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FA and also of general interest - Brunning-Wallace aircraft Protractor

this is part shameless shilling for an item I'm selling and part a generous offer -

The shill part - I picked up (at an estate) a very pristing drafting engine, packaged as a "aircraft protractor" - If any of you folks can add words of insight to my auction description so this thing will make me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, please let me know - here is the auction link

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From the Military order number and the fact that it refers to the army air corps not the USAF, I am guessing that this is a 1942 vintage item - am I right?

The generous offer part - I scanned the manual pages, there are only three pages, including an exploded view and installation instructions - if anyone would like the files sent to them, drop me a note off the list, with a valid email return address and I'll send the files to you - it's about 1/2 meg total - these are probably of interest to WWII buffs as well as those who might have a manual drafting machine kinda like this one.

The metal working part - the whole thing is non-magnetic - it's aluminum of course, but the ball bearings are all berillium copper and the bands are monel - of course this is important in an aircraft to avoid disturbing the compasses, and would be unheard of in a ground environment. I really hadn't given this much thought before, but berillium copper ball bearings can't come cheap. all in all a very cool unit.

Reply to
Bill Noble
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Bill, One man's junk is another man's treasure. Yes, I would like the file. Please remove the nospam from my address. I must ask the question. Where did you find this? Steve

Reply to
Steve Lusardi

--Very nice. What's the distance between centers on the arms? FWIW I just replaced my left-handed Mutoh which had served me for 35 years. Managed to find its twin on ebay for around a hundred bucks. Curiously they're still available new, but prices have gone up a bit since the seventies: the equivalent right-handed unit costs over $1,300 and left-handed ones aren't available. Wish I knew how to repair what broke: it's the metal tensioning ribbon; probably needs to be spot welded then heat treated? Dunno.

Reply to
steamer

I picked this up at an estate garage sale - the prior owner was a non-degreed engineer who worked aerospace companies in the southland - Northrup, Lockheed, Boeing, and so on - he was a member of the alpha romeo club and built models and stuff - had some small machines. The folks cleaning the house filled a dumpster with stuff - I went through the dumpster and found a nice starrett square part, some material and several other things that were of more value to me than much of the stuff they were selling (mostly clapped out cheap tools) - there is a moral there for estate sellers

Reply to
Bill Noble

the metal ribbons are available still - this one is special since its non-magnetic - for a "regular" unit, stainless steel will work fine - just use a bandsaw blade welder to repair the one that broke and reset the tension arms appropriately

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Reply to
Bill Noble

Ed, measure your bands center to center and Ill check mine. Ive several Mutohs, and if the bands are not "handed", Id be happy to sent you either the bands or a complete unit for just the shipping. All mine are right handed of course...shrug. No scales...Im always looking for scales....

Gunner

"Upon Roosevelt's death in 1945, H. L. Mencken predicted in his diary that Roosevelt would be remembered as a great president, "maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln," opining that Roosevelt "had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.""

Reply to
Gunner Asch

Estate sellers need to educate themselves or try to find someone that knows about tools. I've helped out a couple widows when I stumbled across estate sales laden with nice tools.

But the mentality of some sellers is interesting. I recently got a pair of real nice Proto 6" Crescent type wrenches dirt cheap. I like the Proto's as they are thin. Seller had some larger cheap (and I mean really cheap) adjustable wrenches that he wanted $10 ea and more. But when I asked about the Proto's, "Oh, those little ones? $1 ea." Sold....

Jon

Reply to
Jon Anderson

Wanna swap a scale for a band? I've got at least one spare..

Reply to
steamer

Who?

"Upon Roosevelt's death in 1945, H. L. Mencken predicted in his diary that Roosevelt would be remembered as a great president, "maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln," opining that Roosevelt "had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.""

Reply to
Gunner Asch

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