Anyone recognize this piece of hardware?

Keith Bolog · Post by **Keith Bolog** » 15 Apr 2014 7:35 pm

If you can identify it and want to save it from the scrap heap Ill mail it to you. It came in the case of a Williams guitar I bought. Or if its essential tell me what to do with it. Seems like a volume pedal platform ? but it doesnt go anywhere.

Chris Lucker · Post by **Chris Lucker** » 15 Apr 2014 11:45 pm

I think it is a corrective bite device designed to prevent snoring.

Roger Francis · Post by **Roger Francis** » 16 Apr 2014 6:27 am

kinda looks like an alignment tool for the changer key head or necks, just a guess!

Marco Schouten · Post by **Marco Schouten** » 16 Apr 2014 6:32 am

Tuning fork for tempered tuning

Bill Moran · Post by **Bill Moran** » 16 Apr 2014 10:06 am

Heck ! That's a tuning wrench for a push-pull !

Russ Wever · Post by **Russ Wever** » 16 Apr 2014 10:10 am

Do you know where this comes from?
Perhaps a guage for sizing/aligning a
certain part during the building process?
~Rw

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 16 Apr 2014 11:00 am

I'd send it back to Bill Rudolph.

Sonny Jenkins · Post by **Sonny Jenkins** » 16 Apr 2014 12:48 pm

I had a guitar,,,I think it was an Excel,,,that had 2 slots in the pedal bar where the volume pedal sits,,,that looks exactly like those narrow spaced tabs would fit. Yes, I think, almost positive it is some component of a volume pedal.

Craig Baker · Post by **Craig Baker** » 16 Apr 2014 2:33 pm

Erv said it best.

It may be an important jig that's missing. They're probably be holding up the production line while they search all over the place.

Best regards,
Craig Baker 706-485-8792

cmbakerelectronics@gmail.com

C.M. Baker Electronics
P.O. Box 3965
Eatonton, GA 31024

Kenny Brown · Post by **Kenny Brown** » 16 Apr 2014 5:41 pm

If I'm not mistaken that's a 1971 Hohner left handed tuning fork.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 16 Apr 2014 5:46 pm

Erv Niehaus wrote:I'd send it back to Bill Rudolph.

Did the poster say if he bought the guitar from Williams, or did he pick it up used? I would call Bill first.

Ned McIntosh · Post by **Ned McIntosh** » 17 Apr 2014 2:06 am

It's part of a Thronomister, a mark 2b without the flange-warbler lugs. A fairly old unit now. These days the functions of the thronomister have been subsumed by FADEC units.

I'd also send it straight back to Bill Rudolph. He may still be using the good old 2b for an as-yet undocumented purpose.

The Thronomister was linked with the apocryphal turbo-entabulator (hint: Google it). On another forum several years ago I wrote the following explanatory notes which I offer here for clarification:-

"The use of capacitive duractance in the turbo-entabulator, whilst breathtaking in its imaginative use of a little-known form of hydro-reluctance, poses little threat to the almost universal use of current models of thronomisters, especially larger models used in various forms of heavy industrial processing.

Admittedly the effective elimination of side-fumbling is welcome and timely, but the reality is that currrent and future models of thronomisters will use advanced magneto-strictive materials to minimise harmonically-coupled vibration modes, paralleling the action of the turbo-entabulator in its mimising of reciprocating transverse-elastomeric sympathetic flange-eduction and the associated dys-synchronous modes of vibration.

When the downstream vortex cavitation-reduction vanes were introduced in the Mark IIb thronomister (due to the pioneering work of Dale, Parsons, Reicherzen and Leshciwitz at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory), the improvement in efficiency was well in excess of twenty two percent. This a time when even a single decimal-point of improvement was reckoned to be worthy of nomination for an engineering award. It is not widely known, but in aviation circles, the new model was considered worthy of nomination for the Collier Trophy. However, it was up against stiff competition from Kelly Johnson's unique SR-71, and indeed the award did go to the pugnacious but brilliant leader of Lockheed's Skunk Works.

Be that as it may, the Mk IIb was a huge advance in technology. Such a quantum-leap in performance rendered all previous models of thronomister obsolete, and industries began wholesale replacement programs which resulted in lengthy delays due to excessive demand for the latest model of thronomister. The only company producing them, Trans-Global Consolidated Inc (TGCI), was forced to licence production to several competitors in order to satisfy the demand, expecially once several national governments mandated the replacement of inefficient units with the new ones at the earliest available opportunity. The introduction of new fluid dynamic control-valving via solid-state devices was considered to be of national importance by several Western governments. Clearly, stratgeic interests played a part in this decision as well.

With this inadvertant technology transfer, TGCI was forced by necessity to further refine the thronomister, and in highly-secure laboratories and workshops the Mark III was actively researched, prototypes built, tested under conditions of extreme secrecy, and the resulting device put into low-volume initial production, with both left and right-handed versions as well as the so-called "Universal" model which was in fact limited to relatively few operational environments. By the mid 70s, the new device was well-developed and TGCI was sufficiently encouraged to contemplate initial production runs with operational testing in selected installation of highly-trusted users.

Teething problems with the "Universal" were solved by the removal of the Clydson-bar and replacing it with oscillating perforated spray-bar and metering-valve with a transverse ripple-wave modulator control-unit. Fortunately this entailed no major re-design and was field-replaceable by a single technician in a few hours. The left and right-handed devices worked as expected almost from the first day of installation, a tribute to the engineering excellence of the TGCI designers and tool-makers.

