Art from the US Naval Observatory
The US Naval Observatory has a ton of hi-res scans and photos of artwork, globes, clocks, telescopes, and other historical objects, the astrological drawings are incredible [via] – Link.
Retro
Propeller drives homemade flying merry-go-round
These kids got to ride around on a homemade propeller driven merry-go-round, Popular Science 1939 – Link.
Making antique brass nameplates
Mike writes – “In this article, Jeff Conner describes the process for creating brass nameplates from scratch. I’m restoring a 1942 South Bend Lathe and found the information particularly interesting as I’ve got a few tags that could stand being recreated, and a racecar that could stand a little custom nameplate work!” – Link.
Electrical Experimenter
Check out this mosaic of old covers from the May 1913 to July 1920’s “Electrical Experimenter” – the name changed to Science and Invention in 1920. Is that the Death Star? [via] – Link.
Adverts for old electronic stuff
Mike writes – “I recently picked up a box of old copies of the UK electronics trade publication ‘Electronic Engineering’ from the early to mid-1950s. These contain lots of historically interesting adverts for components etc. which were the latest technology of the time, giving a different view to the sort of stuff in the more […]
Sparkbench – old radio restoration
Sparkbench has a ton of beautiful retro radio restorations – “Vintage Radio restoration is a passion of mine. It always gives me a thrill to bring one of these relics back to like new condition. There’s alot of sites dealing with real valuable old radios, but this is a site for the ‘common tinkerer’ with […]
Toothpick engineering
Modern Mechanix has another good one from Popular Science 1940, incredibly structures made from toothpicks – Link.
