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Tools of our times
November 1, 2006

FIGURE 1

A machine shop drill press sitting by the side of the road with a “for sale” sign; a vintage camera flash attachment found at the bottom of a storage closet; and a Bic lighter purchased this Halloween, designed to light luminaries—after spending my workdays sitting in front of a computer monitor working with state-of-the-art software, it is refreshing to consider some of the simple yet impressively practical mechanical tools we take for granted.

The lighter is one of those things that I wish I’d thought of—a regular grill lighter, but with a positionable wand that can point straight down to light a candle down at the bottom of a paper luminary bag—wonderfully simple, extremely handy. The flash is also marvelously clever. A Heiland Tilt-a-mite flash with hotfoot for a 35 mm camera, it has a dish designed like a fan (Figure 1)—which hooks in two positions to narrow or widen the flash area, and folds up on itself to store tucked next to the flash body (Figure 2).

FIGURE 2

The drill press is a very different tool—a monster of a machine, it looks like it provided many years of reliable service before being set by the side of the road in search of a new owner. It reminds me of another sort of vintage press, the kind that would have churned out magazines back in the 1920s. Back then, setting up a magazine page meant working with metal and wood instead of spending the day staring at a computer monitor. A simpler, easier time, right? In a favorite column of mine, Gene Gable, formerly president of the Seybold Seminars and Publications (which closed its doors in March 2004), writes about his experiences setting up a letterpress (yes, really) print shop. In his first installment of “Heavy metal madness” back in February 2003, Gable introduces his adventure, which turns out to be anything but simple and easy.

Posted by Naomi Eigner Price on November 1, 2006 | Comments (0)