I live in such a weird place

[Roger Feeley]

Photo below from a display in a local church.
The church was originally built in 1869.
The display was put together in 1969.

Read the card.

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[Jim Koepke]

Beside it not being a lathe…

It must have been a pre-production model. Patrick Leach lists the Stanley transitional planes as starting production in 1870.

jtk

[Roger Feeley]

Jim, that was about the best laugh I’ve had in a long time.

Truthfully, some of these folks inside the beltway just have no concept of how stuff is made or works. They understand the levers of power but it’s all in the abstract.

ive had a few of the ignorant ones over to the shop when I help their kids work on pinewood derby cars and the like. It can be a real eye opener for them.

note to moderator: there is no partisan point of view here. I meet people from all over the political spectrum and all suffer equally. To be fair, there are exceptions.

[David Bassett]

Beside it not being a lathe…

It must have been a pre-production model. Patrick Leach lists the Stanley transitional planes as starting production in 1870.

jtk

OK, it's clearly not a lathe.

But big buildings take a long time, (more so historically,) and it's plausible an 1870 plane was used on a building that broke earth in 1869 (especially if that's late '69 and early '70. But I don't know about that.)

[Bill Orbine]

For 49 years the mistake was left there? I would think somehow the display was shuffled around sometime after the church's centennial.

[John K Jordan]

It would be kind to let them know about the mistake.

[Jim Koepke]

OK, it's clearly not a lathe.

But big buildings take a long time, (more so historically,) and it's plausible an 1870 plane was used on a building that broke earth in 1869 (especially if that's late '69 and early '70. But I don't know about that.)

Do the records of buildings indicate the completion date or the start date?

My understanding is it is usually the date of completion. Of course this may be in error.

Besides, the sign is for the lathe that was used in building the church.

At least the plane doesn't have a Liberty Cap which would date it later.

It also appears to be pre-lateral. This is where it gets interesting since on the bench plane type study it shows type 5 from 1885 to 1888 as being the first to have the lateral lever. Though the patents on the lever include one from 1876.

jtk

[Steve Demuth]

Truthfully, some of these folks inside the beltway just have no concept of how stuff is made or works. They understand the levers of power but it’s all in the abstract.

I wonder what fraction of people laughing at that mistake have anything more than the vaguest notion how the machines that brought that picture and those words into their eyesight are made or work? It wouldn't be large. Or, to go in an entirely different direction, how many could explain the difference between how you propagate apples to get consistent varieties vs how you do it for tomatoes?

My point is just that the world is full of things upon which we depend every day that most people - inside or outside the beltway - don't understand and couldn't name or explain.

[Brian Elfert]

I would guess updates have been made to the display since 1969. The sign looks more like it was done on a modern computer and printed with a laser or inkjet printer. I doubt something laminated in 1969 would still look that crisp and new. Older plastic tended to not age as well as more modern plastics.

[Wayne Lomman]

Well said John. Cheers

[Julie Moriarty]

Obviously it's only part of a lathe. The missing parts are the two guys holding the piece of wood and turning it furiously in their hands while the guy in the middle holds the "lathe cutter" pictured and rounds the wood. Easy peasy.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Heck, that is minor. I live next to a town where both the town and the school are named after a bar. In this town, there are more tattoo parlors than dentists, more karate studios than doctors, 8 hair salons and one barber. Where the town has a much enforced ordinance prohibiting unlicensed, uninspected vehicles within the town limits, but the former three term mayor, in his back yard, has a 1990's van covered in leaves, with four flat tires, no inspection and a license tag last renewed in 2003. Oh and owners of dogs, who bark between midnight and 6 am may be fined. The way it was written applies to the owner barking, not the dog. And last, their parking meters were declared illegal under state law and they still went around giving tickets for expired meters knowing that each time a ticket was given the meter maid was committing a misdemeanor under state law. Oh also, the junior high school was built entirely outside the school district, as in the geography of a neighboring school district. When a country club in the neighboring school district came up for sale, our school district bought it, closed it, but for four years has paid to mowed the fairways and greens. When the school future farmers scheduled a "drive your tractor to school day," the town police waited at the town limits to write tickets. When an imfamous local guy died, his family dug a hole in the back yard and buried him. They placed a small marker over the grave. The town council went nuts. Couldn't do a thing, seems they never passed an ordinance prohibiting graves in residential areas.