Mark Dusenberry Fund

Donations to help Mark Dusenberry, Seriously injured in crash of his 1905 Wright Flyer Replica at Huffman Field in October, can be made to: The Citizens Bank, 141 N. Broadway St., New Philadelphia, OH 44663 Write "Mark Dusenberry Fund" on Memo line of any checks.

Les Paul

Les Paul died this past August. He was an inventor, a recording engineer, and one of the finest guitarists the world has known.

Here is an American Masters presentation of "Les Paul - Chasing Sound"

This is a 10 minute version - the entire program can be viewed at Hulu

1935 Engineers' Club Historical Video

Watch the 1935 film, in which Charles Kettering and Edward Deeds reminisce about the Engineers Club and greet Orville Wright in the Engineers Club library. Take a walking tour of the Club in 1935.

Go to http://www.engineersclubofdaytonfoundation.org/story_engineers_club.html to see this historic film.

Watch The Wright Brothers ~ In Flight. Vintage footage includes 1908-1909 flights at Fort Myer, France and Italy – as well as the first motion pictures taken from an airplane. This is a new edit of century-old motion picture footage, made for the Engineers Club of Dayton Foundation. Dayton's legacy of innovation goes far beyond the Wright Brothers. The Foundation wants to capture the stories of Dayton's living innovators in their own words and pictures with a multimedia website. Dayton Innovation Legacy will be an internet resource that anyone can access. See more at www.DaytonInnovationLegacy.org

Whazzit - solved

It's a knife cleaner and polisher - used before the days of stainless steel. Curt Dalton provided the attached photo from this website www.sensationpress.com/victorianknifecleaners.htm
Several of you came close - guessing that it's meant to polish, grind, or clean something. The Hervey Bay Historical Museum in Australia responded with gratitude for the Dayton Engineers Club solving their puzzle. They plan to refit the machine with rubber rollers to make it work.

Whazzit?

The Hervey Bay Historical Museum in Australia is using "Ropewalk" for ropemaking demonstrations. Now, they've passed on a puzzle to Dayton's engineers.

Brian Taylor writes:
"I am trying to identify a piece of machinery we have.
It is marked "Follows & Bate Ltd Manchester."
It is marked at the other end "The Handy" "No 2"

The original rollers were some rubber compound and have been replaced with steel.
One similar to this was on E-Bay as a Victorian Candy Roller.
To operate properly it would seem to need a third roller but there is no provision for this.
At first glance it appears to be a mini mangle [wringer] of some kind but closer inspection reveals that both rollers actually rotate in the same direction so could not feed stuff through.
The 3rd gear is part of it and causes the rollers to rotate in the same direction.
There is NO provision for a third roller, which would make it all work ok.
I have asked numerous people but no one can help."

It does look like a wringer, press, or rubber-maker - but is so small it appears to sit on a kitchen table - and the third gear makes the rollers roll in the same direction. That's the puzzle.

Post a comment here or email Kate@StoryOfRope.org if you can explain it!

First Flight

This is a colorized version of the Wright's at Kitty Hawk upon their first flight. This image is cropped to 1680 x 1050, a common size for desktop wallpaper. To download full size, just double click on the photo.