open space isn’t necessary for the construction of a target range. By following plans given here you can build a 75-ft. range in your own basement for practice shooting.

RIFLE enthusiasts who keep regular business hours may find it inconvenient to enjoy anything approaching regular shooting practice. Some may belong to various clubs which hold night sessions at indoor ranges, while a few possessing extensive grounds may have their own private target ranges, but the average sportsman with small bore rifle equipment and a strong desire to shoot is not likely to have such facilities available to him.
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