Very nice! Love the old tractors man) the new Chevy is beautiful too. RC’S are addicting. They always seem to multiply
What does everyone collect or do for a hobby?
- Thread starter RichardAaronlx2610
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That’s awesome man!! My neighbor is an avid tuna fisher. He enters tournaments all tue time and catches some yummy dinnerif I'm not out in the woods, flying for work, or tinkering in shop...
I love windsurfing and fishing
The white was released of course, tuna eaten.
Nice! That thing would look good with a solid axle and 39.5’s as for the Rc. I’d check out Rc4wd.com and see what they have. They make some killer scale trucks
Back in the '80s-'90s I did a lot of landscaping jobs as a side business. My workhorse optics were a Sokkisha level and transit. When "total stations" started to become popular, you could find some high end old school optics for a cheap price. I started collecting some Wild Heerbrugg, Kern, Sokkisha, etc. Some I've sold or given to friends/relatives. Here's a few I dug out while cleaning & organizing a storage cabinet. There's a bunch more stuffed in different places.
Wild Heerbrugg levels: N1, NK1, N2, NK2,NAK2,N3 (one with erect eyepiece), Kern.
T2 & T3 Theodolites
When #1 son graduated with a civil engineering degree I gave him this for his office. The world's smallest theodolite: Kern DKM1 If you look close, on top center you can see the North finding compass that I found years later after buying the little theodolite.
I've also collected some WW2 optics. US Navy "Quarter Master Spyglass" (16x mag.) "Officer of the Deck Spyglass" (10x mag.) Both with exceptional optics and matching # cases. The QM glass is wrapped with tarred cord and fancy braid.
That's a small Japanese optical distance range finder in front of the boxes. Cleverly packed away somewhere here, I have a Japanese military trench binoculars and I believe the counterpart to the US Navy QM Spyglass: A very high quality 40x Japanese draw telescope. I'll have to find them and post some pics along with some other oddities.
Here's a WW2 Japanese Army (I think) Engineers/Artillery ? transit with a precision compass and other goodies. The case is its own backpack with pad and straps for its soldier. It has individual magnifiers to read the altitude & azimuth circles. Pretty fair optics for a wartime Japanese transit.
If anybody can read Japanese "Kanji" I'd like to find out the translation of the case's Kanji lettering. I can take a pic of just that.
Wild Heerbrugg levels: N1, NK1, N2, NK2,NAK2,N3 (one with erect eyepiece), Kern.
T2 & T3 Theodolites
When #1 son graduated with a civil engineering degree I gave him this for his office. The world's smallest theodolite: Kern DKM1 If you look close, on top center you can see the North finding compass that I found years later after buying the little theodolite.
I've also collected some WW2 optics. US Navy "Quarter Master Spyglass" (16x mag.) "Officer of the Deck Spyglass" (10x mag.) Both with exceptional optics and matching # cases. The QM glass is wrapped with tarred cord and fancy braid.
That's a small Japanese optical distance range finder in front of the boxes. Cleverly packed away somewhere here, I have a Japanese military trench binoculars and I believe the counterpart to the US Navy QM Spyglass: A very high quality 40x Japanese draw telescope. I'll have to find them and post some pics along with some other oddities.
Here's a WW2 Japanese Army (I think) Engineers/Artillery ? transit with a precision compass and other goodies. The case is its own backpack with pad and straps for its soldier. It has individual magnifiers to read the altitude & azimuth circles. Pretty fair optics for a wartime Japanese transit.
If anybody can read Japanese "Kanji" I'd like to find out the translation of the case's Kanji lettering. I can take a pic of just that.
Thanks! Here's a few military optical instruments, German and other spotting scopes:
Swiss Wild Heerbrugg G10 aiming circle for artillery fire directing
Vintage Japanese Engineer's Transit or Theodolite. Not sure if this is military, but it must have been very high end in its day. Precision compass, striding level, eye piece for shooting sun's position, and other goodies.
I believe (because of the paint color) this was Japanese WW2 artillery level to set +/- inclination of large artillery weapons (much like a "gunners quadrant")
High end 32x Japanese draw telescope. The view and optics are unbelievably sharp! But you really need steady hands and the eye relief is next to nothing.
Two vintage German variable power draw spotting scopes, Wollensak Mirror Scope, and a little beauty....my pristine Carl Ziess 8x30 vintage Monocular:
Thanks, Fordtech!! However, I mentioned in post 143 above about a story behind my home made brass letters for the son's NDSU safe. Here it is.....You never fail to impress.
I had cut out those letters real early in the build. But I needed to hide them so the son wouldn't come across them and guess what was going on. So I did. Well, many months later when the safe was ready to start finishing, polishing, and mounting those letters.....I couldn't find them! I hunted everywhere for them! Damn, they just disappeared into thin air. Kept looking until I just had to make new letters in order to mount them on the now finished safe in time.
I cut out new letters which took quite a while. Mounted brass threaded studs on the back side of each. Sanded and polished them until my fingers were raw. Got them mounted only a day or two in front of his Civil Engineer's graduation day. Whew!! Just in time.
