The forgotten and under rated tools

[Frank S]

I named this thread the forgotten and under rated tools as a reminder that we often use tools we don't even think about.
Several years ago I was rummaging through stacks of old spiral bound note books where I had doddled some of my designs and builds over time.
in one of my note books I found where I had completely laid out the design for an enclosed cab and EROPS to fit an older cat loader that Cat had never made a EROPS for. In another I found almost the complete hand sketched drawings for a 120 ft tall drill rig derrick that I made for a 10,000 ft oil rig I found my sketches for the designs of an annular Blow out preventer I had reverse engineered from pictures of factory made BOP's
Thinking that someday I might want to share these or maybe I might even need to make some of those things again I scanned the pages into my computer because I figured that would be a better way of retaining those cherished old sketches and drawings than just in the note books.
Well the note books are long gone now but tonight while searching for something totally unrelated I came across the folder.
Into my own personal rabbit hole I gleefully traveled And what should I find but the sketches of the ARMS of Destruction that I mentioned in another thread.



the loader cab

the Blow out preventer

"A"legs for the derrick

A 5 ton come a long with epecyclic gearing

These were from the late 70's to early 80's I haven't gone through the whole folder yet but I found my design for a 1000 HP twin drum winch (draw-works for a drill rig)
Most things I designed and made I usually just made a few sketches to lock down my idea then built them or had workers help build them there was no need for a complete set of prints for many of the things except for things like the oil derrick since I had to get that singed off and certified
I just thought I would share a few of the things

[Frank S]

Among these was a Sail boat hull cleaning system I proposed to the FT. Worth Boat club.
It consisted of a pair of flexible shafts with nylon bristles the shafts were hollow and foam filled to give partial buoyancy. each was powered by a small gasoline engine and a belt reduction system. mounted in a frame on pontoons it could be towed through the harbor then moored to the ends of a couple of boat slips then a sail boat merely passed through the rotating brushes. After building it we discovered it cleaned the removable dagger board Keeled boats well enough but the larger boats with fixed keels were more trouble to clean with the machine than the results were worth. but the addition of several high pressure spray wands to assist in loosening the hull fouling algae helped immensely the problem was though in containment and removal of the algae from the water. submersible panels had to be made and a pump system to pump out the algae filter the water and return it to the lake proved the whole set up more expensive to maintain and meet water purity levels than could be economically justified so the thing was scrapped after only 1 season of use
Here are a couple of the sketches I found in my note books another completely forgotten tool since I don't have any pictures anymore of many of these things