Retro Thing

The Shrinking Pressman's Hat

The decay of the newspaper business is causing a lot of handwringing within the industry, but its slow-speed demise risks taking with it a notable artifact: the pressman's hat.

Many workers in print shops used to wear these stylish boxy getups to keep the ink and dust and whatnot out of their hair. They are made from sheets of broadsheet newspaper pages that are folded origami-like. You can find some great examples in this excellent set of photos that were taken over the years in the L.A. Times' pressroom.

The printing business is a lot cleaner than it used to be, and the pressman's hat actually gave way to the baseball cap long ago. But even disregarding the shrinking popularity of newspapers, the paper hat is an endangered species because of the shrinking size of the physical newspaper. Broadsheet newspapers used to be legitimately broad. U.S. broadsheet pages were once 15 inches wide, but have shrunk to 12 inches over the last decade or so, making the full spread 6 inches narrower. (Narrower pages means lower paper costs.)

So, grab a newspaper while you still can. A Google search can help you turn up various tutorials on how to fold it into a few hats. (There's probably some irony in that last sentence.) There's one here and another here. As a proud maker/owner of a brand-new pressman's hat, I can say that good paper is helpful. My hometown paper prints its four-page Sunday comics section on nice heavy stock. Otherwise, two full sheets of paper might be better.

Handcrafting A Triode Tube

2FO, a HAM radio operator since 1959, guides us through the various stages of crafting his own triode vacuum tube. This tube has made contact with other amateurs radio buffs on four continents.

For more information, visit his site [French, thanks Sam Poynter!]

Sonex Unveils a $20,000 Sport Plane

This is the Onex, a surprisingly affordable single-seat kitplane that was unveiled at this summer's EAA AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It's the sort of affordable yet desirable design that could reverse the flagging fortunes of general aviation.

DIY Vacuum Tube Preamplifier

Gio writes, "I'm sending over the latest diy audio project from our website. This one is a vacuum tube preamplifer. While the circuit is rather simple it does use high voltage so it is geared towards more advanced builders.

The preamplifier project is a hybrid in that is uses tubes for the amplifier circuit and a solid state power supply. The gain of the preamp can be set at either 7 or 11. 12AU7 and ECC82 tubes can also be used with the preamp. The tube preamplifier has very good measured performance and Bruce has reported very clean and detailed sound with that typical warm lush tube sound."

Visit DIY Audio Projects for more.

Assemble Your Own 35mm Camera

Among people who know about toy cameras, there seems to be two camps: the lovers (cute! fun!) and the haters (plastic lenses! the price!). Which makes me wonder whether the SuperHeadz 35mm Camera Kit and the Gakken TLR Camera can unite these two camps.

Think of these as slightly more sophisticated versions of those assemble-your-own or print-your-own pinhole camera kits. (Or the modern version of the 1977 LogiKit camera). The parts — nearly all of them plastic — snap together, though a few connections require screws. Both cameras are fixed focal length and fixed aperture. But they also are relatively inexpensive compared to some other toy cameras out there.

The resulting photos from the point-and-shoot "Plamodel" and the "Gakkenflex" TLR will probably give the toy camera-haters fits. I imagine light leaks abound and quality is probably comparable to a disposable camera — but even the haters might appreciate the price point and the enlightening journey it takes to get those tepid results.

The 4-Track Cassette Drum Machine

Mike Walters writes, "Here's my new instrument, The Drumssette. It's a programmable drum machine built out of a Tascam four track recorder!"

Mike has a history of creating amazing one-off instruments like the Melloman, a tape-based sample playback keyboard that uses the innards of 13 gutted Walkmen to play tuned vintage Mellotron keyboard samples. His latest electromechanical masterpiece is the Drumssette.

He says, "The sounds of the drums come right off the prerecorded cassette tape, and those sounds also clock the sixteen step sequencer inside. As the cassette plays, rhythms can be mapped out on the switch interface. This is how it works...

Each of the four tracks on the cassette tape contain a single, repeating drum sound. Track one has high hat, track two cymbal, bass drum on track three,  and the last track has snare. These drums are synchronized with each other, and each track is isolated from the next.

There's a four position rotary switch on the front panel of the Drumssette. This switch routes a parallel audio signal (this doesn't go to the output) from one of the four tracks through the Tascam's headphone amp circuit, through a delay stage, another amplifier, and finally to the clock input of the 16 step sequencer. The selected audio signal determines the frequency of the sequencer, and causes it to step.

As the sequencer steps, each output is sent to a bank of AND gates. On the front panel of the Drumssette are 64 push on/push off (mechanical) switches in four rows of sixteen. These are wired with a common connection to the 9v supply bus, with individual outputs going to the other inputs of the AND gates. There are 64 AND gates total. If a switch is on, AND the sequence step is on, the output of the gate is 1. This will momentarily unmute that track's audio to the output, through a "Wired-OR" configuration using diodes."

Thanks to the combination of analog and digital circuitry, the Drumssette has a unique sound and a few endearing quirks. It can also be used to rhythmically gate audio from an external source like an iPod or computer. I can't wait to see what Mike comes up with next.

