Frederick Mathushek

Frederick Mathushek (June 9, 1814 - November 9, 1891), was a piano maker working in Worms, in Rhineland, Germany and in the United States at New York City and New Haven, Connecticut during the second half of the nineteenth century. His name continued to be used by several different piano manufacturers through the 1950s, and was filed independently as a trademark for musical instruments in 2005 and 2008.
Worms.
Frederick Mathushek was born in Mannheim, in Baden, June 9, 1814, and apprenticed with a pianomaker of that city until the age of 17, when he travelled visiting piano making facilities in Germany, Austria, Russia, and eventually Paris, before establishing his own workshop in Worms, where he built pianos influenced by those he had seen in the factory of Jean-Henri Pape.
New York, 1850s.
In 1849 Mathushek emigrated to New York (after holding a prominent position with Erard in London, according to his obituary), and worked for John B. Dunham, who was one of the first piano manufacturers to introduce overstringing in America several years earlier. Alfred Dolge wrote Mathushek perfected a simplified press for applying felt covering to piano hammers in 1850, and in 1851 he patented a method for overstringing in cast iron frame square pianos to allow a greater number of strings with larger diameters. The arrangement was intended to improve tone and stability, and it became known as the "sweep scale" because it distributed the strings much farther apart on the sounding board than more conventional methods of stringing.
Mathushek started his own workshop in New York in 1852, and that year listed his address at 118 East 21st street. By 1856 he was listed at 188 Mercer and 72 Prince, and at 252 Fourth street from 1858 through 1861.
Piano historians Daniel Spillane and Alfred Dolge wrote that by 1857 he had been engaged to bring some of Spencer B. Driggs' designs to practical form. Driggs had moved to New York from Detroit, Michigan in 1856 after patenting his "linguine" repeating attachment, and campaigned to improve the piano through a series of patents he concentrated around the construction of violins. The identifying feature was the use of two un-barred sounding boards, one of which was meant to form the bottom of the instrument instead of the usual heavy wooden base or frame, and they were intended to be bent into arches to increase their stiffness and coupled using a sound post.
By late 1859 Mathushek was associated with lawyer Wellington Wells, and coassigned him patents for a repetition action and grand pianos. These overstrung pianos had closely spaced strings arranged at sharp angles to the keyboard following the same principles as the bichord parlor grands introduced in America by Chickering and Sons in the early 1850s (now known as "cocked hats") as well as spinet harpsichords, and were also meant to have "string clamp" bridge agraffes deflecting the strings in order to draw the concave sounding board upwards.
Mathushek & Kuhner.
In 1863 Mathushek was a member of Mathushek & Kühner, a copartnership with Leopold Kuhner, and they were awarded a bronze medal for a "piano of new and elegant shape" at the American Institute Fair that year. The firm was listed at 34 Second Avenue in 1863 and 1864 and 10 Second Avenue by 1866.
Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company.
In 1866 Morris Steinert, who had a music store in New Haven, Connecticut and was a stocking agent for Mathushek & Kuhner, convinced Mathushek to move from New York to superintend a piano manufacturing company newly organized as the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company, on Orange Street, between Chapel and Crown street. Steinert and his co-investors soon sold their interest in the company at a loss. In his 1902 biography, Steinert blamed their lack of success on inexperience in manufacturing and advertisement, as well as "certain difficulties regarding [their] Superintentent"; according to an 1882 account written by Mathushek's grandson, ownership of the company passed to Henry S. Parmelee, who he wrote had been involved from the start but "managed, by certain means...to obtain control of all the stock except that belonging to...Mathushek".
Parmelee (c.1846-1902), had been the junior partner in Parmelee & Son, a short-lived piano manufacturing company formed following a destructive fire at the Parmelee Piano Company's factory at 9 Howard Street in 1865, and which is only listed in the 1866 New Haven Directory. His father, Spencer T. Parmelee, (c.1805-1875) was a wealthy New Haven businessmenwho had previously been president of the Driggs Piano Co. in New York, and who had patented "tuning pin bushings"--individual tubular wooden plugs pressed into a sockets in the cast frame to hold the tuning pins instead of a single structural wooden wrest plank bolted to the frame--and iron frame squares almost entirely lacking wood structural components in 1862 and 1865. His name was applied to pianos built by the Parmelee Piano Co., though he himself does not appear to have been in charge of the firm.
Mathushek Piano Co. was initially listed at 196 Chapel street but by 1869 was listed at 106 Park street, formerly of Parmelee & Sons, and with Spencer T. Parmelee as president and William L. Everitt, treasurer.
Alfred Dolge, who had worked at the factory between 1867 and 1869, wrote the newly formed company conducted a series of experiments in sounding board construction, and reported their preference for the now conventional construction, but they also introduced radical string arrangements in square pianos based on Mathushek's designs. Their tiny 4 feet 10 inch long (147 cm) "Colibri" had earned the highest awards for any piano at the 1867 American Institute fair, and both it and their 6 foot 10 inch long (208 cm) "Orchestral" made use of the entire sounding board instead of only the right hand side as in conventional square pianos. This combination, patented by Mathushek, of straight bridges - the "linear bridge" - and the distribution of strings across the sounding board and iron frame - the "equalizing scale", they claimed, produced "a volume and beauty of tone found elsewhere only in concert grands."
By 1871 the company also offered "harp form" parlor grands as well as concert grands, and within ten years introduced a 5 foot 9 inch (175 cm) long square, and an upright incorporating Parmelee's tuning pin bushings for the purpose of holding tune better than more conventional designs.
Henry S. Parmelee replaced Everitt as treasurer in about 1871, and became president following his father's death in 1875.
In 1880 the Mathushek Piano Mfg. Co. established their own New York warerooms at 23 East 14th street, and advertised having more than 5,000 in use. By 1897 their factory was located at Washington avenue, at the corner of Brown in West Haven, and they advertised having sold more than 30,000 pianos.