Graduation day came. Wife made me wear clean dress clothes. I found a new pair of socks in my drawer.
What's this big heavy clump inside? Yup, there were the original letters, all carefully wrapped in cotton and stuffed in a sock. So I now have an extra set of solid brass NDSU college letters!
Or.........If anybody knows of a guy named "Snud", have him "start a conversation" with me!!
@bird dogger that first piece of equipment reminds me of the bombing site / computer thing I first saw when I toured a B-17. To think of the young brave men using that thing all while getting shot at and doing all those calculations by hand, on a precision machined manual device, is really incredible.
Even the old shop equipment from the 40's and 50's still amazes me.
Even the old shop equipment from the 40's and 50's still amazes me.
Was it a Norden Bomb Sight you were allowed to look through? How cool is that!! It does look kinda similar. I still want to find a nice WW2 gyro compass to restore......or even a nice manual "astro compass".
It's mind boggling what those young boys found the courage to do, both in the air and on the ground. I always had our 2 boys to the Memorial Day services when we could. Would make the point that the speakers and the men they were talking about were hardly older than their age when they were flying combat missions or holed up in a bomb crater waiting for support. It was hard for them to grasp that (if they had been alive then) they could have been with ten of their classmates, only a couple of years out of high school, alone in a bomber flying missions and hoping to come back alive.
My father was 21 when he enlisted in the USMC in '41. He became a rear seat radio/gunner in the 2 man Dauntless dive bomber. His nickname was "Grampa". He would never say a word about his service except that some of his patrols over the pacific were beautiful at night. After he passed away, I sent for his service records and found he was awarded the Air Medal (five combat missions, I think) along with other "stars" on the ribbon signifying an additional number of combat missions each. I doubt those many missions were the same as staring at the Pacific's setting sun on an uneventful patrol. Mind boggling, it is!!
If anyone can or has a chance to go to Dayton, Ohio......a visit to the Wright Patterson National Museum of the USAF is a must see!! It could even be considered a destination vacation if one has an interest in aviation.
when I googled "Norden Bomb Sight" that looks exactly like it! so cool. I think I want one of those, looking well-used and worn.
My grandfather never spoke of his time in Europe during the war, even to my dad. The museum in Dayton is really great. Been there many years ago.
I brought my Nephew through the B-17 a few years later and told him as we were contorting ourselves through compartments, to imagine doing this in freezing cold, hooked up to oxygen, unpressurized, noisy, bumpy, and while getting shot at. Incredible. Oh and dont forget doing all that math in your head while using the Norden Sight!
I think I just lost my morning reading about Norden Sight.
My grandfather never spoke of his time in Europe during the war, even to my dad. The museum in Dayton is really great. Been there many years ago.
I brought my Nephew through the B-17 a few years later and told him as we were contorting ourselves through compartments, to imagine doing this in freezing cold, hooked up to oxygen, unpressurized, noisy, bumpy, and while getting shot at. Incredible. Oh and dont forget doing all that math in your head while using the Norden Sight!
I think I just lost my morning reading about Norden Sight.
Ha! Me too. But I'll go in on one if you let me look through it, just once!!
Too bad we can't go back in time: DECLINE AND FALL OF A ‘TOP SECRET’; Norden Bombsight Sold as Surplus for $24.50 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
I need to go outside and think about getting the snowblower mounted to the tractor......or, maybe tomorrow........
That is quite the collection sir! Some beautiful pieces in there!!
Other than working on old VWs and Volvos. I collect and trade license plates I just like how they look on the shop wall. Over 200 so far.
I also collect Brass Plaques I helped tear down a old paper / pulp mill in Ocean Falls BC. When I heard that they were planning on bulldozing the place I started noticing all the plaques. We must have well over 100 . I also found some on sunken ships and boats when I was diving for the Canadian Fisheries doing the Herring dive surveys.
keeps me amused
Hank
I also collect Brass Plaques I helped tear down a old paper / pulp mill in Ocean Falls BC. When I heard that they were planning on bulldozing the place I started noticing all the plaques. We must have well over 100 . I also found some on sunken ships and boats when I was diving for the Canadian Fisheries doing the Herring dive surveys.
keeps me amused
Hank
That’s awesome! Volkswagens have always been my passion. I’ve had soooo many different ones, split windows, beetles, type 2’s, vanagons, bays, rabbits, rabbit pickups, and now i have A few tdi’s and I’m gathering the parts for build a Tdi powered 31 ford model a. I also Collect license plates. Lost count years ago lol. But i have My front porch ceiling done in them. The rest are just in crates.
Attachments
Pictures!! We need pictures, please!! The old license plates are really cool and highly collectable these days. But would really love to see pics of your recovered ship plaques, whether they're big or small!
