Private Tour today...pics

[Todd Wilson]

Our Wheat State ATHS truck club got to tour 3 private collections today in Salina Kansas. First stop was a museum of sorts. Lots of stuff to look at.

2nd stop was a private car collection. The highlights were several old Rolls Royce units.   3rd was a shop of a fellow member to see some of his projects.

http://www.chargerfever.com/salinatour09/index.html

Now this is a shop!


Anyone know what this machine is?

[WingCharger]

Anyone know what this machine is?

That was a old x-ray machine shoe shops used in the early 1900's. It showed a x-ray of a foot inside a shoe and was supposed to help find a better fitting shoe.

Cool shop. Lot of tractors.

[Chad L. Magee]

Anyone know what this machine is?

That was a old x-ray machine shoe shops used in the early 1900's. It showed a x-ray of a foot inside a shoe and was supposed to help find a better fitting shoe.

Cool shop. Lot of tractors.

Dang it, he beat me to it!  Good job on that one, WingCharger.  We had a class discussion of those particular instruments in a Nuclear Chemistry course (about early misuses of radiation, such as radium watch dials).  While it did potentially injure the person with the feet in the holes (gives them a high dose X-ray), the person who got the major dose of radiation was the person running the instrument, since they recieved multiple X-rays worth of radiation per day of use.  It only had very minimal shielding since the damaging effects of radiation were not fully understood at that point in time.....

[Todd Wilson]

You are both right! There was atv show on a while back that got into great detail of x ray technolgy and they talked about this machine. Its a creepy machine. There were some still in use in the 40's and I think early 50's. I am surprised this one still had a plug on it.  Glad I dont own one. I'd try and get it going!   


Todd

[Chad L. Magee]

You are both right! There was atv show on a while back that got into great detail of x ray technolgy and they talked about this machine. Its a creepy machine. There were some still in use in the 40's and I think early 50's. I am surprised this one still had a plug on it.  Glad I dont own one. I'd try and get it going!   


Todd

I used to work in a radiation laboratory (low level depleated U was used in the production of some various inorganic U complexes, not part of my project).  The radiation training programs pointed to such items in history to show what happens when you don't handle radioactive materials properly and with care.  Granted at the time, most people did not know better (green depression glazes on their plates was also used to point this fact out).  Speaking of which.....

Double Nobel lauriet Marie Curie died from radiation exposure (blood cancer) from the various radioactive samples that had been stored in a laboratory desk.  Her husband, who also was a Nobel lauriet, died in an carrage accident, but was widely speculated that he had exposed himself to multiple high levels of radiation sorces that would have eventually given him the same fate.  Desk wood will stop alpha (He nucleus) and beta (electron) radiation, but not the powerful gammas (or similar x-rays).  One famous photo that they took later on was of the crude x-ray effect of one of their hands, a dose that would be equivalent to many modern x-ray scans......

I can go on and on (and on) about science stuff, but I don't want to bore everyone to death here (like the safety classes I had to sit through).....

Nice pictures by the way....

[Todd Wilson]

Explain the green depression glass glaze in more detail? They use a product with radiation in it to make the green?  All that stuff is really interesting to me!   Was there any danger from this shoe machine the way it sits right now or was it only dangerous plugged in and running?


Todd

[Chad L. Magee]

Explain the green depression glass glaze in more detail? They use a product with radiation in it to make the green?  All that stuff is really interesting to me!   Was there any danger from this shoe machine the way it sits right now or was it only dangerous plugged in and running?


Todd

The green glazes contained some uranium oxides, a low level radioactive agent.  (I think that was the color for them, but it might be orange or possibly red.  I suffer from color blindness which complicates my recolection of remembering what it looked like.)  The color of the glaze came from the additives (such as UOx) that they used to coat the clay before firing.  The uranium glaze is relatively inert to skin contact (can be rinsed off with water for removal) and is found in some soils.  But, if you happen to ingest it (like when you scrape a knife across the plate while cutting a piece of food and then eat it).....

The x-rays from the shoe machine were produced from a source (upon excitation) by charged particles (electricity).  So, it would have to be plugged in (and running) to emit the dangerous x-rays that it is known for.  Since a shoe shop would likely have left it turned on most of the time back then, the amount of radiation it emitted during its working lifetime would have been large.  I have used an instrument in my research that does a similar thing, except instead of your feet, it measured the x-ray images of a single crystal of a particular substance (x-ray diffraction technique).  From the massive amounts of data, the crystal structure could be determined, thus proving without much doubt what you had produced.  The XRD machine used very thick leaded glass for protection while operational.....