The Parmelee Piano Works where Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company's instruments were made had one of the first non-experimental fire sprinklers, installed by M. Seward & Son, of New Haven based on the design patented by Henry S. Parmelee in 1874. Parmelee licensed the patent and improvements on a royalty basis by 1879 to the Providence Steam and Gas Pipe. Henry S. Parmelee patented seven improvements for sprinklers between 1874 and 1882, and also received patents for sounding board construction in 1884 and upright piano cases in 1885, with the central part of the case angled inwards to form a music rest.
Parmelee died in 1902, but the company continued manufacturing at the same address.
New York, 1870s.
According to the account in the 1882 "Music and Drama" article, by 1870 Mathushek had returned to New York and was only nominally associated with the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company; Dolge dated this one year later, when he was listed there in unassigned patents he received for a system compensating wires arranged to counteract the bending strain of the main strings, and vertically bent key levers for upright pianos.
A later account describes that Mathushek manufactured his own pianos through 1873 as a member of Mathushek & Co., with warerooms on 9th street near Broadway and a factory at 145th street and Brook avenue, in partnership with his daughter Hermine, who as early as 1869 was listed as a member of Barlow & Mathushek, with W. S. Barlow selling pianos at 694 Broadway, and that Mathushek continued alone for the next three years, assisted by his grandson who was then "known publicly and privately as the son of Frederick Mathushek.".
In 1874 he was associated with David H. Dunham, of Dunham & Sons, with whom he patented improvements in iron frames and wrestplank bridges, and in 1877 the Mendelssohn Piano Company advertised their latest trichord squares used "Mathushek's new Duplex Overstrung Scale, the greatest improvement in the history of Piano making," and claimed to have received unanimous recommendation for the highest awards at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, where the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Co. had also exhibited pianos.
Mathushek & Son.
In 1879 Frederick and Hugo Mathushek, jr. patented a new arrangement of bridge agraffes combined with a development of the front terminations introduced in the 1860 patent. The bridge arrangement, styled the "equilibre system", involved deflecting the strings alternately toward and away from the soundboard to two different levels of hitchpins - a difference claimed to be as much as 15 degrees in one advertisement - in order to minimize the downward strain applied to the sounding board (which is usually less than 2 degrees with conventional pinned bridges).
The following year, the Mathushek Piano Mfg. Co. cautioned the public against "bogus instruments represented as genuine Mathushek Pianos, at auction sales and elsewhere."
In 1881 "the only genuine Mathushek with the equilibre system" was advertised having been "invented and manufactured by the original Mathusheks in New York", and the public was informed that "Mathushek, New York" should be cast in the iron frame and warned against pianos manufactured in West Haven, Connecticut under the same name.
From 1882 to 1886 the name was claimed by Mathushek & Kinkeldey, at 210 East 129th street, New York, which had been founded by Frederick Mathushek's grandson Victor Hugo Mathushek (who had changed his surname from Doehler legally in early 1876) and who was joined by Charles Kinkeldey, the former superintendent for (John B.) Dunham & Sons, which had failed unexpectedly toward the end of 1880. V. H. Mathushek became sole owner of the company in 1886 and the firm became "Mathushek & Son", located at 108 East 125th street and 242-244 East 122nd street and showed $35,000 in assets in 1887, but in April, 1888 the company was turned over to assignors.
Mathushek & Son was incorporated under the laws of New York in 1890, directed by Frederick and Victor Hugo Mathushek, and Charles and C. Albert Jacob, of piano manufacturers Jacob Brothers, founded by them in 1877 in New York.
Frederick Mathushek died November 9, 1891 at 242 West 123rd street, where he had lived with his grandson for five years. He had been superintendent at Mathushek & Son, at 344 and 346 East 23rd street.
Victor Hugo Mathushek continued to develop designs like his grandfather's, and received patents for soundboard construction in 1891 (the "duplex sounding board") and 1895, and metallic frames in 1896.
Mathushek & Son's factory and warerooms were at 1569 Broadway, at the corner of 47th street, New York in 1900, where they sold a series of small upright pianos of their own manufacture, as well as Apollo, and later Regal players, and pianos by more famous manufacturers, and in 1903 they opened warerooms in Red Bank, New Jersey.
The firm listed $50,000 capital in 1901, and by 1908, James P. Beckwith joined the directors as secretary.
Jacob Brothers.
Victor Hugo Mathushek died in 1910, and by the following year the company was owned outright by the Jacob brothers, who at this time also owned piano manufacturers James & Holmstrom as well as the Wellington Piano Case Company and Abbott Piano Action Company.
In June, 1912 the Jacob brothers purchased a controlling interest in the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company, it having been for sale following the death of Charles Buckingham, who with William Harney had leased the factory after Henry Parmelee's death in 1902. At the time of the sale Charles Jacob issued a statement that while no plans had been finalized, they contemplated combining the best features of the pianos of the two former rivals, and that fall, the equipment and stock at the West Haven factory was removed to the former Kroeger Piano Co. factory in the Bronx, at Alexander avenue and 132nd street.
Mathushek & Son was located at 37 West 37th St. from about 1918 to 1930.
By 1930 the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company was located 88 Elm Street, West Haven, and 43 West 57th street, New York.
In 1931 the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company brought out "Spinet Grand" square pianos which occupied "only the space of a lounge" which updated the old colibri design and substituted current grand piano actions and dampers. A patent for improvements incorporated in it was issued to Fernando A. Wessell, of Red Bank, New Jersey in 1935.
C. Albert Jacob, president of both Jacob Brothers and the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Co. died 1940 and was succeeded by his sons C. Albert Jacob jr., vice president of the firm and former president of the National Piano Manufacturers Association, and Charles Hall Jacob.
Charles Hall Jacob died in 1953 and in 1954 the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Company was sold to Alexander P. Brown, an inventor who held nineteen patents for spinet piano actions and cases, and production moved from 138th street and Walton avenue, Bronx to 4401 11th street, Long Island City.
2005 to present.
Burgett Brothers, Inc., owners Mason & Hamlin and Sohmer & Co. filed to use the name for pianos in 2005 but abandoned the trademark in 2007.
Geoffrey Sive, of Woodbridge, Connecticut, who in 2006 also registered the name Gildemeester & Kroeger, another long defunct piano firm, filed to use the name for pianos in early 2008.


