Friday, January 11, 2008

1191. I haven't been able to verify any of the guesses on this device, the four responses below differ in some of the details but are all in the same ballpark:

...a co-ordinate converter. Think of it as a heavy-duty mouse or trackball. The two output shafts (right side, photo 3) are mutually orthogonal (sine & cosine). The two input shafts (rho/theta) are on the same face (corner and middle of right face, top photo). Photo 2 shows just a hint of how the center shaft drives the ball.

Resolver. Produces a trigonometric function (sine/cosine) of an input. Used in a mechanical analog computer or a mechanical gun-directing computer.

Looking closer, I don't think those wheels move in the way I thought. That means it's just a differential adder, not sine/cosine...

This is some form of analog computing component...

1192. "Lok-un-lok" tool, it was used by the driver of a large car to reach over and lock or unlock the passenger door, patent number 3,760,656.

Take a look at Neatorama for more guesses on this tool, where Alex is giving away two t-shirts as prizes, one for the first correct answer and another for the most humorous guess.

1193. Most likely a sword knot, as stated in this response:
Sword Knots are about that length, have that kind of wider bunch at the end, but these days they are mostly made of gold braid - for decoration. That one looks like it might have been made somewhere in India for a British officer during the British governance of India - the Raj I think they called it - and seems to be the kind that saw actual use in battle, as opposed to the kind that decorates swords used only for ceremonial purposes. The small looped end loops onto the knuckle guard and the rest of it loops around the wrist, the object being to keep the sword and the officer connected so he can find it after recovering from being stunned or knocked off his horse.

1194. As seen in the upper left of the photo below, this attaches to a faucet and turns off the water when it reaches the desired level.

1195. Lobster cracker

1196. A Zurn hydrant key, a newer version of it can be seen here.

Previously seen on this site:

To submit photos, click on the profile link at the upper right to find my email address.

Below is last week's set, click here to view the entire post:

Black Ops Pro Tips

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