Mystery Circuits: The Drumssette

Build Your Own... Lightbulb?!

Bennett Harris writes, "Reinventing Edison: Build your own Light Bulb is a science kit that I created and manufacture. It is as retro as you can get in that it lets builders recreate the experiments of the great inventors and the design of the kit and instructions hearkens back to the great science kits of the 50's and 60's (like those of AC Gilbert and REMCO)."

I often fear the iPod generation is too far removed from basic scientific knowledge. Handheld gadgets might as well be magic, because few people actually know what's inside an mp3 player or game unit or how they work. Household science experiments like building a crystal radio, playing with radioactive isotopes or assembling a Heathkit computer have become quaint historical anachronisms. Thankfully, entrepreneurs like Ben Harris realize this and are trying to fill the knowledge gap with high-quality kits that teach simple concepts.

Build your own Light Bulb includes almost everything you need to create an incandescent light bulb, including a safety glass vacuum chamber, a pump, wire, 28-page color instruction manual and several different filament materials including carbon and tungsten. All you need to provide are a couple of 6V lantern batteries and an enthusiastic kid or two.

Ben's kits are available in the Maker Shed and there's a Harris Educational fan page on Facebook.

Low Voltage Tube Phono Preamp Kit

Mark Houston recently posted a review of a rather neat little $47 (AUD) stereo RIAA preamp kit for moving magnet photo cartridges. Made by Oatley Electronics in New South Wales, it's built around four new-old-stock Raytheon JAN 6418 sub-miniature pentode tubes that draw only 10 mA each with a barely perceptible glow and very little heat.

The kit features inexpensive polyester capacitors, carbon resistors and a switched-mode AC power adapter, which are big no-nos in some audiophile circles.

Even though it sounded pretty good with the inexpensive parts, Houston decided to build a second higher-end version using polypropylene capacitors and a solid state DC power supply.

Houston concludes, "This is an unusual RIAA phono preamp kit that uses a strange mix of parts and ideas, but one not scared to deliver exceptionally good music at a cheap price. 

I have managed to get in a few hours of listening with the SE MkII version. I'm not convinced it is better than the basic kit version. Sonically, both builds appear to be equal. There will be those who just can't stand the thought of polyester capacitors, carbon resistors and the two SMPS.

I would say whichever way you go on to build the kit, you will not be disappointed. In a blind listening test the basic kit outperformed two Cambridge phono preamps and a Hafler phono preamp in front of six very critical listeners of the Melbourne Audio Club, across three different turntables and cartridges."

6418 Tube RIAA Phono Preamplifier Kit [thanks, Gio!]

DIYers: Need Your Help Finding a Metal Enclosure

 
Hey DIYers, I'm stuck. I've got a product that I'd like to build into a steel case like the one above, but I can't find them. Everyone seems to use a Hammond aluminum box, but that's not quite what I'm after.

If you can help, just drop me a note in the comments.

DIY Soda, Root Beer and Pop

You experiment with gadgets and gizmos, so why not create your own soft drinks and root beer? Not only are home brews usually healthier and cheaper than anything you'll find in stores, a DIY soft drink offers the opportunity to create something completely different -- at least by today's corn syrupy standards.

Stephen Cresswell is a history professor and avid homebrewer of beer and soft drinks. His 128 page guide, Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop offers dozens of easy to follow recipes that will unlock the secrets of old-fashioned root beer, cream soda, ginger beer, sarsaparilla soda and dozens of other almost-forgotten drinks.

He starts by tracing the history of root beers in American history, before walking you through the equipment you'll need to produce batches of your favorites. The first recipes in the book are classics -- root beer and ginger ale. These are followed by some more modern concoctions. There's even an entire chapter dedicated to devising your own unique beverages.

Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop is only $10 at Amazon

DIY: The Terminalscope

Matt Sarnoff's Terminalscope is a VT100 compatible bidirectional serial terminal that displays a 54x24 character raster display on your workbench oscilloscope. Apart from the lack of an 80-column mode, the display is strikingly similar to the old VT100s I once wrangled. It features a flicker-free 60Hz screen update, 7-bit ASCII character set, reverse video and selectable bit rate from 2400-38400 bps.

Sarnoff explains what makes his design special: "A great thing about the Terminalscope is its simplicity. Other scope projects require an expensive DAC or an inaccurate R-2R ladder. Rather than draw each character with individual strokes, op-amps are used to generate a raster scan across the screen (like a TV) and the Z axis (beam intensity) is modulated directly by the microcontroller."

Full source code and a schematic diagram are available on his site, and you're encouraged to build upon this project to create something even cooler.

Terminalscope Serial Console [via Hack A Day]

Monchron Clock Plays An Endless Game Of Pong

Limor Fried is the engineer/artist/mad inventor behind Adafruit Industries. Her latest DIY gadget is the $80 Monochron pong clock kit.

