What Is This Thing?

iF i LOOK AT IT VERY QUICKLY IT REMINDS ME OF AN OLD X-RAY TUBE.

Looks like a crude rocket engine.

_{For a crude missile perhaps?}

regards,

Vulcan

I agree.

It looks like the business-end of a jet engine or the exhaust side of a rocket engine

Innards of a "hi-tech" hoover (vacuum cleaner)?

(BTW - your title is a pain in the a**e when it comes to spell-checking).

Prototype chicken pump?

..
I'd like to see it in operation...
cluck cluck squawk squeeze pop-whoosh..... thud squawk cluck cluck
Del

It looks optical. Maybe a photographic enlarger or a slide projector.

With the slots right in the middle of the pix, perhaps an early venturi.

This is a Venturi tube demonstration apparatus built out of PVC pipe and operated with a vacuum pump. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturi_effect

Dutch/Museum piece.....I'm not even going there.

Kris, you may not want to go there, but it sounds like you've been there. Exactly what museums did you visit on your last trip to Amsterdam?

OOOooohhhhh! Tell! Tell!

You made me say this, right ?! . Apparently they have a lot of old mechanical gadgets.

How about a steam driven generator for train cars?

I'm going to say a gas burner.

O.K, I think I got it, and old-school photography buffs like myself might also recognize it:

- It's an old, 19th century slide projector, used for photography prints, or display shows:

I think you might be onto something here Yuval.

It breaks my heart to say this, but....sorry....wrong.

If not that, what then? -Focal Spot?

"Steampunk" is probably a clue. Dry ice fog machine for theatrical use.

Steampunk is definitely a clue! This item then is probably a representation of modern technology as if it were developed in the Victorian era. Which probably rules out my guess of a fog machine. If it was considered cutting edge in its time, it might be a prop from a movie based on a Jules Verne or Edgar Rice Burroughs novel.

Or, the ultimate steampunk of alltime:

Nooo....You need brass, velvet, mahogany, helpless women....

Right...

But hey, I was twelve to sixteen, and it threw my imagination to places you wouldn't believe - it was like a weekly appointment with magic-land

These two were my co-conspirators to a better world.

Does any one here remember?

It was probably on TV over here, but I never saw it (never even heard of it until the Will Smith thing came out). We all had _{what the heck, I still do !} our fantasies with early TV. I liked stuff such as this one;

, although this was my favourite. Noggin the Nog almost goes without saying. People wouldn't be people without fantasy and imagination. Adverts are always fun to remember. Here's one for Del

Wild, Wild, West? I sometimes watched it but for some reason I wasn't partial to it. There were a lot of westerns on TV in those days, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Paladin, Virginian, Rifleman, Roy Rogers, Sky King (he was current day but the stories were old western with a plane instead of a horse) to name a few. I guess with the saturation I was desensitized to them. Kind of like an hour into having all the ice cream you can eat.

Oops, should have checked the link first.

#53 - "never even heard of it until the Will Smith thing came out"

I'd love to know what you thought the connection to Yuval's picture at #52 was !

Those two were the stars of the original WWW show. of the 70's, I think. I don't recall either of their names or even any of their futuristic ways of solving crimes. The show was based in the mid 1800's. They were the Macgiver of their day. The guy on the left was famous as a side-kick before that in other TV shows. I'll look around.

Found it. Ross Martin and Robert Conrad (knock the battery off his shoulder TV ad fame)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Wild_West

See Concept Summary

Nah. The seventies were re-runs, and the eighties was a much sought-after comeback, much like "Mission-Impossible", which I personally wasn't very thrilled about, although I remember my father liked a lot...

Not like that. WWW was so original and so subversive in nature, it was more for latent anarchists and socially-challenged misfits...

- - - -

So much was said over the years about the U.S inseminating it's culture over the world, and true, Israel might be an extreme example for American influence, but here we are, discussing that very thing from a personal point of view, and it's cultural influence on our lives...

I bet you it's the same for Europeans, Brits, Japanese, Australians - you name it

more for latent anarchists and socially-challenged misfits...

