Monday, December 13, 2010

What is this?

Posted by John Speare

The graduations do not line up with any known (by bike hang nerds) measures.
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5
> 8:18 PM

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a government-issue Congressional slide rule.

Using this clever tool, even the dumbest member of Congress can multiply all the way up to 2X10.

Or, at least, they WILL be able to. The government still needs to invent a flathead screwdriver.

That development project is, of course, top secret and over budget.

December 14, 2010 at 6:46:00 AM PST
rory said...

precision nutcracker

December 14, 2010 at 7:40:00 AM PST
Anonymous said...

I think it is designed to tell you the circumference or radius of tube, and the numbers are centimeter and inches, but with that ratio.

December 14, 2010 at 12:12:00 PM PST
Anonymous said...

OK here's my real guess.

I think anon is right that the right-hand scale is inches expressed as a ratio...of a final product.

But, if the left side was simply cms expressing the same measure, the numbers are wrong. Ten inches is 25.4 centimeters. The left side measures something else and/or is not cms. My guess, based on the antique look and the ratio of the numbers, is that the left scale is an inch-based guage.

Also, this device is too sturdy to simply be a measurement caliper, and does it lock down with set screws? Why? And is that a sliding plate? Why?

I'd guess this is a vise or guide for some machining process, perhaps used with a mill, lathe, or some other torture device from ninth grade shop class. Although, it seems to lack mounting screws.

I would defer to sploidy brain Pat, who is rumored to be an engineer.

Where did this thing come from? Glen? If so, he probably made it as a joke.

December 14, 2010 at 2:36:00 PM PST
Unknown said...

measure the graduations in mm.

make a spreadsheet of all listed units of measure, converted to mm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Units_of_length you may want to find someone smaller than you, so that you can bully him into doing this step for you.

make a table of how close each unit of measure is to the recorded lengths of the graduations

December 14, 2010 at 3:12:00 PM PST
Dave said...

Its a turbo entabulator

December 14, 2010 at 7:29:00 PM PST
Rachel said...

Dave, I love it!


At first I was going with anon, but after looking closely at the photo, I can see that the left measure is close to 4 when the right is at 1, not pi like it should be for measuring circumference.

But first, maybe we should figure out what those left side units are. It's hard to tell from the photo, but they're too small to be cm, plus they're broken into sixths, not tenths.

December 16, 2010 at 2:06:00 AM PST
Anonymous said...

Me again.  This time I have the correct answer.

The scale on the left is simply enumeration.  Thingies of some kind stack up in this press.

I couldn't figure out which thingies.  Washers?  Gold doubloons? Crystal ingots?

Then Steph told that this entabulator was Glen's.  Glen is from California.  Ergo, he rode a skate board.  Ergo, his skateboard had 608 wheel bearings. 

Why would Glen want to stack up his wheel bearings in this entabulator? 

So he could soak them in lubricant, all at once, without getting his hands dirty.  And the entabulator's enumerator scale would tell him how many were in the soak, in case he'd dropped one in the California surf.

Why is it stamped "BLP"?  BLP stands for Black Panther wheel bearings, the best in the business.  Dude.

So, why the scale divided in sixths on the right? Subtle reference to the mark of the beast.

Why is the 608 Wheel Bearing Entabulator Enumeration Lubricator so overbuilt? 

Because we'll still need skateboards after the apocalypse.  ESPECIALLY after the apocalypse.

December 16, 2010 at 4:52:00 AM PST

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)