Friday, April 13, 2012

Overheard in the Office:

So I'm over at ForgottenWeapons.com, looking at a video of 19th Century French military revolvers (Hey! I have one of those!) when I see a link to Allegheny Arsenal, and I'm down a rabbit hole of wondrous things I had no idea I needed until this morning.

I mean, seriously, I'm not sure I can go on without a couple rounds of British WWII incendiary .303 ammo, and I'm showing Bobbi some other gadgets they have listed...
Me: "Huh. A British military galvanometer."

RX: "Oh, one of those ones in the wooden box? Those are neat."

Me: "And a British military voltmeter. This looks newer, maybe WWII. Thirty bucks."

RX: "Did they say what the meter scale or range is?"

Me: "It's probably calibrated in Imperial Volts anyway."

19 comments:

Stranger said...

Thanks for the laugh of the morning

Stranger

Anonymous said...

Is the Imperial Volt the one made by GM or is that the People's Democratic Volt? I can never remember

Matt

SGB said...

That put a huge smile on my face. Thank you.

Tam said...

Turns out the probes were Whitworth anyway.

Keads said...

Thanks for the smile this morning! Worked on some Mollins MK8 cigarette makers back in the day and the electrical one-line drawings were backwards. Don't get me started on how they do wire gauges.

Al T. said...

.303 blue tipped ammo? Got some if you want it. :)

Bubblehead Les. said...

Allegheny Arsenal's about 3 hours from me, in the same town where they make Zippos. Jay G. posted that you are making a road trip up to N.H. soon. Stop on by and we'll go shopping!

staghounds said...

No, the Probe was a Ford, their version of the Mazda G series.

And it's what, 18 or 12 Imperial Sparks to the volt? I can never remember...

mikee said...

Two 1930's Fisher voltmeters in all their wood and ceramic glory rest on a shelf in my garage. They came from the DC Naval Research Lab founded by Edison his own self. Envy me!

Or buy one, cheap, should you have any use whatsoever for one, or want a garage shelf decoration of your own. They just sit there gathering dust. Make an offer here in comments and I'll send email contact info.

global village idiot said...

They've got lacquer "fill-in" paint!

And all along I've just been using a white grease pencil.

Cool!

gvi

P.S. Imperial Volts are just like American volts except they go on the opposite side of the meter.

Tam said...

gvi,

You've got mail. :)

montieth said...

Whitworth? Nay lass, they're probably British Association threads.

Here's some CAV stuff to look at.
http://www.oldengine.org/members/diesel/Injection/CAV36.htm

RevGreg said...

Thanks for mentioning Allegheny Arsenal...I forgot to let Greg Souchik know we're going to be doing a subgun shoot at the end of the month!

blindshooter said...

I actually own some Whitworth wrenches. Used to play with English motorcycles some decades back. Lucas, the prince of darkness!

Kristophr said...

Blindshooter: So that's why Lucas electronics don't work here.

They expect tension in Imperial Volts.

Montieth said...

Tam, you know about Ima-USA.com right? Need a screw
Gun? They have one or two.

Anonymous said...

I had a buddy in the Canadian military cadets in the early 1980's, they got to do a range-day and fired WII era Lee Enfields. ( and yes they smelled of cosmoline)

The cases of ammo being opened clearly said: "Do not use in synchronized machine guns after April 1946"

The cadets were asked to refrain from firing tracer rounds.

Kristophr said...

"The cases of ammo being opened clearly said: "Do not use in synchronized machine guns after April 1946""

Well, yes. Once the ammo is more than 30 years old, it cannot be relied on to not accidentally shoot off the propeller of your Sopwith Camel.

Justthisguy said...

Oh God I love the nerd girls. Unfortunately, they're quite rare around here. Almost all of the wimminz I've met in these parts are quite depressingly normal.

P.s. The gal I took to Senior Prom in high school was the one who sat next to me in Physics class.