Here is another nuclear disaster aid: the Radiac Calculator ABC-M1A1. This one is plastic and 4.5 inches in diameter.
This is not as nice looking a wheel as the other one, but that's a minor consideration during its use, I guess. For some reason, the outer disk has discolored while the inner one has not. Odd. I found out something about both of the r The RADIAC Calculator No. 1 was produced by Blundell Rules Limited of Luton England. Since it is based on the Radiation Dosage Calculator designed by William Orr in 1951, and since the company moved to Weymouth in 1956, it is safe to say that it probably dates from 1952-1956. It works as follows: if the exposure rate (roentgens/hr) is known at a given time after a nuclear explosion, the calculator predicts the exposure rate at any other time. It also estimates the dose to personnel who are in the area at specified periods of time after the explosion. The ABC-M1A1 RADIAC Calculator is used by the US Army to determine the dose rates and doses to personnel after a nuclear explosion. It is the military version of the "Radiation Dosage Calculator" developed by William Orr. There's a whole museum online of nuclear calculators and other relics of the atomic age. https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/sliderules/sliderules.htm Check it out. It's really interesting! You can read about both of these wheels there. Now, here's something you don't often have a use for, but when you do you'll save the day! This is the Radiac Calculator No. 1. You can calculate the rate of radioactive contamination over land or sea with this handy, easy-to-use wheel! Let's say Kim Jong-Un finally decides to bomb Austin and your homeowners' association has sent you in as a member of the neighborhood de-con team. With the Radiac Calculator No. 1, you will be able to determine how contaminated each member of your team will be after any given amount of time. The wheel does not, however, help you estimate how many days you can expect to live.
Before you take a look at this wheel, you should know that I have adjusted its preferred setting. If you remove the little metal ring thing from the center pin, the disks come apart. The pink-sided disks are for use on land and the blue are for use at sea. I decided I wanted to see both colors at the same time, so I removed the metal ring. I do not want to re-experience the ordeal I had putting that damn metal ring back on! So I did not return the disks to their proper positions for the photographs below. The Radiac Calculator No. 1 comes with a nifty vinyl-coated canvas case and a sample problem card for you to practice with. Don't lose that card! I think it's a fair guess that this wheel was designed to assist pilots somehow. It's actually quite a nice looking wheel, I think. The tiny, tiny copyright notice says 1947. This is in perfect condition and about 5 inches in diameter. And it is very well made, too. Look at the impressive grommet! Okay! It's time for the verdict on the Hamilton Beach Cake Chart gingerbread recipe! I made mine with butter rather than shortening. On a scale of 1 to 10, I guess I'd give it a 7. While it didn't have enough ginger/molasses flavor for my taste (you can see how light it looks), the texture was light, moist and cakey. Not bad at all. I might be inclined to make it again if it weren't for the truly outstanding recipe I already know. It comes from a well-used 1950s Better Homes & Gardens cookbook my mother had. I have included the recipe below. Trust me: you can't make better gingerbread than this. Serve it with some fresh whipped cream! I've included a photo of the Better Homes gingerbread, which I made right after I tried the other. You can really see the difference!
Believe it or not, this is the 120th wheel that I have posted! I was going to use tomorrow's wheel, but thought it didn't deserve such fanfare. So I've chosen this very nice geography wheel instead. It was produced by The International At-A-Glance Chart Company. Isn't that a great company name? It had offices in both New York and London!
This one is 9.75 inches in diameter and is in like-new condition, except for the little button in the center, which has gotten a bit rusty. It's nothing a little steel wool won't fix. This is quite a nice map as these wheels go. It has clean, clear lines and it even shows islands -- like "Porto" Rico. Ugh. Have I mentioned how much I really hate that? I would love to have the British Empire At-A-Glance chart. By the way, today I will be making the gingerbread recipe from the Hamilton Beach Cake Chart. Tomorrow I will report the results! You won't want to miss it! I'm fairly certain I have not posted this one before. I hope that if I can't remember, then neither can you. This wheel is 5.75 inches in diameter and in very good shape. It's from the early 70s, so it ought to be.
