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Modern Mechanix
Issue: Nov, 1935
Posted in: Cool, General
Posted: 04/19/2006
No Comments
Boy Genius Builds Complete Electrical Laboratory (Nov, 1935)

I love this: “…products of his versatile mind and stubby fingers.”


Boy Genius Builds Complete Electrical Laboratory

by ORMAL I. SPRUNGMAN

From odds and ends of discarded equipment 13-year-old Franklin Lee has built a remarkably complete scientific laboratory. A few of his many successful electrical projects are described in this article.

NIMBLE fingers, an inventive mind, and. the urge to experiment have brought to 13-year-old Franklin Lee, Granite Falls, Minn., electronic wizard, a scientific research laboratory that would do credit to a college student of science.

In the well-lighted interior of his garage workshop powerful homemade electric motors turn lathes and grindstones. Standing by in one corner, ready for instant use, is an electromagnet capable of lifting a hundred pounds. Transformers of different sizes and voltages hum merrily in their baths of cooling oil, while in one corner metal glows white-hot in a homemade electric arc furnace. From discarded electrical equipment, auto parts, and odds and ends of cast-away materials Franklin built them all.

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Scientific American
Issue: Apr, 1956
Posted in: Advertisements, General, Telephone
Tags:
Posted: 04/19/2006
1 Comment
Ad: An intrstng exprmnt in spch (Apr, 1956)

Yes, at Bell Labs we’ve been disemvoweling you since 1956!

An intrstng exprmnt
in spch
Some day your voice may travel by a sort of electronic “shorthand” when you telephone. Bell Laboratories scientists are experimenting with a technique in which a sample is snipped off a speech sound —just enough to identify it—and sent by wire to a receiver which rebuilds the original sound. Thus voices can be sent by means of fewer signals. More voices may economically share the wires.
This is but one of many transmission techniques that Laboratories scientists are exploring in their search for ways to make Bell System wire and radio channels serve you more efficiently. It is another example of the Bell Telephone Laboratories research that keeps your telephone the most advanced on earth. The oscilloscope traces at right show how the shorthand technique works.
BELL TELEPHONE LABORATORIES
World center of communications research Largest industrial laboratory in the United States

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Modern Mechanix
Issue: Sep, 1935
Posted in: Cool, General, Nautical, Toys and Games
Posted: 04/19/2006
3 Comments
German Boys Build Scale Model Liners for Sea Cruises (Sep, 1935)

This is the coolest boat model I’ve ever seen. You can ride around in it!

German Boys Build Scale Model Liners for Sea Cruises
EXPERT marine constructionists, between the ages of 9 and 16 are being developed in one of the most novel trade schools of the world at Potsdam, Germany. Under the tutelage of experienced marine engineers, the youths receive a thorough technical training in building exact replicas of real steamships on a scale of one to twenty.
Grades are given according to the aptitude and intelligence shown in building the model vessels. The plans from which the youth work are the same plans, scaled down, of such ships
as the Normandie and the Queen Mary. At the end of the school year, advanced students build models that can actually go to sea.

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Popular Electronics
Issue: Apr, 1956
Posted in: General
Posted: 04/18/2006
No Comments
Battery Is Size of Paper Clip (Apr, 1956)

Battery Is Size of Paper Clip
Not much longer than a small-size paper clip is a new type of silver oxide-zinc battery. It uses a pile-type construction instead of plates. In dry-charged condition, it is capable of shelf storage for months.
The battery is activated by injecting a hypodermic needle into the top of each cell. Designed by the Raleigh, N.C., Engineering Laboratories of the American Machine & Foundry Co., under contract with the Air Research and Development Command, it will power special electronic gear where weight and size are important.

