Ferrari Mailing List: Re: A little OT - car projects

[Rick Moseley (ramosel]

Doug,

ahhh... here's a bit of engineering history that will eat up some brain cells you'll never get back.

Back in the late 1800s as cast iron stoves became prevalent, they didn't really have good techniques for fastening Stove pipes together.  No real flanging or crimping tools and you didn't want to rivet them together as periodically you need to disassemble to clean them.  You need to be able to carefully take them apart so you don't get soot everywhere.   Early on they would bolt them together but the steel/iron bolts A) would never stay tight through heat cycling and B) would oxidize and lock up so you couldn't take them apart.  Daniel Stover created copper/brass/bronze nuts with an ovaled, crushed, elyptical, (take your pick of terms) top.  These were the first locking nuts that would NOT oxidize and lock up and they WOULD stay tight through heat cycles.   These have since morphed into today's AN nuts or "Jet" Nuts. 

The botched part of history is most people who were "not in the know" dropped the "R" from his name and called them "Stove nuts" cuz you could use them on your "Stove pipes"...  But look closely in any hardware catalog and officially they still call them Stover Nuts. 

Daniel Stover's other claim to fame is as the inventor of the Coaster Brake used on bicycles the world over.  Originally sold as a "back-pedal safety bike".   One of those Americans you never heard of who changed the world.

Thus endeth the lesson, we return you to your normal not Ferrari, but RR content.

Rick

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From: Doug & Terri <dnt [at] dock.net>

Rick asks “Fixed your coaster brake did ya?   Who invented the coaster brake?  And what other piece of mechanical hardware is he given botched (but deserved) credit for?”

 

“Fixed”?  BUWHAhahahahaha.  It never was the same.  But I learned “3 in 1 Oil” is hygroscopic.  I also don’t believe that Henry Ford “fixed” watches at the age of 7 or 10 or 3.  BS.

 

So who invented it - - - Bendix comes to mind but that name is echoing in my time trapped mind like someone yelling the name down a 5 foot tall water drain pipe (we used to explore those too).

 

Bendix or I may be confusing it with the guy who played Babe Ruth or was the goofball neighbor of Gilles when television was young.  Not as far back as Philo T. Farnsworth but just post Howdy Doody.  (ohhh, that Indian chick – picture an eight year old slathering for strange reasons he doesn’t yet understand – heh heh)

 

So, no, I don’t really know the inventor of the coaster brake and other botched inventions.

 

DOUG

(and yeah – I love ask and argue people.  Although I wouldn’t screw with them on a brake question – I have been known to give certifiably incorrect, REAL incorrect, answers).