Caledonia station

Caledonia is an underground light rail transit (LRT) station under construction on Line 5 Eglinton, a new line that is part of the Toronto subway system. It will be located along Eglinton Avenue between the GO Transit Barrie rail corridor and the entrance to the Westside Mall. This is about 200 metres west of Caledonia Road opposite Blackthorn Avenue.
In April 2014, the station's headwalls were tunneled through. The station is scheduled to open in 2022.
Description.
The main entrance will face Eglinton Avenue West and have a small station plaza. The station will include a bus loop with two bus bays, outdoor parking for 60 bicycles and retail spaces within the main entrance at ground level.
The underground station platform will be located on the north side of the Eglinton Avenue directly under the main entrance. Thus, there is an opportunity to bring sunlight from this entrance down to the platform level.
As part of a program to install artworks at major interchange stations along Line 5 Eglinton, Caledonia station will feature the artwork "Ride of Your Life" by Janice Kerbel, consisting of a series of large-scale mosaic wall works which will be visible from the Line 5 platform level. The artwork shows mosaic images of signage with multiple typefaces and sizes.
Caledonia GO Station.
In May 2015, Metrolinx announced plans to add Caledonia as a future stop on the GO Transit Barrie line. The environmental assessment for the GO station was expected to be complete in early 2016. However, the GO station portion will not open until the second quarter of 2023, after the opening of Line 5 Eglinton.
The LRT station will be integrated with the planned GO station. There will be a pedestrian bridge connecting the GO station to the LRT station's main entrance. The GO station will have a second entrance at its north end where both the York Beltline Trail and Bowie Avenue end. In future, through the Regional Rail Express project, a second track is planned for the GO line to enable all-day, two-way GO train service.
Surface connections.
The following routes would serve this station according to the report presented at the board meeting on February 25, 2016:


Florian Essenfelder

Florian Essenfelder (Germany, 7 November 1855 – Brazil, 19 January 1929) made pianos in Germany and Brazil. He was the founder of the piano company Essenfelder.
Son of Ferdinard Essenfelder and Maria Jacomowski Essenfelder, he was born in Friedland, East Prussia, Germany, since renamed Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad Oblast.
At the age of 27, he started making pianos for the German piano company C. Bechstein.
In 1889, he moved with his wife, Maria Jacomowski, and their sons to Buenos Aires, Argentina where he founded his first piano factory. In 1907 he moved to Curitiba, Brazil, where he founded the F. Essenfelder, one of the biggest piano companies internationally, in terms of quality during the early twentieth century. Most of the Curitiba are Essenfelders.


Hulet M. Wells

Hulet Martell Wells (1878–1970) was a Canadian-American socialist and president of the Seattle Central Labor Council, part of the American Federation of Labor. During the first decade of the 20th Century Wells was a leading participant in the free speech movement in Washington, running as the candidate of the Socialist Party of Washington for mayor of Seattle in 1912. Following a prison term for opposition to World War I, Wells reemerged as a labor and political activist, eventually founding the Unemployed Citizens' League of Seattle in 1931.
Biography.
Early years.
Hulet Martell Wells was born May 4, 1878 near the small town of La Conner, located about 60 miles north of Seattle in what was then the Washington Territory of the United States. Wells' parents, Hiram and Alfreda Wells, hailed from Eastern Canada from which they emigrated in 1877, shortly after their marriage. The couple took advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862, establishing a land claim in rural Skagit County, Washington and constructing a cabin there, where their first son was soon born. Hulet was the oldest of 10 children.
The Wells family were soon joined in Skagit County by relatives from the east, who joined in the farming of grain crops like oats and barley, as well as hay for silage. Wells' mother worked as a teacher in a small community school, while his father farmed and worked to enlarge the family home. The family was poor, forced to take a mortgage on the farm to pay for necessary supplies.
In 1892 Wells' father sold part of his La Conner farm to buy a 200-acre parcel near Fort Langley, British Columbia. Young Hulet returned to the native country of his parents, where he assisted in clearing the newly acquired land to make it ready for the raising of hay. Hulet later found his first paying employment working for a neighbor in his hayfield for a dollar a day. He was ultimately unable to receive even this pittance, with his employer pleading poverty. Wells later worked on a larger livestock and grain farm and as a section hand on the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Unemployment swept Canada in 1897 and that winter Hulet Wells was unable to find a job and was forced to return to the old family homestead in La Conner, Washington. The following spring he joined his father as part of the Klondike Gold Rush, heading to the Yukon Territory with a team of horses hauling living essentials for the pair. The elder Wells returned to the family farm that fall, but Hulet would remain in the Klondike for two years, failing as a miner and taking on a series of odd jobs sufficient to buy food and subsidize his gambling debts.
Return to Washington.
As 1899 drew to a close, with another frigid winter on the way and his personal finances dissipated, Hulet Wells decided to return to the Pacific Northwest, booking passage on a steamer for Seattle. En route Wells developed a case of typhus, which forced his hospitalization in a ramshackle charity hospital upon his arrival in the booming town of about 80,000 people. Wells managed to recover his health and spent the next four years of his life as an itinerant worker, traveling from job to job across the state as a "blanket stiff" as a logger and a shingle weaver.
In the winter of 1902 his economic prospects improved (if not his physical conditions) when he obtained a job driving a team of horses to help grade city streets in Seattle in the winter rain. A return to the itinerant lifestyle followed but the seed was planted about the possibility of regular work in an urban setting. In 1904 Wells took the federal civil service examination, passing with high marks and soon gaining employment as a clerk at the Seattle post office.
Wells' postal job was difficult and poorly remunerated, with a workday ranging from 9 to 14 hours, six days a week, with poor pay and no benefits. Wells was dissatisfied with his job but felt compelled to remain, daunted by poor employment prospects elsewhere. In 1905 in the process of sorting newspapers on the job Wells came across a copy of the seminal socialist weekly "Appeal to Reason." He found it compelling and soon began obtaining and reading various other socialist publications, thereby embarking on a lifetime path of radical political and trade union activity.
From 1905 to 1907 Wells studied law through the University of Washington, gaining admission to the Washington State Bar Association in 1907. Although he never entered legal practice, Wells next moved to attempt to organize postal workers, establishing a local union. This was met forcefully by Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock, who expelled Wells from further work in the postal service.
Mayoral campaign and its aftermath.
