Hasta La Ideas

In the 1920s German manufacturer Eugene Dietzgen Co. designed and produced this brilliant drawing tool, the 932S Excello, for draftsmen. Check out how it works:

Amazing, no? Although the tool is German, the Smithsonian has one of these in their collection at their National Museum of American History. This one was used at Kenyon College. Here’s the little case it came in, and the description:

This 2-1/4″ German silver and steel metal drawing instrument consists of a teardrop-shaped plate to which is attached a mechanism that is supposed to hold a larger serrated wheel and a smaller pattern wheel. The mechanism links the wheels to a bar that holds a pen point. When the larger wheel is rolled along the edge of a T-square or straight edge, the pen point bounces up and down to make a dotted line that formed part of an engineering drawing.

The larger wheel (5/8″ diameter) is marked with one of the trademarks for the Eugene Dietzgen Co., the superimposed letters E and D inside a circle formed by the letters C and o. The six smaller wheels (9/16″ diameter) also have this trademark and are numbered from 1 to 6, representing six possible dotting patterns. All the wheels are made of brass. The instrument also has the trademark and is marked: EXCELLO. The arm holding the pen point is marked: DIETZGEN (/) GERMANY. The instrument is in a rectangular wooden bar-lock case covered with black leather and lined with green velvet. The top of the case is marked: DIETZGEN (/) “EXCELLO”. The top is also marked: GERMANY.

This dotting instrument was advertised as model 932S in the 1926 Dietzgen catalog and sold for $5.15. It was part of the Excello product line, Dietzgen’s second-highest level of drawing instruments. This object was used in the physics department at Kenyon College.

Everybody knows that a circular saw cuts a straight line. However, what if you want cut a circle? Everyone knows that you can’t use a circular saw. 

But what if you bend the blade?

Yep, that’s what they did. Here is a circular saw blade by the Huther Saw Bros. Saw Mfg. Co. of Rochester New York (1880 – 1940), which is carefully dished so that if you mount it in a circular saw, with the saw tilted at the right angle so that the blade is square to the wood, the saw will cut a 6′ circle. Not well I am told – these saws were tricky to handle and you needed a different blade for every diameter, but it worked. This particular blade looks like it was never used. The saw pre-dates carbide tipped teeth by a lot. The teeth are carbon steel, swaged a little bigger at the tips for clearance in the cut. The diameter of the saw is just under 12″ which makes me think that it started out as a 12″ blade before being dished to a slightly smaller diameter.

This blade was made, I think, in the ’30’s, after the circular saw was invented but before they became ubiquitous. All the major saw blade makers made them, Disston, Atkins, to name a few.

I would love to get a chance to actually use this blade but the concept scares the pants off me. It’s also way to big for the two circular saws I have: my old Super Saw Cat from the Industrial Division of B+D back in 1981 and my brand new Festool 55 which I use now.

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This “Tools & Craft” section is provided courtesy of Joel Moskowitz, founder of Tools for Working Wood, the Brooklyn-based catalog retailer of everything from hand tools to Festool; check out their online shop here. Joel also founded Gramercy Tools, the award-winning boutique manufacturer of hand tools made the old-fashioned way: Built to work and built to last.

Lucnt is a smart cycling light that functions like a car’s brake lights. It uses multiple sensors coupled with smart algorithms to detect when you slow down or accelerate. This helps increase your visibility on the road and lets the drivers behind you know you’re slowing down. Lucnt is CNC machined from a single piece of aluminum, designed and made in Richmond, California.

View the full project here

Rather than embed chips in the human brain—as proposed by two of its better-known competitors, Israeli start-up BrainQ is developing a non-surgically embedded EEG machine to accrue and analyze data on stroke and spinal cord patients. BrainQ isn’t the……

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It’s only natural for a designer to constantly refine their creations, making the newer iterations better than the previous ones. I honestly didn’t think there was much you could do to improve the backpack of our dreams, but the designers at Wool & Oak are back with the Duffle Sport, a backpack that’s as hardcore a wanderlust as you are.

Taking the same incredible modularity concept from the original Duffle, the Duffle Sport comes in a weather-proof, water-proof fabric shell. The Duffle Sport, just like the legacy Duffle still probably remains the only bag that can conveniently pack your items for anywhere from half a day to 7 days worth of activities. Its proprietary slip-zip-clip method allows you to carry a slim backpack with just work essentials, to an overnight pack, to a weekend-getaway pack, to even a week’s worth of packing. Duffle Sport achieves this through modularity. Available in three different bags that can be used individually or attached together to form a holiday-superkit (in six different configurations), the Duffle Sport deviates from the leather construction for something hardier and more weather resistant. The hydrophobic fabric comes in a variety of colors, adding a splash of vibrancy to the Duffle Sport while also allowing it to be almost half the price of the leather model from last year.

The Duffle Sport is available in a variety of formats. People who just want the convenience of a slim, weather-resistant bag can opt for the Pro, while others looking to make use of Duffle Sport’s modularity can opt for the Overnight, Weekender, or Voyager kits. Each bag and kit is specifically designed keeping segregation in mind. The Pro is ideal for notebooks and laptops, while the zip-on modules are great for travel essentials, clothes, shoes, etc., with even dedicated hidden-yet-easy-to-access slots for your passport, boarding pass, or mobile phone. If you were charmed by the Duffle Backpack last year but wanted something more versatile, durable, and reasonable… Lo, and behold! The gods of travel gear have listened to your prayers!

Designer: Johnathan Webster

Click here to Buy Now: $259.00 $375.00

The Voyager Set (Pro + Backpack + Duffle)

The Pro Bag

The Backpack

The Duffle

Click here to Buy Now: $259.00 $375.00