Hello physics department discard pile!

[solipsistnation]

I am now the proud owner of a Bendix Aviation sextant, bubble type, circa (I think) 1961 (although it may actually be WWII-era, and just kicking around WPI since 1961). It's a beautiful little mechanical device with several levers, operating instructions on tiny metal plates on the sides, a huge rubber eyepiece, and a clockwork averager. I wish I knew more of how to use it, but it's certainly lovely, all powder finish and tiny print. It came in a huge bakelite case, held shut by a (sadly rotted) leather strap.

Plus a little Kodak darkroom light that gives off almost no illumination at all but is a really great truncated-egg shape.

There are some more darkroom lights I should go and retrieve, but they're sort of half-cylindrical hanging things and not quite as classy. Also some very tiny paper data recorders. Overall, a good day for physics department scavenging.

Comments

[frozencapybara.livejournal.com]

Oo, neat. Pictures?

I should see if Brandeis' physics department has a discard pile for scrounging. On the other hand, given the lack of free space in my apartment, perhaps I shouldn't.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

I have to find my camera again, but yes, pictures soon, I hope...

[dariusk.livejournal.com]

As long as it's not a Henry Bendix sextant.

[qedrakmar.livejournal.com]

Damn! That came out of Sev's office, didn't it?! I had my eye on that years ago, but they wouldn't toss it... :(

[anitra.livejournal.com]

Sextants are neat.

Kodak products are also neat. (My dad used to bring lots of odds & ends home when he worked there.)

That is all.

[faceninja.livejournal.com]

Whereabouts did you set up the safelight? I get the impression that such a thing would make a good conversation piece, and I'd understand if it felt too much like shelving it off somewhere, but you might want to consider trying it out in a closet, or similar small area that lacks a real constant source of luminance. It might be a bit more functional there, and it has the potential to give a closet a real nice ambience.

One last question: yellow hue or red?

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

It shall live in the front room, along with many other strange and mysterious devices from the physics department.

It appears to be more yellow than red, and doesn't give off enough light to be worth using anyplace in which one wouldn't be spending enough time for one's pupils to expand to the size of dinner plates.

[faceninja.livejournal.com]

I'm just sayin' that safelights are designed to illuminate very small areas without any other source of light; generally speaking, they're placed above an enlarger [which you don't really need to see clearly, per se, but it's important to know where the knobs are] and a small counterspace just big enough to hold 4 10x12" chemical trays and six bottles of chemicals.

In addition to one safelight only illuminating a small area, of course, they're also designed to bring light to a small space in total darkness-- when white light comes on in the darkroom for cleanup or maintenance [my school's lab has about 20 stations, each with an individual safelight], their luminance isn't noticable at all. So if it's a functioning light and you're not feeling a lot of brightness from it, that should be the reason why.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I figured it was something like that. It's also probably at least 40 years old, and the filter on the one I didn't take was severely melted. I don't know if that's because somebody put a really powerful bulb in there and messed it up or if something else was going on.

Anyway, I'm mostly interested in the design... It's a cute little light.