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Modern Mechanix
Issue: Aug, 1935
Posted in: Automotive, General
Posted: 04/16/2006
1 Comment
Cycle Engine Gives 50 m.p.h. Speed to Wheel Chair (Aug, 1935)


Cycle Engine Gives 50 m.p.h. Speed to Wheel Chair
A THREE-WHEELED chair built around a motorcycle engine brought Norman Tapper, 23-year-old Californian whose legs have been paralyzed since childhood, to Indianapolis almost a month before the start of the 500-mile auto race. The motorized chair was parked at the gate of the Speedway, to make certain of a good position on the day of the race.
Tapper asserted that this novel wheel chair, which he built himself from motorcycle and automobile parts, reached 50 miles an hour on the long drive from California to Indianapolis.

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Popular Science
Issue: Apr, 1939
Posted in: General, Toys and Games
Posted: 04/16/2006
No Comments
Strictly Fresh Ideas for Easter Eggs (Apr, 1939)

Strictly Fresh Ideas for Easter Eggs
IF THE eggs used in making these novelties are blown’ by the method illustrated, the contents may be used for the table in the form of an omelet or scrambled. Clean the shell with soap and warm water, es–pecially if water colors are used in decorating. Sails, wings, legs, and other parts may be fastened on with model-airplane cement. Features are modeled in artist’s clay of the self-hardening type.—Hi Sibley.

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Modern Mechanix
Issue: Aug, 1935
Posted in: General
Tags:
Posted: 04/15/2006
1 Comment
How Mechanical SPIDERS SPIN Bay Bridge Cables (Aug, 1935)

How Mechanical SPIDERS SPIN Bay Bridge Cables

by C. W. GEIGER

This article describes in simple language how a wire long enough to encircle the world three times is carried back and forth across San Francisco Bay by traveling wheels to spin the suspension cables of the world’s longest structure, the mammoth San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

BY FAR the most spectacular operation in the construction of a suspension bridge is the spinning of the mighty cables which loop gracefully from tower to tower, supporting a roadway hung far below. How are these mile-long cables, each weighing 9,500 tons and containing 17,464 strands of steel, being stretched from tower to tower for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay suspension bridge?

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Modern Mechanix
Issue: Nov, 1935
Posted in: General, Trains
Posted: 04/15/2006
No Comments
Streamline Beauties Lure Travelers to Rails (Nov, 1935)

Streamline Beauties Lure Travelers to Rails

ROLLING along railways of the world at greater than mile-a-minute speeds, streamlined trains are conquering time and space in an attempt to keep the traveling public from deserting the rails for airplanes and motor buses.

Three choices have been offered to the jury of travelers—the ordinary steam train running on faster schedules, the beautiful Diesel-powered streamliner, and the light weight steam streamliner in its gleaming new dress of chromium and brass. A fourth contestant recently entered the picture—a turbine-drive steam locomotive that may surpass all others in speed, safety, and comfort.

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Popular Mechanics
Issue: Jan, 1958
Posted in: General, Kitchen
Posted: 04/14/2006
No Comments
Egg Assembly Line Separates Yolks From Whites (Jan, 1958)

Egg Assembly Line Separates Yolks From Whites
AMONG THINGS MACHINES CAN DO better than people are breaking eggs and separating the yolks from the whites. One machine also washes and sterilizes the shells before they are broken. The contents are dropped into separating cups and the empty shells are carried away on a conveyor. The cups carry the whites and yolks
under an ultraviolet light which makes certain bacteria appear fluorescent. The machine operator removes inedible eggs or broken yolks. Whites flow over a shallow inspection tray and into a collection pail. Yolks are separated electronically for light or dark color above a divided chute. Cups are washed before receiving another egg.

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Modern Mechanix
Issue: Mar, 1935
Posted in: General, Telephone
Posted: 04/14/2006
9 Comments
Craftsman Earns Living Making Gold and Silver Telephones (Mar, 1935)

Craftsman Earns Living Making Gold and Silver Telephones

PORTER BLANCHARD, Los Angeles inventor, takes a great delight in beautifying the more simple household articles found in every home and has even gone so far as to produce telephones from silver and gold at a total cost of $500 each.
The phones, of the ordinary French type are entirely taken apart and dipped into an electroplating solution. Current is passed through the solution to plate the various telephone parts.
Several times during the process, the parts are removed and polished to a glossy smooth finish to insure an even result. The plating is about the thickness of paper.

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