In 1911 Wells became more deeply involved in Socialist Party politics, taking a position as editor of the Seattle weekly newspaper "Socialist Voice." He was tapped as the party's candidate for mayor of Seattle in the 1912 campaign. Wells ran on a platform calling for government employment of the unemployed, emphasizing his own working class bona fides by declaring, "I do not pretend to represent anyone but the workingman, and have been a workingman all my life and understand their problems." Wells ultimately finished fourth in the race.
Wells' Spring 1912 mayoral campaign was ignored by the conservative "Seattle Times", owned by Colonel Alden J. Blethen and the largest circulation newspaper in the city of Seattle. During the campaign Wells and his fellow Socialists opposed a development project strongly favored by Blethen, contributing to the plan's controversy and helping lead it to rejection by the Seattle Port Commission.
Two months after the rejection of the plan, 800 Seattle radicals from the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) marched in honor of May Day marching in a column behind a red flag and the flag of the United States. A group of veterans of the Spanish–American War quickly rushed the parade, seizing the red flag. When the procession reached the "Seattle Times" building, another group of men charged from an adjoining alley and seized the American flag. Both the "Times" and the rival "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" printed provocative stories the next day alleging that the flag carried by the radicals in their march had been spat upon and trampled, with the "Times" going so far to allege that Wells had denounced Old Glory as a "dirty rag."
Despite the patently false nature of its reports, "The Times" continued to print allegations against Wells, who as a former mayoral candidate was the public face of the socialist movement. This prompted Wells to sue "The Times" for libel, alleging his character had been falsely besmirched. A trial was finally held in the spring of 1913, conducted by Judge John Humphries, a personal friend of "Times" publisher Blethen. Wells found the trial so farcically biased that he penned a satirical play based on the proceedings entitled "The Colonel and His Friends," a work published as a pamphlet.
In 1913 Wells was chosen as the state chairman of the Socialist Party of Washington, the state affiliate of the Socialist Party of America.
Potlach Riot of 1913.
Wells was again embroiled in a riot in the summer of 1913. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels was invited by the city of Seattle to be guest of honor at a banquet in honor of the city's third annual Golden Potlatch celebration on July 16. Daniels reviewed a parade of 2,000 members of the American military and an additional 2,000 members of local fraternal orders in conjunction with his visit, which was orchestrated in hopes that Daniels would recommend additional funding for the regional Bremerton Navy Yard.
Once again the "Seattle Times" rose to the occasion with sensationalistic headlines, declaring in a banner headline "Daniels Denounces Tolerance of Red Flag" despite the fact that Daniels' patriotic remarks at the banquet preceding the parade had been mild and banal. On the other side of town a scuffle between several passersby and a suffragist making a soapbox speech was falsely reported as a mob attacking five innocent sailors and soldiers. Swept into a frenzy by the hysterical reporting, on the evening of July 18, 1913, a mob of about 200 men, including members of the military and drunken revelers, ransacked local headquarters of the IWW and Socialist Party, smashing doors, window office equipment, and a wagon, and throwing books, documents, and newspapers in the street, where they were burned. Wells barely escaped the clutches of the mob.
The day after the so-called "Potlach Riot," Col. Bleven of "The Times" proudly endorsed the activities of the rioter, declaring "Anarchy, the grizzly hydra-headed serpent which Seattle has been force to nourish in its midst...was plucked from the city ad wiped out in a blaze of patriotism last night." In the aftermath of the riot, a scheduled staging of Wells' play at the Moore Theatre was cancelled by the management.
Wells was elected president of the Seattle Central Labor Council in 1915, serving in that capacity until 1916.
Sedition conviction.
Wells was arrested and charged with sedition in the fall of 1917 for opposing the draft. He was tried together with Joseph Pass, a writer from New York City, and was sentenced to a prison term on March 18, 1918. Wells served his sentence at the McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary, located on McNeil Island in Pierce County, Washington. He was later transferred to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. While in prison, he was tortured; street rallies erupted among the labor movement in Seattle as a response.
Wells was released from prison on November 13, 1920, having received a commutation of his sentence.
Radical activities.
Following his release from prison, Hulet Wells was thoroughly radicalized, turning away from the Socialist Party and towards the nascent American communist movement. In 1921 Wells was a fraternal delegate of the Seattle Central Labor Council to the founding congress of the Red International of Labor Unions (RILU, or Profintern). He also worked as a national lecturer for the Friends of Soviet Russia, a communist mass organization established to help raise funds for famine relief in Soviet Russia.
In 1931, he founded the Unemployed Citizens' League of Seattle. In the early 1930s, he was an administrative assistant of Marion A. Zioncheck, a congressman representing Washington's 1st congressional district.
Death and legacy.
Hulet Wells died February 15, 1970. He was 91 years old at the time of his death.