I went on the scuba dive trip of my lifetime back in 1997. We dove Palau from a live aboard, and Chuuk (Truck Lagoon) for about 10 days each place. Truk Lagoon is the Japanese equivalent of our "Pearl Harbor" with all kinds of sunken battleships, submarine, merchant ships, war planes, etc. Live ammo and torpedoes strewn about, equipment galore, could swim through all kinds of rooms/holds in the ships. Sat in the cockpit of some wingless "zeroes" that were in the hold of one ship waiting for unloading. Their props, landing gear, wings, etc. all jumbled together. Holes in the hulls that you could drive a truck through.
But, oh for the want of a screwdriver and a goodie bag! There were brass plaques and tags on everything! All was off limits though, as it was considered a memorial and underwater graveyard for all who died there. A very sobering thought because at that time you could still see bones and partial skeletons that hadn't been collected yet.
David
Here's a Warren Knight Engineer's Transit I refurbished years ago. I only took pictures to help put things back together so it isn't a great show and tell. But you can still see what you can pick up cheap and put back into useful service and looking mighty cool at the same time.
This was a former USAF item and must have been stowed away for quite some time unused and packed improperly in some reactive foam. Or maybe the glue in the foam was reactive. Whatever the cause, something in the case had done a number on all the brass fittings, reacted with the lube, clouded the optics, etc. IN other words, it was an old but high end basket case for its time. I picked it up as a project from a government surplus site.
Here's some pics (thumbnails) as I found things. Wish I had taken pics of all the gooey foam padding too.
In the above pics you can see the disintegrating foam packing that was sticking to most everything. Every brass fitting was tarnished and stuck. The solar eyepiece was a mess, as were the level vials and plumb bob. The transit base was all tarnished, stuck and inoperable.
The precision compass didn't work and the glass was cloudy. You can see black permanent marker labeling on the standard framework. Not a good pic of, but the horizontal degree circle was stuck (very bottom of 3rd pic above, under the little white cover.)
A complete dismantling was needed. All the brass fittings were cleaned and polished. Same for the base and it's fittings. The internal fittings, gears, degree circles were freed up and cleaned. Re lubed properly and put back together. Here's an interesting FYI we discovered at work years ago: Black permanent marker isn't really permanent! There is something in "DeepWoods Off" mosquito repellant that cuts it like butter. Q tips wet with Deepwoods Off removed all the black permanent marker label residue on the transit framework.
The compass came apart for cleaning and repair. The needle post was flattened from years of travel without using the "needle lift" parking feature. No replacements for the post. It was fixed by reshaping and polishing with valve grinding paste under a microscope. After rebalancing the needle, it's now probably more sensitive than new.
All the optics were carefully removed, cleaned and re installed after cleaning and lubing the focusing mechanism. All put back together with no extra parts! Looking a little better now than it did coming out of the gooey foam padding material. Still need to do some final calibration on the level vials.
Here's the only picture I could find after I had finished. I gave it to the Civil Engineer son, so it's now in his office or somewhere.
David
This was a former USAF item and must have been stowed away for quite some time unused and packed improperly in some reactive foam. Or maybe the glue in the foam was reactive. Whatever the cause, something in the case had done a number on all the brass fittings, reacted with the lube, clouded the optics, etc. IN other words, it was an old but high end basket case for its time. I picked it up as a project from a government surplus site.
Here's some pics (thumbnails) as I found things. Wish I had taken pics of all the gooey foam padding too.
In the above pics you can see the disintegrating foam packing that was sticking to most everything. Every brass fitting was tarnished and stuck. The solar eyepiece was a mess, as were the level vials and plumb bob. The transit base was all tarnished, stuck and inoperable.
The precision compass didn't work and the glass was cloudy. You can see black permanent marker labeling on the standard framework. Not a good pic of, but the horizontal degree circle was stuck (very bottom of 3rd pic above, under the little white cover.)
A complete dismantling was needed. All the brass fittings were cleaned and polished. Same for the base and it's fittings. The internal fittings, gears, degree circles were freed up and cleaned. Re lubed properly and put back together. Here's an interesting FYI we discovered at work years ago: Black permanent marker isn't really permanent! There is something in "DeepWoods Off" mosquito repellant that cuts it like butter. Q tips wet with Deepwoods Off removed all the black permanent marker label residue on the transit framework.
The compass came apart for cleaning and repair. The needle post was flattened from years of travel without using the "needle lift" parking feature. No replacements for the post. It was fixed by reshaping and polishing with valve grinding paste under a microscope. After rebalancing the needle, it's now probably more sensitive than new.
All the optics were carefully removed, cleaned and re installed after cleaning and lubing the focusing mechanism. All put back together with no extra parts! Looking a little better now than it did coming out of the gooey foam padding material. Still need to do some final calibration on the level vials.
Here's the only picture I could find after I had finished. I gave it to the Civil Engineer son, so it's now in his office or somewhere.
David
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This Atlas brass plaque I salvaged from a sunken boat off the Government wharf in Bella Bella BC.
The other plaque from the Ocean Falls paper mill site
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The other plaque from the Ocean Falls paper mill site