Now I'm wondering how the heck I missed it !

Yeah, I only figured it becaue Yuvals link was to WWW (Will Smith) and I knew there was an earlier series. Quick check on google/google images, and I found the photo etc.

The beaming part of an X-ray camera for welding inspection ?

Safety gas heater or safety gas lamp!!! or leaf (maple) muncher.

It's eiter an old microscope or telescope.

Del may have provided the answer, but I could not quite decipher his message. Device looks to be an eighteenth century steam powered chicken shooter... a predecessor to the compressed air potato gun.

The first steamcooker?

steampowered microsope?

A steampowered death ray made by Moriarty?

It's good! But it's not right! Worth a good answer though...

Right ...that's it..
I warned you.
My Asiatic bow blog comes out on Tuesday, that'll learn you.
Del

which one? the death ray?

or is it a telescope?

Fine looking death ray machine you've got there .

The water cannon (steam punk fire brigade)

I am going to plump for something Optical or maybe a sighting system for early guns/Gunnery.....say late 18th or 19 Century.......

For what its worth, it looks to me like a lighthouse oil burning light source laid on its side. The light wick protrudes from the top and the length is regulated by the wheel. The whole assembly fits in an oil reservoir and sits in the centre of a glass focussing "cluster".

Pete.

Some sort of steam-generator for asthmatics ?

The slot above an expansion chamber & below a larger cylindrical shape makes me wonder...

Perhaps this is some type of old steam whistle or compressed air whistle?

I vote for a fire fighting apparatus.

An atomic (adjustable) garbage disposal?

Is it an earlier apparatus to enable one to read the directions that came with the first electric watches? You know, they put all the directions on how to change the time zone, date, temp and stop watch on 1 square inch of paper?

"NO matter where you go............there you are".

Not a clue.....

It looks like an old snow making nozzle

however, I would not like to have to control it.

Perhaps it is an old monitor head.

It's a pig launcher for live pigs? (automatically cuts off the legs at launch?)

Early fire extinguisher?

Guess in the dark - Old fire hose nozzle?

jt.

I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather did,
not screaming like the other people in his car.

PlbMak,

Well????????????

Sump pump?

Automatic bagpipe inflator?

Early prototype garbage disposal / food chopper?

Dirigible deflator?

Ow! Ow! I sprained my brain!

Not exactly the same as what I used, but it sure reminds me of the theater lamps we used in school. A place to put a color gel, lots of room for the lamp heat to escape, and a lens and focusing device in the front. Also, a way to make the spot be only a spot or to flood out and cover a wider area.

It must be optical

What about a projector to project the moon at the planetarium?

Part of an Epidiascope maybe? (Spelling may not be correct!)

Some sort of old bore scope or collimator?

OK. What about a part to an old spotlight or limelight???

Carbon Arc generates a good deal of heat. Many of the lights of the early 20th Century were very archaic in appearance. I do see a slot, where possibly a slide could have been inserted to produce shadows, or what are in theater called Gobos.

I can't see enough of the light to really definitively say exactly what sort of light it is.

As I said earlier, it looks a bit like an older version of the focal spot.

A modern version of the Focal Spot that has gained acceptance in both motion picture and theater work is the Source 4.

Well done! 100% correct, an early carbon arc projector.

Hey! I got it first!!!

I'm not so sure.......You said 'spotlight'. Unless the thing has a focusing lens it would be more of a floodlight. Also it's different to limelight. Correct me if I'm wrong.

This site has a good description of Carbon Arc light. Here's more. You might be able to get away with victory if PlbMak say a lens fell off the thing. Actors and Ufologists get Kleig-eye, but that sounds more like intensity than focus.

I don't think "spot light" quite cut the mustard, old chap.

Never mind, as we sit here, steering into space, I'm concocting the next one. I found it interesting how the use of Steampunk in the description threw people off the scent a bit......

Here be a slightly better picture....

So now it's a 'mustard cutter'...
Make your mind up

Yeah! Well, I'm kirk Douglas!

The difference is, if you want to be recognised, sign on!