Crank (mechanism)

A crank is an arm attached at a right angle to a rotating shaft by which circular motion is imparted to or received from the shaft. When combined with a connecting rod, it can be used to convert circular motion into reciprocating motion, or vice versa. The arm may be a bent portion of the shaft, or a separate arm or disk attached to it. Attached to the end of the crank by a pivot is a rod, usually called a connecting rod (conrod).
The term often refers to a human-powered crank which is used to manually turn an axle, as in a bicycle crankset or a brace and bit drill. In this case a person's arm or leg serves as the connecting rod, applying reciprocating force to the crank. There is usually a bar perpendicular to the other end of the arm, often with a freely rotatable handle or pedal attached.
Examples.
Familiar examples include:
Engines.
Almost all reciprocating engines use cranks (with connecting rods) to transform the back-and-forth motion of the pistons into rotary motion. The cranks are incorporated into a crankshaft.
History.
China.
It was thought that evidence of the earliest true crank handle was found in a Han era glazed-earthenware tomb model of an agricultural winnowing fan dated no later than 200 AD, but since then a series of similar pottery models with crank operated winnowing fans were unearthed, with one of them dating back to the Western Han dynasty (202 BC - 9 AD). Historian Lynn White stated that the Chinese crank was 'not given the impulse to change reciprocating to circular motion in other contrivances', citing one reference to a Chinese crank-and-connecting rod dating to 1462. However, later publications reveal that the Chinese used not just the crank, but the crank-and-connecting rod for operating querns as far back as the Western Han dynasty (202 BC - 9 AD) as well. Eventually crank-and-connecting rods were used in the inter-conversion or rotary and reciprocating motion for other applications such as flour-sifting, treadle spinning wheels, water powered furnace bellows, and silk-reeling machines.
Western World.
Classical Antiquity.
The handle of the rotary handmill which appeared in 5th century BC Celtiberian Spain and ultimately reached Greece by the first century BCE. A Roman iron crankshaft of yet unknown purpose dating to the 2nd century AD was excavated in Augusta Raurica, Switzerland. The 82.5 cm long piece has fitted to one end a 15 cm long bronze handle, the other handle being lost.
A ca. 40 cm long true iron crank was excavated, along with a pair of shattered mill-stones of 50−65 cm diameter and diverse iron items, in Aschheim, close to Munich. The crank-operated Roman mill is dated to the late 2nd century AD. An often cited modern reconstruction of a bucket-chain pump driven by hand-cranked flywheels from the Nemi ships has been dismissed though as "archaeological fantasy".
The earliest evidence for the crank combined with a connecting rod in a machine appears in the Roman Hierapolis sawmill in Asia Minor from the 3rd century AD and two Roman stone sawmills at Gerasa, Roman Syria, and Ephesus, Asia Minor (both 6th century AD). On the pediment of the Hierapolis mill, a waterwheel fed by a mill race is shown powering via a gear train two frame saws which cut rectangular blocks by the way of some kind of connecting rods and, through mechanical necessity, cranks. The accompanying inscription is in Greek.
The crank and connecting rod mechanisms of the other two archaeologically attested sawmills worked without a gear train. In ancient literature, there is a reference to the workings of water-powered marble saws close to Trier, now Germany, by the late 4th century poet Ausonius; about the same time, these mill types seem also to be indicated by the Christian saint Gregory of Nyssa from Anatolia, demonstrating a diversified use of water-power in many parts of the Roman Empire The three finds push back the date of the invention of the crank and connecting rod by a full millennium:
Middle Ages.
A rotary grindstone − the earliest representation thereof − which is operated by a crank handle is shown in the Carolingian manuscript "Utrecht Psalter"; the pen drawing of around 830 goes back to a late antique original. A musical tract ascribed to the abbot Odo of Cluny (ca. 878−942) describes a fretted stringed instrument which was sounded by a resined wheel turned with a crank; the device later appears in two 12th century illuminated manuscripts. There are also two pictures of Fortuna cranking her wheel of destiny from this and the following century.
The use of crank handles in trepanation drills was depicted in the 1887 edition of the "Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines" to the credit of the Spanish Muslim surgeon Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi; however, the existence of such a device cannot be confirmed by the original illuminations and thus has to be discounted. The Benedictine monk Theophilus Presbyter (c. 1070−1125) described crank handles "used in the turning of casting cores".
