On Sat, 24 May 2008 09:59:13 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm,
Joseph Gwinn quickly quoth:

In article ,
"William Noble" wrote:

I just sent off a jpeg of a couple of "mystery funnels" to the drop box
(http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/mystery-funnels.JPG) - below is the
contents of the accompanying text file - I'd sure appreciate it if someone
recognized what these things are - they could be for oxygen masks, or maybe
a "pilot relief tube", or ??? I'm trying to figure out if they are
something worth keeping after all these years, or if I make them into a
sculpture or a lamp or something like that.



here are two "mystery funnels" - the slots near hte rim look like they would
take elastic, the end of the tube part has a small lump like you would use
with medical style rubber hose, the OD of the tubing part is .370 inches.
They are 2.5 inches wide, made out of brass, I believe, and chrome plated on
the outside - I got them in a big pile of stuff many years ago from a guy
who had sold his house to move out of state (to a nursing home perhaps) and
had a lot of aircraft surplus from the old Douglas plant where they built
DC-3s (clover field in Santa Monica), but I have no particular reason to
believe these are aircraft related, though they may be.

What the heck are they?

My suspicion is that they are medical facemasks for the mouth, probably
used for ether or nitrous oxide anaesthesia circa 1900.
http://www.oyston.com/history/

Nah, they're portapeckers for girls. Now women everywhere can write
their name in the snow with the best of us!


--

"Be the change you want to see in the world." --Mahatma Gandhi
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