I can see how this would come in very handy. Unfortunately, it's not such a handy thing to carry about on one's person. I don't know who or what Hornor & Company was. I found a few business with the Hornor name. If there is one thing I love love love, it's a good piece of cake! How could you walk into Griffith's Electric Company, see this complimentary wheel and NOT buy a Hamilton Beach Food Mixer? I'd be running home to make something!
This wheel certainly looks like it was used. This wheel is ten inches across and was copyrighted in 1932. As is rather obvious, it's not in good shape. The tab at the top was torn when we got it and had fallen in between the disks. One thing I really like about this wheel is the window just at the top below the main openting. Each little window highlights a different feature of the mixer: mash potatoes, portable, mix candy, bowls turn, save work, long life. It sounds like a fortune cookie fortune. I'd love to try one of these recipes, but I can't. I don't own a Hamilton Beach Food Mixer, which is what so many of these recipes call for. No matter. I have resolved to try one and I will let you know how it turns out. I may make the Rich Yellow Cake or, more likely, the Gingerbread. Stay tuned! Here is one of the nicest wheels we have. It was made in the 30s by our friends at the Chart of Knowledge Co., of America. This one says it's part of its Nature Study Series. I really hope we can find others in the series some day.
This is 10.25 inches in diameter and in very good shape. It includes some of my favorite birds: the Cardinal, Blue Jay, King Fisher [sic] and the Cedar Waxwing. I have seen every bird on this wheel except for the Bobolink, which I'm beginning to think is fictitious after all these years of NOT seeing one. There is plenty of information here to attract the would-be bird fancier: nest structure, plumage, migration dates. The King Bird's [sic] distinctive habits box says he is pugnacious and likes to chase hawks and crows. That's why they call him The King! The Blue Jay is mischievous. The Scarlet Tanager's distinctive habit is "around tall shrubs and trees". That doesn't seem very distinctive to me. Not surprisingly, the "nature of young" for every bird here (and every bird everywhere) is "blind, naked, helpless." Poor little things. I've been saving this one for you! Believe it or not, we actually have two of these. Why? For investment purposes, of course! We sat at a hotel computer in Hawaii, anxiously awaiting the final countdown on eBay so we could snatch it up at the last minute. Wheel-collecting is exciting and serious business. When we got home from vacation, another one appeared for auction and it was in better shape, so we nabbed it, too. You can't be too careful.
This wheel is a whopping 13 inches in diameter. I think this is our largest wheel so far. It's made of a heavy cardboard and is in good shape. If you think this one is big, you should see the one hanging on the wall of the salon in San Francisco where John used to get his hair cut. It was enormous -- probably 24 inches across, at least. Alas, the owner wouldn't part with it. And she used to have two of them and had thrown one away. Imagine! Of course, the best thing about this wheel are the women peering seductively over the edge of the interior disk. Another thing I like is the names of the colors: Sun Bronze, Moongold, Sparking Sherry. Of course, each color name is copyrighted. In case you can't make out what on earth Moongold is supposed to be, they've included the real name in tiny, uncapitalized type above: reddish blonde, ash blonde, light auburn. This wheel was copyrighted in 1962 and I'm sure was intended to be a reference for professional hair stylists. It carries the Good Housekeeping Seal! You know, after posting over 100 wheels (!), I've come to realize that there are two types that are vying for the Most Uninteresting Wheel designation: calendars and profit computers. Sometimes, the profit wheels have fun subjects (the Pork Costulator) and others have no subject at all. And by "no subject at all", I mean this one: the Prestolog Profitmeter.
I guess the only remarkable thing about the Prestolog is its age (copyright 1918) and its material. It appears to be made of celluloid -- a heavier version of that stuff those old-fashioned stiff shirt collars are made of. You know, the ones my grandfather wore when he had to look nice. You can see from the picture below how warped this stuff has gotten. I do wonder about the 7197 printed in the center. I can't imagine you're particularly interested, but this wheel is six inches in diameter. Regarding the Russian wheel of a couple of days ago, my friend Mike (who knows some Russian) says:
Looks like basic chemistry. It could have been used in high school or a introductory college course. One side shows solubilities of salts. The cation Cu+2 (in window at the top) couples with various anions to make salts, and the window below it shows P for highly soluble, M for weakly soluble, and H for insoluble. Below that, there's a Ph scale, and a ranking of elements in order of activity strength. On the other side, periodic-table facts are displayed for the selected element. |
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September 2019
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