The Italian physician Guido da Vigevano (c. 1280−1349), planning for a new crusade, made illustrations for a paddle boat and war carriages that were propelled by manually turned compound cranks and gear wheels (center of image). The "Luttrell Psalter", dating to around 1340, describes a grindstone which was rotated by two cranks, one at each end of its axle; the geared hand-mill, operated either with one or two cranks, appeared later in the 15th century;
Medieval cranes were occasionally powered by cranks, although more often by windlasses.
Renaissance.
The crank became common in Europe by the early 15th century, often seen in the works of those such as the German military engineer Konrad Kyeser. Devices depicted in Kyeser's "Bellifortis" include cranked windlasses (instead of spoke-wheels) for spanning siege crossbows, cranked chain of buckets for water-lifting and cranks fitted to a wheel of bells. Kyeser also equipped the Archimedes screws for water-raising with a crank handle, an innovation which subsequently replaced the ancient practice of working the pipe by treading. The earliest evidence for the fitting of a well-hoist with cranks is found in a miniature of c. 1425 in the German "Hausbuch of the Mendel Foundation".
The first depictions of the compound crank in the carpenter's brace appear between 1420 and 1430 in various northern European artwork. The rapid adoption of the compound crank can be traced in the works of the Anonymous of the Hussite Wars, an unknown German engineer writing on the state of the military technology of his day: first, the connecting-rod, applied to cranks, reappeared, second, double compound cranks also began to be equipped with connecting-rods and third, the flywheel was employed for these cranks to get them over the 'dead-spot'.
One of the drawings of the Anonymous of the Hussite Wars shows a boat with a pair of paddle-wheels at each end turned by men operating compound cranks (see above). The concept was much improved by the Italian engineer and writer Roberto Valturio in 1463, who devised a boat with five sets, where the parallel cranks are all joined to a single power source by one connecting-rod, an idea also taken up by his compatriot Francesco di Giorgio.
In Renaissance Italy, the earliest evidence of a compound crank and connecting-rod is found in the sketch books of Taccola, but the device is still mechanically misunderstood. A sound grasp of the crank motion involved demonstrates a little later Pisanello who painted a piston-pump driven
by a water-wheel and operated by two simple cranks and two connecting-rods.
The 15th century also saw the introduction of cranked rack-and-pinion devices, called cranequins, which were fitted to the crossbow's stock as a means of exerting even more force while spanning the missile weapon (see right). In the textile industry, cranked reels for winding skeins of yarn were introduced.
Around 1480, the early medieval rotary grindstone was improved with a treadle and crank mechanism. Cranks mounted on push-carts first appear in a German engraving of 1589.
From the 16th century onwards, evidence of cranks and connecting rods integrated into machine design becomes abundant in the technological treatises of the period: Agostino Ramelli's "The Diverse and Artifactitious Machines" of 1588 alone depicts eighteen examples, a number which rises in the "Theatrum Machinarum Novum" by Georg Andreas Böckler to 45 different machines, one third of the total.
Middle East.
The crank appears in the mid-9th century in several of the hydraulic devices described by the Banū Mūsā brothers in their "Book of Ingenious Devices". These devices, however, made only partial rotations and could not transmit much power, although only a small modification would have been required to convert it to a crankshaft.
Al-Jazari (1136–1206) described a crank and connecting rod system in a rotating machine in two of his water-raising machines. His twin-cylinder pump incorporated a crankshaft. After al-Jazari cranks in Islamic technology are not traceable until an early 15th century copy of the "Mechanics" of the ancient Greek engineer Hero of Alexandria.
20th century.
Cranks were formerly common on some machines in the early 20th century; for example almost all phonographs before the 1930s were powered by clockwork motors wound with cranks. Reciprocating piston engines use cranks to convert the linear piston motion into rotational motion. Internal combustion engines of early 20th century automobiles were usually started with hand cranks (known as "starting handles" in the UK), before electric starters came into general use. The last car model which incorporated a crank was the Citroën 2CV 1948-1990
The 1918 Reo owner's manual describes how to hand crank the automobile:
Crank axle.
A crank axle is a crankshaft which also serves the purpose of an axle. It is used on steam locomotives with inside cylinders.


