MeghanIsMe

When I was in Kenosha the time before last, Lisa and Erik gave me the most wonderful care package full of things that puppy girls such as myself are well-known to like and enjoy! Earlier today, they saved the day for Ella, who was able to go to the dog park. I was going to take her, but all my socks were in the wash, or in the bedroom where Miriam was sleeping and I didn't want to wake her. But in the care package was a pair of socks, emblazoned, in amazing coincidence, with pictures of dogs and fire hydrants! I was able to put them on take Ella for a run-around. Ella is very grateful.

A second wonderful thing in there is this really interesting combination slide rule and ruler by German maker Dietzgen. (Pictures behind the cut below.) It's a 1760-P model, probably dating from between 1928 and 1941. The slide rule portion is fairly simple. It has the A and B scales for squares or square roots, and the C and D scale for multiplication and division. On the reverse of the slider are S and T scales for sine and tangent calculation. This one also has inch and centimeter measures on the front and back; that seems to be fairly common, but I've never had one before so I thought it was really cool! Also interesting to me is that the scales are labeled on the right side; all my other rules have them labeled on the left.

The back has a paper insert with useful conversion ratios. (But are the approximate lowest common denominator comparisons really better than a decimal conversion factor? Is it really useful to know that it's 82 yards to 75 meters instead of knowing you can multiply by ~1.09? I guess it's easier to calculate the conversation factor yourself in either direction this way...)

It even has a chains to meters conversion for you surveyors out there. But more interesting, and the part of this rule that's most fantastic to me, is the flat-head screws in their little shafts that are holding it together. The way things were constructed in different times is endlessly fascinating to me. It looks like this rule probably had a cursor, now missing, that slid on slots on the top and bottom edges.

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I found a Livejournal post with the model of the slide rule I lost in the fire, and a picture too! It was a bamboo Post Versatrig 1450, manufactured in Japan by Hemmi in August of 1967 by the serial number. Now I can try to price a replacement for the insurance claim. This is why I can never get rid of my Livejournal. *laughs*

It feels like we're so close to having this claim done, yet so far. The remaining stuff is all tricky to figure out details of.

https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1311999.html

To do cubes and cube roots on my slide rule I need to use scales that are not next to each other. Because the cursor for this rule is broken, I don't really have a way to line those scales up for comparison. More motivation to figure out how to print a replacement cursor frame!

(Of course I could do them on a different rule, too, but I like being able to take a cheap simple one around with me so I don't lose one of the nicer ones.)

After one of my two free-cycled wooden bookcases collapsed, I contacted a Craigslist seller with several metal shelving racks at $15 per unit. She turned out to be a really nifty person to talk to. Her husband and father had both been techy folks. One had a Ph.D. in biological math and the other designed control systems for furnaces. As well as the shelving units, I bought eight or ten multi-drawer parts pins, many stuffed with various electronic components (as well as random screws and thing I'll have to toss). Just as cool, I mentioned when I first visited that I was looking for slide rules. On my return trip, she'd found two of them for me, including a 20" K&E with a magnifying cursor. Of course, I bought those too. I now own five slide rules by five different companies.