"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
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/

Joe Gwinn

You MAY be right, but I don't think so - the things fit nicely over one's
mouth, but not over one's nose or certainly not nose and mouth, so that
would suggest it's not for anesthesia - but it might be part of a pilot's
breathing aparatus where one could reasonably breathe through the mouth, or
it might go with a separate rubber seal and cover more volume - all in all,
quite a mystery. -

I'm actually kinda surprised someone hasn't said "oh yeah, those things - I
used to use them when I ....... " because there is so much variety on this
group.


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