The Beauty of Tools

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Somewhat bizarrely, in the aircraft industry there is a type of small collet grinder (very much like a die grinder) that takes small mounted stones. They are used for blending out skin damage. Air driven, they are nick named “dentist drills”.

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Somewhat bizarrely, in the aircraft industry there is a type of small collet grinder (very much like a die grinder) that takes small mounted stones. They are used for blending out skin damage. Air driven, they are nick named “dentist drills”.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

This may be stretching the term 'tool' a little; but I thought its beauty might be appreciated:

It's eight strips of Perspex, all the same length [to quite close tolerance], and twisted rather like a race-car exhaust.

My Dad made it, and, after having its picture taken, it was connected-up and covered in black polythene.

Anyone care to guess what purpose it served ?

MichaelG.

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

MichaelG Dust collector  ( sorry )

Roy

Edited By roy entwistle on 08/01/2017 21:40:50

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Optical wave guide.

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Or as above but delay line.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Well sussed, Carl

It's an optical coupling for a Cerenkov Counter.

Constant distance [constant time of flight] via any path;

near enough for Nuclear Physics experiments anyway.

MichaelG.

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

It just so happens that I have happened to have a fair bit of experience with wave guides and fibre optics.

It looks like a cross between the two. Course a fibre optic cable is really a wave guide.

You are right though it’s a stunningly beautiful piece of work. Your Father was highly skilled.

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Or maybe your Father still is highly skilled. My humble apologies for the unqualified assumption.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 08/01/2017 21:34:34:

This may be stretching the term 'tool' a little; but I thought its beauty might be appreciated:

It's eight strips of Perspex, all the same length [to quite close tolerance], and twisted rather like a race-car exhaust.

My Dad made it, and, after having its picture taken, it was connected-up and covered in black polythene.

Anyone care to guess what purpose it served ?

Fascinating. Reminds me of of my dad showing me one of the optical delay blocks that used to be in some TVs.

Neil

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Carl Wilson 4 on 09/01/2017 07:24:39:
Or maybe your Father still is highly skilled. My humble apologies for the unqualified assumption.

.

Thanks Carl … Your 'unqualified assumption' was correct: Dad was killed in a Car Crash in 1970.

This one was made sometime 1966-1970, when he was the 'instrument maker' for the Nuclear Physics department at Lancaster University. … An extraordinarily gifted man; who could design and make 'most anything, to meet the requirements 'specified' by arm-waving boffins.

MichaelG.

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Michael, I think you could say that your Dad left behind a legacy of craftsmanship and technical skill.

That wave guide perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the thread:- that objects with a purpose are beautiful because of their underlying form.

At first I thought this might be a type of delay line. The concept was devised by Alan Turing to use in early computer memory circuits.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 09/01/2017 08:23:01:

Fascinating. Reminds me of of my dad showing me one of the optical delay blocks that used to be in some TVs.

Neil

Neil, I think you'll find they were ultrasonic, not optical – you wouldn't get much optical delay in something that fitted in an average TV! They used multiple reflections in a cleverly shaped block, driven by the chrominance signal modulated on a 4.43 MHz carrier, and provided a whole scan line's worth of delay – 64 microseconds. Except in the early days of PAL colour TV every set used one as an integral part of getting best colour from the PAL system by averaging the chrominance signal in successive lines.

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Turns out I made a mistake in attributing delay lines to Turing. It was J.Presper Eckert in the US who devised them for radar work.

I think Turing experimented with them as components in a memory circuit first though. There is a section in the book “Alan Turing: The enigma” where it describes him using an acoustic delay line made from a long tube. A speaker at each end, one acting as a microphone the other as the sounder. Production delay lines used mercury but I guess in the Turing version the less dense transport medium (air) would have meant more delay. Think he was just trying to get a feel for the problem in typical post war British austerity fashion.

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