What is it? LXI

I'd say a motor myself. DC naturally. Martin

343 is a power breaker box lockout. Prevents entry. 344 looks like a fishing reel from the side.

Martin

Nope! I'm afraid not.

Those two are part of the already answered ones from the previous week. You can tell (among other ways) by noticing the second posted date midway down the list.

I really think that R.H. should put a "The items below this point have already been answered" on the page. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

sorry if this is a duplicate post...

345. haven't a clue but it's fun to see the pics and try to guess 346. mortiser chisel 347. no clue. looks to me to be a non-functional item, like a neat, fun, sculpture. 348. chuck key 349. LOL. that's neat! never saw that before, didn't know it was possible. :-) electric motor. (those coiled wires on the ends of the battery reminded me of the coil of wire used for the "coin shrinker" process, you've seen that right? i wanted to offer a "joke" response for #349, "a **VERY** low voltage coin shrinker") 350. looks to me to be die cast pot metal or aluminum, i would guess it would be unwise to use as a sling-shot. (a spur? maybe... i think not.) my guess would be some kind of very lightweight "spanner wrench" for some very lightweight application.

hey Rob. thanks for putting up these "what is it" things. they're always fun to try to guess. tickles a part of my brain, fun to participate. i thought you really came up with something fun, interesting and unique when you started doing these "what is it" things.

b.w.

OK, my face is properly red! I only read ww'ing, and don't(generally) check the header unless it looks like spam or trolls.

• Sal D'Ambra

What is /really/ puzzling with this picture is why the battery isn't rolling over.

Yeap, kinda looks that way. I should have just stopped and gave up when seeing the pie sign. Must have been for really special engineers or pilots like one poster said. My dad had one of those strap on the leg type as a test pilot, but it was about 5" across. The vice president of an oil company step dad only had a slide rule and the first desk calculators.

346. Mortising chisel for bench top mortiser. This could never possibly work for a leather punch because the chisel only reaches full depth at the corners.

Don's guess is correct, the coil is made from varnish coated magnet wire, each of the two axles has had half of this insulating varnish scraped off, making them function as primitive commutators. I tried Carl's idea of scraping off all of the varnish and got the same results he did, it still worked.

If anybody wants to make one, it works best with very thin wire.

Rob

I should probably make a puzzle out of it, but I'll go ahead and answer it, I put two small wires on either side to keep it upright. Not much gets by this crew, I didn't expect to have to anwer this question.

Rob

Sounds like a good idea, I'll do that if I remember.

Rob

• R. H.

Amazing! This /is/ something to impress today's kids with, because they are used to that you have to buy things from the computer store or whatever. But here you can pretend to just find some wire, a used battery and so on. Need to try this. The wire is something I don't have in-house, so I'll need to figure out which store stocks such items.

[ ... ]

Pi (not "pie") is marked on the A, B, C, and D scales (at least) on most normal sliderules. It is a convenient constant, when you want to calculate circumference or area of circles, or for lots of other engineering calculations.

And -- Pi is also close to the middle of the scale, so it used as the breaking point for the CF and DF (folded) scales.

That would give you a much longer scale, and thus more accuracy. I've got working slide rules with 5", 10" and 20" scales, plus a couple of bit wall-hanging ones -- one black with white markings designed for mounting over the blackboard in a classroom, and one with screw eyes in both sides, near the ends, so you can use either side. That one is a Pickett advertising one, with the yellow scales common to their more expensive ones -- designed to be easier to read.

Enjoy, DoN.

[ ... ]

If you have an old (and preferably dead) wall wart (the oversized lump on the end of power cords for lots of portable things which plugs directly into the wall), they normally have a small power transformer inside. You can recover a lot of wire from one of those -- in two gauges. The finer wire would be wound closer to the center, and connected to the power line, while the slightly coarser wire (probably better for this task) is wound on the outside to produce a low-voltage secondary to power the device -- whatever is is.

Enjoy, DoN.

This measurement device is compared to a Plainomiter(sp) or similar sounding name. It is a delta shaped unit - with a tracing pen and a pivot pin. The scale does the math for area subscribed...

That looks like a map length item - not an area machine.

Martin

I forgot to mention that it works best if you use a very strong rare earth magnet, and for the coil wrap the wire around a C battery ten times.

Rob

Grandsons had a ball with stuff like this when I got them an electric hobby kit from Radio Shack a few years back. Lots of neat learning stuff, including simple motor similar to this.

• Norman D. Crow

The problem with such kits is that it is "bought magic" and impressive as it may be, it does not make the kids wonder after the show. If you just find a few items around the house and put them together, it may very well make the kids feel that the workings of todays environment is within their own grasp. (Or whatever it should be described.)

I'd already showed them some things. Had an old Erector® set with a small electro magnet in it, so made a simple one from a bolt, battery & wire. Did some other things until I got past what I could remember, then moved to the kits with them.