By cocking the trigger on the top of the instrument the eight circular blades are rotated back into the base under intense spring force. When you push the round knurled release button the blades snap through the slotted ways and lacerate the wrist with a vengeance.

The device came to me in great disrepair, well corroded, with the steel hight knob adjuster broken free from the bottom slotted plate that received the blades. A large section of this plate was missing. Using a milling machine, a new plate was created, then soldered in place after which the linear cut-outs were reproduced using a miniature end mili. Once polished, the replaced section can not be detected.

Within 24 hours of President Washingtons rain soaked ride, four of the local physicians  argued over the best procedure to take for his cure. In the process they pushed aside his loving caretaker slave and her hot chicken soup and preceded to drain more than 80 oz of blood from him using this little brass devise. The chicken soap would have worked.

This miniature telescope was made by Henry Pyefinch in his workshop in London circa 1760’s. The barrel is wrapped with dyed fish skin, horn dyed turnings and vellum draw tubes.

Peter Dollond successfully sued Henry for infringing on his patented lens design as he did with any one who copied his telescope inventions. He was able to keep his competitors at bay for years through litigation and made a good deal of money doing so. Not all patents were so successfully protected. David Brewster patented the Kaleidoscope in 1818 and instantly lost control of it to other makers. Over 200,000  kaleidoscopes were sold in London and Paris by a variety of instrument makers. No one wanted to pay hislicense fee’s and he lost a fortune. Brewster remained angry till he died.

This old horn arrived in my shop to have some dent”al” repair. While I mostly work on telescopes, a challenge is always in order. Caution must be-used as you can easily  cause more damage than you had before. Technics are the same for removal, turned lathe slugs of brass and aluminum which are forced fit into the openings, ball bearings of all sizes that are sometimes driven through with compressed air. It basically comes down to years and years of experience.

Kurt Armbruster is wondering what all the noise is about.

A barrel ready for re-work is completely stripped of its exterior and interior parts including all light diaphragms, cradle mounts, focus knob, butt end turnings, objective mount and all screws.

Here we see Brianna in the library of Smith College, with an Orrery she helped me to build. This is a reproduction  that I first made for the Smithsonian back in 1983. I still make a few of them from time to time. The brass housing has enough gears to drive three clocks while the sun is 5″ in diameter.

Very Beautiful to look at, and so is the instrument.

The image of Danielle is forever imprinted in my mind as she sits before my camera spinning this giant “Wheel of Life”. The world had gone mad with optical inventions. Brewster had infected Europe  with his “borrowed” patent of the Kaleidoscope, a few years earlier. He remained forever bitter and angry, that it was instantly copied in London and Paris to the tune of hundreds of thousands of scopes in just three months, his dreams of riches evaporating.

As Danielle watched the flickering images through the slits in drum, I am quite sure she did not realize that Horner’s invention would open the door for a single actor, today, to make enough money, from one movie, to buy a small country anywhere in the world.

A measuring device is what an instrument is, and these cars are filled with all kinds of devices for read-out information. Lights , dials, sounds of all kinds, and a liquid computer to keep it all straight. I owned a number of them back in the days when they were referred to as “foreign” cars. They weren’t easily repaired as few mechanics knew what they were then,  and you can’t get them fixed now as they lack plug-in diagnostic helper aids. And to make matters even more difficult, you have to actually remove the part  using conventional mechanical skills, it doesn’t just plastic snap-off. Imagine that, identify the problem without a digital tel-tale, no way! The 280 and 300SL’s were as good as it gets. Your girlfriend could drive one of these convertibles at 60 miles an hour with no head scarf, not a hair would move, the wind dynamics were so well designed. Today you can’t put your drivers window down without being wind trashed at 20mph. I don’t know whether they just came that way, but they all seemed to have beautiful women in them.

This giant pair of binoculars from Lannan Ship Model Gallery was brought in to be fitted with a tripod and the optics realigned. This type of optical instrument became popular during World War II, and many different versions were produced. This is a D.F. 10 x 80 aluminum construction with coated optics.

If you are interested in purchasing this fine pair of Giant binoculars, go to Lannon Ship Model Gallery.