I picked up a pair of these German-made drills from Garrett Wade: the 9″ Mini Hand Drill ($25.50) and the 12″ Larger Hand Drill ($46.50), which has an additional wood knob opposite the crank handle. Since the Mini reminds me more of the old eggbeater, I’m using that. It looks shiny and new, but the solid construction and tight engineering hark back to the days when tools weren’t considered disposable.
This beautifully conceived and executed chess set was made using vintage Russian Nixie tubes. The tubes are illuminated without visible wires; they glow when at rest on the gameboard surface. Kudos to Tony of Lasermad for producing what, IMHO, is quite clearly a masterpiece.
The Old Calculator Web Museum is a treasure trove of images, specs, advertisements, and articles about the calculators of days gone by.
Spotted on the Dieselpunk site: In 1910 Gaumont demonstrated his Chronophone system, which synchronised sound and film, at the Gaumont Palace in Paris. The compressed-air amplifier, which he called the Eglephone, was just a part of the whole system. The volume was enough for an audience of 4000. Initially the longest moving picture that could […]
Their wiki page also includes a brief history of paper enigma models that traces the origins of this method back to Alan Turing’s hypothetical “comic strips” model from his 1942 Treatise on the Enigma. To make it, download the PDFs, print them out, cut them out, and apply them to a 75mm diameter cardboard tube.
![Apple ][+ Teardown](https://i0.wp.com/makezine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/apple_ii_plus-still005-570x320.jpg?fit=570%2C320&ssl=1)
Todd Harrison of Mesa, AZ, wrote in with his teardown and restoration of a ’80s-era Apple. The very first computer I ever used was an Apple II Plus in high school and I couldn’t get enough time on this machine. I was more than fascinated by computers I was obsessed. Every minute learning on the […]
Practical Machinist forum member macona restores a Monarch 10EE lathe. Hack-a-Day has the story, nicely summarized, indexed, and linked.