Consequently, I found a web site that claimed one of the shoe machines was still operating in a store as late as 1981, eventhough a law had been in effect since 1970 banning them.......

[Todd Wilson]

My mom has a red depression glass collection. Wonder if its red?! HEHE!   I figured the shoe machine was probably safe without power but was not sure if it had a piece of something in it to help produce the radiation. Very interesting stuff............we should start a radiation post and you can enlighten us with all the details!


Todd

[Todd Wilson]

Its green and yellows.............

http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer%20products/vaseline.htm


They were tougher in the old days!  No wonder smoking wasnt bad for you back then! 


Todd

[Chad L. Magee]

My mom has a red depression glass collection. Wonder if its red?! HEHE!   I figured the shoe machine was probably safe without power but was not sure if it had a piece of something in it to help produce the radiation. Very interesting stuff............we should start a radiation post and you can enlighten us with all the details!


Todd

If you can get your hands on a Gieger-Muller counter (most people call it a Gieger counter which is incorrect), they should ping off pretty well due to the betas (and others) being emitted from the daughter products.  I picked up one off of ebay a few years ago, but have not got around to using it much (it is a collectable 1961 cold war model).  My old radium pocket watch would put the GM counter in my laboratory to max on the second highest setting, but not the first (if it could do that, I would not be handling the watch).  It was missing the cover glass (I covered it with a spare during storage), so alot of the alphas got picked up by the detector.  It was donated it to a radiochemist there at MU for display during his teaching sessions on radioactivity.  You are correct in that the shoe machine had a source that created the x-ray radiation, but I can't remember what it is off the top of my head (after looking it up, it was a Mo source).  If you think a post on radiation is viable here, I will start one, but I try not to force science on others that do not want to know about it.  I learned that the hard way from posting on another car website about a similar scientific topic.  A few members there started making it too political and it was soon locked up by the mods......

[Magnumcharger]

Off topic discussion....bring it on.
I'm studying Radiography right now as part of my Non-Destructive testing certification.

[Chad L. Magee]

Off topic discussion....bring it on.
I'm studying Radiography right now as part of my Non-Destructive testing certification.

OK, I will start the topic there.....

[Chatt69chgr]

The orange/red fiesta ware used a uranium oxide in the glaze.  They quit making that color in the 50's I think.  You can find pieces of this in antique shops still. 
I made a X-ray machine for a science fair project in high school.  It's really easy to make one.  We took a Xray picture of a frozen fish.  We were very careful and put it in a lead box we made when we were operating it.
I also took a radiograph of a key using a specimen of the mineral carnotite which has uranium oxide in it.  Worked real good.
And finally---when I was a kid in the early 50's, they had one of those shoe machines at Sears in Knoxville, TN.  They used it to fit my shoes.  When my mother wasn't looking, I snuck back over there and looked at the bones in my foot myself.  No telling how many XRAY scans that was equivalent to.

[Magnumcharger]

You still have that foot?

[moparguy01]

so you must have seen Roger's collection in Salina. Cant remember his last name though. only 1 guy in those parts has that many vintage Rolls Royce.

[Todd Wilson]

so you must have seen Roger's collection in Salina. Cant remember his last name though. only 1 guy in those parts has that many vintage Rolls Royce.

He spoke a lot abut the college. I figured you had been there to check out the units.


Todd

[rustafarian]

There's a place in Minden NE called Harold Worp's Pioneer Village that's similar to this but much much much more stuff. 
  I was there in '89.

[472 R/T SE]

so you must have seen Roger's collection in Salina. Cant remember his last name though. only 1 guy in those parts has that many vintage Rolls Royce.

I know it's far fetched but my uncle collects & restores old tractors.  He moved back to the Salina area IIRC a decade or so ago.  And his name's Roger.

Wander what this guy's last name is?

[Lost Sheep]

thats crazy cause my dad's name is Roger and he collects and restores tractors as well.

[moparguy01]

im sure its not the same Roger, the fella I'm talking about doesnt really do tractors. but i sure cant think of his last name. morton? something like that.

[472 R/T SE]

My uncle Roger is unique.  A big boy w/ a speech impediment. 

Years ago when I'd go back home I'd show pix of my cars' and he'd have pix of all his tractors'.