WHATIZZIT?

A possible project in the works: It needs another coat of lacquer and some very careful sanding. Plus the Other Stuff, about which maybe more later.

BENCH GRINDER

I found my grinder! It's not much, but it's been missing since I moved. Opened an unlikely box in the basement workshop this evening, and there it was:It needs to be disassembled (again) and repainted. When I bought it, it was Winter and I needed a grinder; so I took it apart, cleaned it up, oiled the bearings, gave the gears a dab of grease and put it back together. There's the "business end" view above. Not a fancy toolrest but good enough to touch up a screwdriver tip. With a hand crank, you can keep it slow and not have to fret so much about taking the metal's temper.I'd like to find a new wheel for it; that one's glazed, a little out of round and mildly concave. But hey, it works. --Maybe I should look for a small buffing wheel for it, too. That'd be kind of fun and perhaps a little better -- and safer -- than my old trick of chucking the buffing wheel in its arbor in a (borrowed) drill press.

YANKEE!

Readers may have noticed that I am fond of "Yankee"-type semiautomatic screwdrivers (which turn a push into rotation) and ratchet drivers. Here is most of my collection of the former and a couple of the latter:Click on any image for the large version. (Looking for history links, I found a nifty Instructable on detail-stripping and cleaning a classic Stanley/North Brothers driver). The black-handled one at the bottom is a Shroeder, a spare for the one I keep in my toolbox at work -- the knurled ring that retains the (hex!) bits was "borrowed" to replace one lost from the work driver some years ago. A lot of the paint is missing from the daily-use driver and it's getting a little wobbly; but it still works after a decade of hard use. Far right is the larger model from the same maker. By the way, if you ever succumb to the urge to detail-strip a Schroeder, please note the tubular cover over the ratchet control is retained by a spring-loaded pin, which will fly away, spring and all, if you remove the cover and don't have it under control. There is, barely, enough room to tap the cavity 10-32 and use a short grubscrew to retain the cover once you have lost the pin and spring, but it looks kludgey. Um, don't ask me how I know this, please. There are three bought-new Stanley Yankees with the classic purple handles near the top, some of the very last production, as they're not made any more. The two largest must be stored "open," with the telescoping spiral section extended: the return spring is quite powerful and if opened while pointed toward yourself or others, results can be...gory. Conversely, the pair at the very top are "cabinetmaker" versions, which do not have a return spring: the fellow doing fine woodwork would be vexed if his driver were to slip from the screw with the spiral fully telescoped. The third from the bottom, with a "knobby" handle is the same. The boxed set at the left is a North Brothers set, in not-quite-new condition, with a Yankee driver, a nice set of bits including a drill adaptor and drills, and two ratchet drivers. A little gummy when I bought them, they cleaned up well. The decal on the lid of the box is intact, too.A closer look at the accessories, including straight drills and a countersink:But why list them when I can let the original label speak for itself?Yankee screwdrivers have a learning curve; careless use can make a mess. But the batteries are never flat and they're hardly ever too loud. And they're another one of the good old tools that is starting to slip away. Shroeder still makes them, as do the Japanese screwdriver wizards at Vessel. There are some plastic versions as well; Schroeder appears to make the ones Sears stores sell but as for the rest, caveat emptor. (Links are to known retail sources). Many modern versions use hex bits (and hex-shank drills!) instead of the classic D-and-notch of the original. This is a handy thing; there was little standardization between brands and models with the older system. If you happen to have an older Yankee driver, several retailers offer hex adaptors for them. Match the diameter to the bits for your driver; you may have to file another notch to get it to lock in but the results are worth it.

MCELROY "JUNIOR" SEMIAUTOMATIC KEY

On eBay, a very rare Mac "bug," (original listing is, naturally, gone) an inexpensive (at the time) semiautomatic key for the beginning -- or impoverished -- amateur.

Discontinued soon after it was introduced, the key was made mostly of stamped sheet metal, like a heavy toy. Though it was built to sell at a low price (thank you, Ted McElroy!), scarcity means they're now sought-after collector's items. The present example? "Reserve not met," at over US$500.00 bid. Have a look, it's an interesting artifact.

WORKSHOP TELEPHONE

Not wired yet. Details later!

SAFETY REMINDER/PHONE UPDATE

Goggles: more than a fashion accessory.What reminded me was drilling into a concrete-block pillar in my basement to set anchors so I could mount the board that holds my steel "hotel" telephone. The chips do fly!

Look for an update soon as I have something more photogenic than a couple of 1x2 pine battens installed.

WHAT'S YOUR EXCHANGE?

In the early days of direct dialing, as 7-digit telephone numbers were adopted, Ma Bell decided people would never get used to remembering or dialing such a long string of numbers.

The solution was adopt exchange names for the first two digits; indeed, telephone exchanges were actual physical structures and they were generally referred to by that name. Even now, when the building (probably) houses an all-electronic digital switch instead of banks of electromechanical relays and crossbars, is not limited to a single pair of leading digits in the numbers it serves and may serve ten times as many subscribers, telephone company employees tend to call the locations the old prefix-names.

I knew a few -- Broad Ripple's exchange is CLifford and in WW II, Homeplace/Carmel numbers were VIctory, though I don't know if the exchange on 106th St. had been built at that time. I figured any master list(s) from the telephone companies were long gone.

"Long gone" is not so gone as you might think -- here's the 1955 list of Official Exchange names from AT&T! The Web's enabling of of information packrattery never ceases to amaze me.

UPDATE: Old Grouch points out the use of exchange names-as-numbers dates back at least to six-digit telephone numbers. See Comments