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Gone out of fashion

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The old joke that goes “I was walking through a cow pasture when my cap blew off, I tried 3 on before I found it.” Seems appropriate looking at the picture above. I see the foreman on the lower left with his bowler, and the gaffer with his trilby, pipe and moustache. Otherwise caps, caps and more caps!
 
My Mother used to wear hats especially on Sunday. I borrowed a hat for a wedding a few years ago and only one other woman was wearing one. My favourite was a bendy "S" shaped half-hat thing which sort of clamped the hair down and stayed on in the wind.
I passed by a funeral just now and it was so windy one gentleman lost his hat, the same thing happened to my sister-in-law at a wedding, perhaps that's why they are no longer fashion.
rosie.
 
Talking of hats, hat pins have disappeared. Probably be regarded as a possible weapon today.

Remember stiletto hair combs ? They used to have a steel tip, useful for sectioning hair before winding hair onto hair rollers/curlers. I have one but the pointed section is made of plastic. Don’t expect the steel tipped ones are made today. Another possible weapon.

Viv.
 
Johnfromstaffs said:
nobody has used the term “guessing stick”.
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We called it a 'slip stick' at university but I think that was an 'in-group' thing, just as hole punches or staplers got called 'grompers' from the sound that they made!

There was a fine balance to be had with a slide rule, you wanted it to slide easily but also to stay put once you had it set up. I found them useful for working with resistive voltage dividers. I set the ratio that I needed then ran my eye along the rule looking for near matches of a 'preferred value' resistor on each scale, i.e. 10, 12, 15, 18, 22, 27, 33, 39, 47, 56, 68, or 82. You can't do that with a calculator, however precise.
 
Spargone said:
We called it a 'slip stick' at university but I think that was an 'in-group' thing, just as hole punches or staplers got called 'grompers' from the sound that they made!

There was a fine balance to be had with a slide rule, you wanted it to slide easily but also to stay put once you had it set up. I found them useful for working with resistive voltage dividers. I set the ratio that I needed then ran my eye along the rule looking for near matches of a 'preferred value' resistor on each scale, i.e. 10, 12, 15, 18, 22, 27, 33, 39, 47, 56, 68, or 82. You can't do that with a calculator, however precise.
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Spargone, we used the slip stick term but had forgotten about it. I remember guessing stick because we could not use on Statistics. Our Statistics was used for process analysis and control. WOW you have taken me back a long way!
 
Lo
Spargone said:
We called it a 'slip stick' at university but I think that was an 'in-group' thing, just as hole punches or staplers got called 'grompers' from the sound that they made!

There was a fine balance to be had with a slide rule, you wanted it to slide easily but also to stay put once you had it set up. I found them useful for working with resistive voltage dividers. I set the ratio that I needed then ran my eye along the rule looking for near matches of a 'preferred value' resistor on each scale, i.e. 10, 12, 15, 18, 22, 27, 33, 39, 47, 56, 68, or 82. You can't do that with a calculator, however precise.
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Love the name Grompers For Hole punches that was the actual sound they made when you used them. Now did anyone ever use a thing called a Plastigauge. This we used to measure the tolerance between two moving parts. We only used it if we had a problem and we suspected that a bearing was running tight or too loose. They were one thousandth thick. You would place them under the bearing on a con rod tighten it up to the Crankshaft in an engine then see if it went tight, or also if the tolerance was three thou put four under and see if it still turned then you would know you had too much tolerance.
 
Spargone said:
There was a fine balance to be had with a slide rule, you wanted it to slide easily but also to stay put once you had it set up. I found them useful for working with resistive voltage dividers. I set the ratio that I needed then ran my eye along the rule looking for near matches of a 'preferred value' resistor on each scale, i.e. 10, 12, 15, 18, 22, 27, 33, 39, 47, 56, 68, or 82. You can't do that with a calculator, however precise.
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I went through an entire career in electronics and never thought of doing that ! In my defence, however, I did in later times construct a spreadsheet to do that job. On the subject of resistors, do you remember the old resistance boxes, basically a switched pot, but quite accurate, and usually in a wooden case. (And for extra points, the Wheatstone bridge, still a cornerstone of measurement today despite hiding behind technology).
Andrew.
 
Brummie a long time ago said:
I went through an entire career in electronics and never thought of doing that ! In my defence, however, I did in later times construct a spreadsheet to do that job. On the subject of resistors, do you remember the old resistance boxes, basically a switched pot, but quite accurate, and usually in a wooden case. (And for extra points, the Wheatstone bridge, still a cornerstone of measurement today despite hiding behind technology).
Andrew.
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I think we had some resistance boxes at school that were in dark wooden boxes. our Wheatstone bridge there was in the form of a 'Post Office box' which used brass plugs to switch in the resistors and couple of 'Morse' keys to switch on the power. At work the resistance boxes were in pale green metal cases and the 'bridge' was at first semi-automatic, shortly followed by a fully-automatic one. Which reminds me of the instrument manufacturer with the unfortunate double-barreled name, 'W-K'!
 
I rebuilt a Ford 10hp sidevalve engine for my Ford Popular which had suffered a failure on my way home from work. The scrapyard engine was in fair order, but we fitted new pistons and conrods which were supplied with cast in white metal big end bearings. Dad’s pal, a professional mechanic had measured the bores and crank pins and pronounced them as fit for further use without machining. I fitted the big end bearings using a scraper and engineer’s blue. The engine was quite tight, and the first start involved both the electric starter and the crank handle, but it ran, and got me to and from work for about 6 months until I sold it.

More unfashionable techniques!
 
Brummie a long time ago said:
On our break back in the UK, Julie and I both commented on how little presence the AA seem to have. Quite a few RAC vans about though. I still have an RAC key, and an AA and (illuminated) RAC badge. Did the motorcycle riders salute if they saw your badge ?
Andrew.
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yes a badge was saluted. and also if approaching a member they did salute smile and serve.:grinning:
 
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mikejee said:
I seem to remember hearing that in the early days if the AA guy did not salute you, then there was a police trap somewhere ahead
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The AA salute
This overt interference with the police's execution of their duties came to an end on 1911
From 1911 it became the absence of the salute that would be used to warn of a police speed trap – members were asked to 'stop and ask the reason' whenever a patrol scout failed to salute them.
 
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