Originally Posted by
seedsbelize
The only quarter inch drive ratchet handle I own is made from two pieces of heavy guage sheet metal riveted together, with the wheel sandwiched in between. It has a toggle on each side of the wheel to adjust direction of pull. How old is it? I would guess at least 60 and likely more. It works perfectly. Why would I buy a new one?
And in the same vein, sort of, my Chromebook, this morning, for the second time in as many months, failed to recognize the password I use several times daily, to wake it in the morning and from sleep throughout the day. I set a new one and, in order to not wipe out all the local data, I had to put in the last password I remembered. The one I used yesterday. Nope. No good.
How about a picture of that ratchet?
When my wife got her doctorate from MIT, someone connected with the Sloane family or GE gave all graduates a few years subscription to a slim and elegant quarterly called
Invention and Technology or something, curated by the Smithsonian and funded by GE. Anyway, it had fantastic articles on the history of technologies and always had a feature on some working factory, mill, or shop, with machinery from the 19th century or something. We paid for it after the freeby expired, but it disappeared. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a magazine more.