Archives April 2014

"Left all alone in some punkensh place, like a rusty tin coat hanger hanging in space..." Dr. Seuss, Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (1973) Patented more than 200 times in the United States alone, the humble coat hanger has undergone many transformations to reach its modern incarnation. Various methods of hanging clothes had probably existed before Britain's Queen Victoria was gifted a set of wooden coat hangers for her wedding in 1840, however, the mass-market wire hanger was not invented until 1903. The story goes that Albert Parkhouse, an employee of the Timberlake Wire and Novelty company, a Michigan-based firm that specialized in wire lampshade frames, was irritated by arriving at work one day to find that all the coat hooks were in use. Seizing a piece of wire, he bent it into two large oblong hoops and then twisted both ends at the center into more...

"No other device since the shields and lances of the ancient knights fulfills a man's ego like [a car]." Sir William Rootes, automobile manufacturer Superchargers, also called blowers, are used in cars to increase the power of internal combustion engines. German automobile-maker Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900) first came up with the idea of pumping extra air into the engine to increase the horsepower. This effectively makes an engine larger for less weight, which is ideal for racing cars and aircraft. Initially engines relied on atmospheric pressure to keep air inside the engine. By pumping extra air into the engine, the amount of oxygen was increased, and this burned more fuel, giving the vehicle a power boost. Daimler's design was based on twin-rotor air pumps that forced extra air into the system. His design went into production in Mercedes and Bentley cars in the 1920s and was essential to World War II more...

Welding is one of the processes whereby two metals are joined together. The two metals to be joined are melted (sometimes in the presence of a molten filler metal) and made to intermingle by applying intense heat. The bond formed between the two metals, being made of a mix of both the metals, is incredibly strong. This process is different from soldering and brazing where the joining metal is a different metal with different properties. Electric arc welding utilizes the incredible heat generated by an electric arc as the means of melting the metals. A power source is linked to the metal to be worked on and, at the other end of the circuit, to an electrode of some kind. It is between this electrode and the surface of the work metal that the electric arc forms. Like so many inventions, its creation cannot strictly be allotted to one person more...