Based around a custom white-on-black 128x64 pixel LCD, this unique timepiece plays an endless game of Pong, advancing the time when one of the sides loses a point. It includes battery backup, switchable 12/24 hour display and even a snooze alarm. Best of all, the design is completely open source -- you're free to muck with the software and hardware as much as you wish.

Monochron Pong Clock

Build Your Own 1977 35mm LogiKit Camera

If you're lucky, you'll never outgrow building with Lego and plastic model kits. It's fun to construct miniature versions of real-life cars and airplanes and tanks (and blowing them up with firecrackers, but that's another story). It's possibly even more fun to build something that you can use in real-life, at 1:1 scale. The LogiKit Camera kit assembles into a fully working 35mm camera.

Building something from the inside out helps you learn all about it, and the LogiKit is no exception. By following along in the thorough manual, Kids from 1977 could learn how lenses work, how film is exposed, and the sophisticated mechanism inside - even in this simplified version pf a 35mm still camera. The LogiKit assembles into a scaled down model of the real thing, rather than looking like a kid-ified version (which I always remembered disliking as a youth).

You could still offer something like the LogiKit today, though kids would question the value of what they learn about film photography. Why go through the challenges of building your own camera to coax images out of an antiquated medium, when their cellphones take pictures easily and for free? Are there kits out there to build a digital camera? What would a child learn by dropping an assembled circuit board into a plastic case? It's interesting to consider that by putting photography within the reach of so many, it is also out of reach in other ways.

Though I haven't found anyone yet, I wonder if there are any artists out there using the LogiKit to take pictures now? Having the camera come to you in pieces begs for adding cool modifications while building the camera from the ground up. There's got to be somebody, right?

We have covered many low-end cameras here on Retro Thing, such as the Diana. Some photographers embrace toy cameras and the imperfect images they create. Because toy & kit cameras are so tempermental, the photographer invites the camera to be part of the process - an all-plastic collaborator.

Since relative perfection is easy to achieve with a digital camera, I think that those who want to take a more experimental approach to photography will keep discovering old toy cameras. I have a couple of ideas of my own for such low-grade cameras, but building one from the ground up might be a little more than my little brain can stand.

related:

Sony's Transistor Radio Kit
Heathkit's Woodgrain Pong Kit
Gakken's 8mm Movie Camera Kit

Building A Decatron Clock

E. Barbour writes, "Former Philips engineer Ronald Dekker is famous for his website full of unusual construction projects. He now has built a digital clock that uses Dekatron (or decatron) tubes as displays."

Decatrons feature a ring of cathodes driven by a control voltage. They were first introduced in 1950, and this is the first I've heard of them.

They're the forefather of Nixie tubes, which usually contain ten cathodes in the shape of the numbers 0 through 9, and a wire mesh anode. When electricity is passed between one of the cathodes and the anode, the corresponding number shines with an endearing orangey-red glow. In contrast, the decatron is only capable of producing an array of glowing dots.

Dekker decided to build a decatron clock controlled by a modern PIC microcontroller.

He explains, "Surfing the web, the most popular thing to make with a decatron seems to be a spinner. Looking at these spinners I thought it would be a nice idea to make a clock with six (or perhaps even seven) decatrons in a row, with the decatrons showing all kinds of display effects. Instead of simply incrementing the time every new second, it would be great to have a display of forward- and backward-spinning digits, slowly rolling-out to the new time, a little bit like the reels of a slot machine."

The circuit and software is now complete, and the only thing remaining is the case. Dekker has decided to use a mirror mounted at a 45 degree angle to allow reading the digits while the tubes are mounted in a vertical position. The final result should be a unique modern timepiece that brilliantly integrates forgotten technology from the 1950s.

Decatron Clock Project

DIY: A Retired Kodak Chemist's Dream Machine

You're looking at a homemade film coating machine created by a retired Kodak Australia employee. Plastic goes in one end, and finished film comes out the other. It sounds simple, but it's the technical equivalent of a JPL engineer deciding to build a rocket ship in his garage.

When Kodak's Australian Kodachrome lab operation shut down, the Unnamed Chemist was able to get his hands on some vital bits and pieces to help build his dream machine. Still, many additional parts and thousands of hours of fabrication were required.

Nevertheless, imagine the freedom of being able to manufacture your own version of the classic Kodachrome film emulsion. Just remember that processing your new film will be every bit as convoluted.

The fellow who took these photos reports, "The last year or so [2007] has been mainly taken up with trying to remove the problem of uneven layering of the emulsion that shows up as regular 'banding' pattern on the finished product. The problem had been isolated to the drive roller, and was assumed to be gearbox chatter. A *lot* of time and expense was used to track this down, and eventually a high-res stepper motor and drive all but removed the problem. The banding that is left is due to the coating roller by the looks, being a high-speed unit running on low speed the bearings will need to be either replaced or maybe we could get away with repacking them with a light oil rather than grease.

Thank you for the interest, I thought it was far too interesting to be left in the dark in a garage. While the builder uses the net for research rather than "social" uses, I will endeavour to get him into the forum, it looks like it will be one he will enjoy."

As of November, 2009, the machine remains under development.

Flickr: DIY Film Coating Machine