MYSTERY OBJECTS

[Gloria]

Adjustable parallels ?????

[Marilyn]

I've heard about them, Gloria. They keep your boobs in check.

[Gloria]

I've heard about them, Gloria. They keep your boobs in check.

Nice one Marilyn

[Stanley]

Gloria confirms her status as Hon, Chief Engineer. Spot on . Like a lot of my stuff, ex-WD, basic design and packaging but top quality.
Next for shaving?

[Gloria]

Hon, Chief Engineer----- I have a title, not an ology, but a title.

[Stanley]

Gloria, you remind me about many women I have met who were excellent engineers but because they were women were not recognised. Best example was a far right Tory lady with a double barrelled name who was universally derided as 'Big Hat and no Knickers' on the committees she sat on but I always got on well with her because she used to go round with her father who was an insurance assessor specialising in industrial insurance. She knew more about boilers, engines and associated matters than almost all the people round her. Try this one

[David Whipp]

Hydraulic valve.

[Gloria]

Stanley, I have always been fascinated by how things work.

[Stanley]

That's the secret Gloria, it's how I learned, observing and asking questions. It's quite amazing how ignorant many people are about the basics of life, what makes the light or the CH come on, where does the water come from and the sewage disappear to.
David is in roughly the right field.... but not there yet, it's very specific.

[Stanley]

No takers? I'll give it another day. Look at it carefully, there is a ram driven by a crank pin on the small wheel. Figure it out.....

[Bodger]

Lubricating pump from a ?

[Pluggy]

Many moons ago in my time in HM navy, we used something similar for pumping controlled amounts of fuel or oil out of a 45 gallon drum, it had a crank handle on the spigot.

[Stanley]

Bodge has it. It is the small pump that was submerged in the reservoir for the oil that fed the largest bearings on a steam engine, the flywheel and
second motion pedestals. It was driven by a rope on the appropriate shaft. This one is brand new and was given to me by John Kirkham at Bolton. I'll bet you'd have a job finding another one!
Try this one....

[Stanley]

A clue for you. Have you been watching Shed Matters?

[Stanley]

No takers.... It's the draw-bar that goes through the mandrel of the lathe to fix the Harrison collets.

Next for shaving?

[Tizer]

Me next please...what's this?

[plaques]

A ghost with white hair or baseball cap taking a picture through an old church window?

[Marilyn]

...and I can see the ghost of a Polar Bear (???) in the left hand section.

[Stanley]

Is it an old leaded light window that has got too flexible and so they have used wooden Battens (or iron bars) on the exterior to tie the leads tight by soldering on lead strips to the original leads and fastening them round the bars? If so it's an old repair, oner of the lead strips has relaxed. So an old building.

[Tizer]

Well, the ghost is Tizer! Stanley's on the right track about it being an old window and has lead ties to hold the glass to the battens. But it wasn't a repair, it was done like that in the first place. Why?

[plaques]

Long glass panes in flexible structures tend to crack as the frame moves. Although these look like old glass panes they don't appear to be 'spun' using the old glass blowing technique so I guess they are not too old. The building could be on unstable ground or subject to high winds. I doubt if it is to prevent 'blast' injuries but it could be if they were in Bletchley Park. All this is really bluster and the true answer is "I don't know".

[Stanley]

Leaded pane windows are inherently weak and unless they are very small they are almost always reinforced by thin metal rods in the inside. I think I can see some of these in the picture. It looks to me as though these weren't doing their job for some reason so extra reinforcing was put on the outside.

[Gloria]

We used to live near Blackpool and the front windows were open to a lot of wind. They were small diamond shaped leaded glass and quite badly bowed inwards, all but coming out of the lead but not quite.
Are these ties to prevent this as they are obviously a bit bigger??

[Marilyn]

We owned a house with diamond shaped lead-light windows...and all I can say is that they are the devil to clean...

[Tizer]

Some good tries but not quite the answer I wanted, so I won't keep you in suspenders any longer. It's a window from a 17th Century house and is now in Helston Museum. Only small panes of glass could be made in those days (and I'm sure you all know that!), hence the leading to attach them together and the wood battens strengthening the structure. But the interesting bit that I was looking for is that the panes are tied in such a way that you could easily remove them to take with you when you moved house and install them in the new house. Good window glass was so expensive then that you wouldn't want to leave it behind. It's to demonstrate this fact that the museum has the window on display.