Sunday’s ad is entitled Working on the Community Drive, and the illustration was done in 1955 by Douglass Crockwell. It’s #113 in a series entitled “Home Life in America,” also known as the Beer Belongs series of ads that the United States Brewers Foundation ran from 1945 to 1956. In this ad, a group of well-dressed men and women are in someone’s large, nicely appointed home, apparently Working on the Community Drive. There are envelopes, an address book, a list, index cards and someone using a pen. It looks old school and very low-tech, but then again in 1955 a computer like the IBM 702 (which was first built that year) took up a very large room and had to be leased from Big Blue, so it may have been out of the reach of the neighborhood community drive. Maybe that’s why they’re serving beer.
Archives for July 24, 2016
Patent No. 3045679A: Hop Picker
Today in 1962, US Patent 3045679 A was issued, an invention of Fritz Kibinger and Hans Eder, for his “Hop Picker.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:
The present invention relates to a device for the harvesting of hops.
In order to sever the strobiles of hops from the branches carried by the bines, a picking device has been proposed having driven shafts on the periphery of a rotary disc, perpendicular to the plane faces thereof, with revolving cutter tools, to which tools gratings were associated fixed to the said disc as supporting means for the material to be separated and as deflectors for the strobiles, the material to be separated being thrown into the space enclosed by the gratings.
Each of the gratings associated with such a rotating cutter tool consisted of two wires, bars or the like, partly curved in the shape of circular arcs, arranged one above the other, the lower being below the plane of the cutter tools. The radius of curvature of each wire, bar or the like in its arcuate range was smaller than the largest radius of the cutter tool, and both wires, bars or the like were connected to one another by deflector bars, preferably of V-shape, extending substantially radially to the axes of the cutter tools. The bends of the deflector bar-s had a distance from the axis of rotation of the associated cutter tool which exceeded the radius of the cutter tool. The spacing between the wires, bars or the like forming the grating, which are to be considered as fixed relative to the axes of rotation of the cutter tools, was so dimensioned that even the smallest strobile could not pass between these wires, bars or the like. A second disc was also associated with the rotary disc above which deflector means and severing means were arranged. Both of these discs were rigidly connected to one another by stays and were mounted on an axle. Between these two discs driving means were provided for the shafts of the cutter tools. Each rotating shaft was provided with several cutter tools arranged one above the others and having associated gratings, and provision was made for varying the spacing of the cutter tools arranged one above the others from one another. Additionally, bars taking part in the rotation may be arranged between any two adjacent cutter tools, which bars move the out material outward.
The use of such a picking device is based on the assumption that the branches severed from the bines are cut into pieces so that the branches had to be cut into pieces either by hand or by a special cutting device before being inserted into the device. This picking device has proved successful as such, but has the disadvantage that the danger of jamming exists when too much of the mate rial is thrown into the picking device.
The present invention has the main object of providing a device for the harvesting of hops which can be used not only for the dividing of branches into pieces, but also for the picking, depending on how its associated components are arranged relative to one another. It is also an object of the present invention to use in a pure severing device the same components as in a picking device. It is yet another object of the invention to effect an improved, and particularly a quicker supply of the material.
Patent No. 654369A: Apparatus For Pasteurizing Beer
Today in 1900, US Patent 654369 A was issued, an invention of Edward Wagner, assigned to the Model Bottling Machinery Company, for his “Apparatus For Pasteurizing Beer.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:
This invention relates to an improved apparatus for pasteurizing beer, the’object being to provide a simple, cheap, and convenient apparatus for treating the bottled beer to destroy the yeast molecules and germs contained therein, whereby further fermentation is prevented.