The Mk III was an amalgam of the MkIIb with elements of the turbo-entabulator's control and monitoring modules, coupled with massively improved collophane-apatite bearing-liners, reductible flange-expanders and inter-quaternary medial flow-reducers, fitted with proto-cavitational turbuliths and modified Heath-Vanes, resulting in smoother transitions from the primed state to the full reverse-flow condition, in particular. This has always been troublesome, even in the Mk IIb. Although Mk IIb and MK III models are interchangeable in any given application, they can be visually distinguished by the red vertical index-line under the small glass viewing-window at the junction of the outer Whipsnade housing and the main recombinator body-joint. In the Mk IIb it is half an inch wide and two inches long. In the Mk III it is only an eight of an inch wide, but six inches long, meaning the units can be differentiated visually by a competent technician on sight.

Internally, mass-transfer coefficients went up from the initial value of 25 kiloquots to an astonishing 1.2 Tera-quots, with a 2dB reduction in noise (A-weighted). Hallowing was also reduced by the addition of an extra pair of rotary Horgel-nozzles, acting in a similar manner to the well-known Voith Impeller, with elements of the Schottelrudder cleverly worked into the design.

As a result, the Mk III became the device aggressively marketed by TGCI once the industry had realised the Mk IIb was in fact a transitional device, and the massive gains to be had in overall efficiency once the fully-developed Mk III was released for sale.

Incremental devlopment has occurred continuously since then, leading to the diverse range of highly-efficient and cost-effective thronomisters we know today. Whether embedded deep within a turbofan engine on the wing of a large passenger aircraft, hidden in the bowels of the reactor-room on a nuclear aircraft carrier, secreted away inside major industrial plants or the miniature version widely used in pacemakers (the "Nanomister"), the current range of Mk VI and VII thronomisters, complete with their consensual dual-integrated software management, control and monitoring processor-modules shows just how ubiquitous these handy devices have become in a high-tech world.

The recent introduction of IP-address remote-programming and software update capability, coupled with rapid download of recorded parameters for off-site performance monitoring and fault-diagnosis, has meant that once installed, current thronomisters will have service lives well in excess of twenty years, with few or no maintenance calls during their operational time on-site. With the European requirement for recyclability at the end of the life of the device, many sub-assemblies may well be updated, re-worked, zero-timed and find their way into future versions of this vital piece of technical equipment. And, if by chance some further elements of the turbo-entabulator should happen to find their way into future models, well, that's a form of technology transfer too."

(Note: I was taken to task on the mass-transfer coefficient figures, but the mathematics quoted by my challenger was held to be somewhat dubious)

Sonny Jenkins · Post by **Sonny Jenkins** » 17 Apr 2014 6:23 am

What'd he say????

Bill Rudolph · Post by **Bill Rudolph** » 17 Apr 2014 6:44 am

Players put a lot of strange stuff in their cases...
This being one of them.
Never saw anything like it in my life.
Bill Rudolph, Williams Guitar Co., LLC.

Steve Lipsey · Post by **Steve Lipsey** » 17 Apr 2014 9:26 am

Ned-
I am quite familiar with the turbo-encabulator, I suspect that the turbo-entabulator (with a "t", not a "c", see Wikipedia) is the more advanced version that also has lower duractance. Is this correct? I've been losing sleep over wondering about this thorny issue!

Ned McIntosh · Post by **Ned McIntosh** » 17 Apr 2014 9:47 am

Steve, I really am not sure about the differences. When I spoke to a doctor friend of mine about it, he suggested I should get my head lanced!

Jason Putnam · Post by **Jason Putnam** » 17 Apr 2014 10:25 am

I can't believe you guys don't know what that is!! Hello!! It's obviously a field goal post for paper foot ball !!! duh!!

Jim Cooley · Post by **Jim Cooley** » 17 Apr 2014 10:42 am

Steve Lipsey wrote:Ned-
I am quite familiar with the turbo-encabulator, I suspect that the turbo-entabulator (with a "t", not a "c", see Wikipedia) is the more advanced version that also has lower duractance. Is this correct? I've been losing sleep over wondering about this thorny issue!

One more instance of confusing duractance with conpedance-a very common and understandable occurrence. Then again, it might be incapacitance. Does that mean I'm incapacitated?

Steve Lipsey · Post by **Steve Lipsey** » 17 Apr 2014 10:46 am

No, Jim, my conpedant raises my G# to 3.14, clearly into the duractance range...unless, of course, you subscribe to the apocryphal stroboscopic JI theory of duractance.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 17 Apr 2014 11:11 am

I believe that Mr. McIntosh may be guilty of plagiarism. (And if I were Bill Hankey, I'd sue the pants off him...)

Scott Duckworth · Post by **Scott Duckworth** » 17 Apr 2014 11:40 am

It is a metal widget that you use to work on a what-cha-ma-call-it. Come on guys! Didn't you know that?

Sonny Jenkins · Post by **Sonny Jenkins** » 17 Apr 2014 1:18 pm

It may be the jetlin device that goes on the gatlin rod,,,,without it the apparatus will not gashuate.

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 17 Apr 2014 1:28 pm

It's definitely not an interrociter........

Michael Maddex · Post by **Michael Maddex** » 17 Apr 2014 4:16 pm

It is a Boot Jack.

Keith Bolog · Post by **Keith Bolog** » 17 Apr 2014 5:25 pm

Its a golf divot repair tool. If you think that's big, you should see my balls.

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Anyone recognize this piece of hardware?

Anyone recognize this piece of hardware?

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Tuning Fork

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