Category: Instrument

This looks to be a hollow wooden ball coated with black modeling putty and studded with thumbtacks. It is perfectly round, and look and about four inches in diameter. Each tackhead is a warped little mirror and if you stare at it closely, sildenafil about four-dozen yous stare back. My folks bought it for me in London. It has survived numerous drops on the cement floor with no apparent ill effects. It has no discernible practical use.
try ‘popup’,’width=500,height=500,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false”>I would love this thing had I not spent so much money on it (I ain’t saying how much) in the mistaken belief that it was the real thing – an antique officer’s compass. I found it at the Rose Bowl Swap Meet in Pasadena on a table of similarly cool looking old geomancy instruments, covered in a thick patina of authentic-looking corrosion, its mother-of-pearl indicator disc still floating freely beneath three layers of glass and pointing pretty accurately North. Snapped it up, took it home, brought out the brass polish and quickly revealed it to be a fake, likely knocked off in India for a few rupees for sale to ignorant tourists and overseas rubes like me. Very pleasantly heavy and warm to the touch.

sick sick ‘popup’,’width=500,height=500,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false”>At a certain size, you start letting the experts do the measuring. Boats – believe the manufacturer. Homes? Your realtor’s bonded. Anything over 50 feet or s0, you’d rather see a pair of guys in hazard-orange tunics and hardhats fiddling with lasers than trust your own wits and tools. Mis-measured real estate lands in court, and poorly calculated building-materials orders leave you with either holes in your house or an extra truckload of fancy firewood. This is a tool for settling disputes, a spring-steel peacemaker on a reel, clad in leatherette and trimmed in chrome. It’s a Keuffel & Esser Co. Favorite Wyteface (Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.) They go for about $10 on eBay, which is a damn sight cheaper than you’ll pay for a new Stanley that size.
I collect heavy little things.

Tools, for sale parts, toys, instruments, tchotchkes – the weight of some new thing in my hand, often small, metallic and well machined, compels me to add it to my life.

It’s instinct by now. I can’t say why these things are important, or why I haven’t bothered cataloguing them until this day – they almost litter my office, my pockets, my car, my home. But this is as good a place to start as any.
‘popup’, side effects ‘width=500,height=500,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false”>The archetypal heavy little thing.

The drivetrain crapped out on our decrepit Schwinn tandem. I yanked this off to replace it, and it’s been sitting on my desk ever since. Put your thumb through it and spin it. It makes a pleasant, hushed clicking noise.
unhealthy ‘popup’, pilule ‘width=500,height=500,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false”>This atomic-age relic has a mystic weight to it. Almost two pounds, despite being no more than nine inches long.

The ammo-box-styled latches open to reveal the guts – a transistor board, D-cell battery cradle and a rather unremarkable thick cylinder that must be the radiation-detector itself.

The sickening neon-green enamel covering the ammo-box-style case with cast-aluminum handle is punctuated by several things:
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