I have a nice old bit of junk by the keyboard here. It's a ballrace from a fifties or sixties Jaguar gearbox, five or six inches across, weighs a good pound and a half, dry as a bone these many years, patina of rust on the outside but not in the ball channels, still runs freely but sounds a bit rough and squeaky (needs a single drop of 3-in-one and a good spin), no play or clearance whatsoever that I can feel, eight balls separated by a riveted and shaped bronze cage. A beautiful, expensive piece of junk.
I have two ashtrays inherited from my parents that are the top halves of (never-used) pistons for a Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial aero engine, cut half-way through the gudgeon pin hole. They too are quite heavy although they are made os some sort of cast light alloy.
All this is blown off the stand by a bar I know in Paris where the coffee tables are old Renault F1 V10s with a sheet of thick glass balanced on them. Chapeau!
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At my old job had a polished piston from a truck engine i stripped just used it to put pens in.
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I have a conrod on my Office shelf - picked up from a field just below the Ulster Tower on the Somme - rusty and as thin as anything, like to think it came from some form of WW1 motorised transport - also from a field near Crecy I picked up what I thought was a 25mm spherical object I assumed came from a shell - when I got it home to clean it found that it was a stone - wonder if it was used in a much earlier 14th C battle ?
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A mate has a Jag cylinder head as base of his coffee table -- I have a lead loaded flat head piston with Jaguar mascot screwed on top. I made it up on 17/04/72 - stamped in base.
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I have a Honda conrod from a 1991 F1 engine. Light as a feather it is.
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bbs.scoobynet.com/projects-40/644483-ferrari-f1-co...l
Keep scroling down to the bottom.
Amazing when there's a will theres a way.!!
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Clever use of the pistons
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Made me laugh dimdip. But looked a bit silly I thought.
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when i worked at leyland trucks in the 70s , every pup in leyland had ashtrays made from cut down wagon/bus pistons , they were lethal weapons come a pub fight ,,
Edited by Webmaster on 01/02/2010 at 01:48
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But only a Gardner 180 piston was cool:)
Pat
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or red hot n melted when you removed them
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Made me laugh dimdip. But looked a bit silly I thought.
You're right; not exactly elegant :)
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I've got an areo piston complete with rings on my desk as a pen/pencil holder, came from my 9 cylinder radial engined sherman tank, that I owned until about 15 years ago, sold to a Dutch museum, got a bit expensive 2 gallons to the mile.
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Not machine parts but I have a pair of GPO branded ceramic telegraph insulators on my mantelpiece.
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I've only got an old wheelnut as a paperweight. Feel a bit of a cheapskate now....it is a chromed one though.
:-(
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Several years ago I had a mooring laid in an estuary for my boat. It was attached to a cylinder block from an HGV.
I couldn't really stand and admire it close up, largely owing to the fact that I don't, and have never had, gills!
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Not machine parts but I have a pair of GPO branded ceramic telegraph insulators on my mantelpiece.
Do they hold candles?
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Do they hold candles?
Never thought of it but, inverted, they probably would. There is a house at Grimshader on the Isle of Lewis with a pair of electricity post insulators topping off the gateposts.
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Ah that'll be Mr Stein's house will it ? ( Frank N ) to his pals .........
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When I was in university halls of residence I had a Saab camshaft as an ornament. We found the car burnt out in some nearby woods and I was able to wrench one of the camshafts out.
Years ago an old family friend had a cast metal ashtray. It was in an attractive art deco style and underneath it bore the legend "Metal from the R101". His uncle had owned a foundry and bought some of the scrap from the airship, and had made a batch of these ashtrays to give to people as Christmas presents.
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ashtrays to give to people as Christmas presents.
Interesting sense of humour !
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Behind my house is a former colliery, now the site of a rather good heritage museum and country park. Alongside the outdoor arena here are three lifesize models of horses (ponies?) made entirely from old bits of engine. I can't find a photo online though and it's a bit chilly to go round there and take one right now, I'll combine it with the school run later. :-)
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I have bookends that are big Tennents Extra bar pump tops.
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I have an okd BSA motorbike in the back yard/garden , during the summer mths when having BBQs etc , i have been known to rest a can of beer on the seat
does this count?
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My late father saved the lead foil from a lifetime of wine drinking, always intending to melt it down and cast into an ingot one day.
Going through his effects recently I found the cache in the shed, and carried out his wishes. I now have a paperweight weighing about 30 lb.
He once used an inlet valve from a railway Deltic diesel as a paperweight, but unfortunately that seems to have been lost, along with the cylinder liner umbrella stand.
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I have a rather nice demonstration cut away of an mid 1950s small industrial gearbox..- about 30cms high and 36 cms wide and 50cms deep as a bookend in the room where I write this...Weighs about 5kg..
Not many books fall off that end of the bookcase.
I quite fancy a V12 coffee table.
www.autoexpress.co.uk/products/products/242512/jag...e
.html
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 01/02/2010 at 19:40
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Now thats a nice table but who in there right mind would pay £700.00?
Off to scrap yard on my day off!
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I have a piston linked to a conrod from a 1961 Ford Prefect.
The skirt of the piston is smashed on one side and the conrod has a slight bend in it. There are two threaded ends of bolts in the holes at the big end but no sign of the bolt heads or the bigend cap they held in place.
Dates from 1973 when the conrod made a bid for freedom through the side of the block.
Car had cost £35 two weeks earlier. Re-con engine was about £30.
Not really an artistic object but a talking point and brings back memories.
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I used to have a complete piston and con-rod on my keyring - you have to guess the engine ;-)
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Cox TD 010?
or
Cox Pee Wee 020?
Edited by madf on 01/02/2010 at 15:47
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