Harmony Company

The Harmony Company is a former guitar manufacturing company that is currently a brand owned by Singapore company BandLab Technologies. Harmony was, in its heyday, the largest musical instrument manufacturer in the United States. They made many types of string instruments, including ukuleles, acoustic and electric guitars and violins.
The company ceased in 1975, with the "Harmony" brand being relaunched by BandLab in 2018 to produce electric guitars and amplifiers.
History.
Harmony was founded in 1892 by Wilhelm Schultz. In 1916, Sears, Roebuck and Co. purchased it, in part to corner the ukulele market. At the time Harmony was led by Joe Kraus, who was chairman until 1940.
In 1928, Harmony introduced the first of many Roy Smeck models, and went on to become the largest producer in the U.S. They sold 250,000 pieces in 1923 and 500,000 in 1930, including various models of guitars, banjos, and mandolins.
In the late 1930s, the firm began making violins again after a 19-year hiatus. They also bought brand names from the bankrupt Oscar Schmidt Co.—La Scala, Stella, and Sovereign. They sold not only Harmony products, but instruments under the Sears name, Silvertone, and a variety of trade names—Vogue, Valencia, Johnny Marvin, Monterey, Stella, and others. In 1940, after Kraus had a conflict with management, he left, but then bought enough stock to restart the company independently.
Between 1945 and 1975, the Chicago firm mass-produced about ten million guitars. The company reduced their output over the years, later focusing on student models sold through JCPenney. The Harmony brand peaked in 1964-1965, selling 350,000 instruments, but low-end foreign competition led to the company's demise 10 years later.
The pickups on almost all electric guitars and basses that Harmony produced were manufactured by Rowe Industries Inc. (later known as H.N. Rowe & Company, Rowe DeArmond Inc., and DeArmond Inc.) of Toledo, Ohio. Many of the instrument amplifiers badged with the Harmony name were manufactured by "Sound Projects Company" of Cicero, Illinois.
The Harmony Guitar Company ceased in 1975, and sold the Harmony name. In the early 2000s, an unrelated company, the Westheimer Corp., based in Lake Barrington, Illinois briefly imported "reissue" Harmony guitars.
In 2018, BandLab Technologies claimed to be "relaunching" the Harmony brand with a new series of electric guitars and guitar amps. The brand has since been relaunched with American-made models such as the Rebel and the Jupiter.


Nannette Streicher

Nannette Streicher (née Anna-Maria Stein; 2 January 1769, Augsburg – 16 January 1833, Vienna) was a German piano maker, composer, music educator and writer.
Life.
Nannette was the sixth child of the organ and piano maker Johann Andreas Stein in Augsburg (1728–1792) and his wife Maria Regina Stein née Burkhart. Early on, she received piano lessons from her father, who was influenced by his friend Ignaz von Beecke. In Augsburg Nannette Stein played piano at concerts, sometimes with her friend Nanette von Schaden. In 1787 she sang "some minor arias" in a concert. She had to give up singing later for health reasons. After her father's death on 29 February 1792, she continued the piano workshop independently.
Building pianos.
In 1793 she married the musician Johann Andreas Streicher (1761–1833) and moved with him to Vienna in 1794. She took over her father's business, which was called J.A. Stein. Initially she partnered with her 16-year-old younger brother Matthias Andreas Stein (1776-1842) under the business name Geschwister Stein. After 1802, she and her brother parted company, and she continued building pianos under her name (Nannette Streicher née Stein). With the support of her husband and from 1824 to 1825 with their son, Johann Baptist (1796–1871) as a partner, the business became an important piano manufacturer. They produced 50 to 65 grand pianos each year. Johann Baptist Streicher was the sole owner of the factory, which under his leadership acquired many patents and became world famous. The company was sold in 1896 to the brothers Stingl.
Concerts.
Nannette Streicher and Andreas were not only piano makers. The concerts she organised were an important contribution to Viennese musical life, first in her apartment, then from 1812 in a piano salon she organized, which offered young artists welcome opportunities for performance. The friends and customers of the couple included Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Nannette Streicher sometimes played in private before the friends and visitors of the music circle, sometimes together with her daughter Sophie (1797–1840), an equally gifted piano player. Her circle included many great musicians of Vienna, and her friendship with Beethoven is documented in more than sixty letters, in which the composer sought advice and assistance in household and educational questions, after he was granted custody of his nephew Karl.
Death.
Nanette Streicher died on 16 January 1833 after two months of illness.


University Avenue station

University Avenue Station is an under-construction underground station of the Manila Metro Rail Transit System Line 7 and proposed station of the Manila Metro Rail Transit System Line 8 located along Commonwealth Avenue in UP Campus, Quezon City, Philippines. The station itself is located within the campus of the University of the Philippines Diliman and is named after University Avenue, the main road leading towards the university. The MRT Line 7 system has a proposed spur line to connect itself to the LRT Line 2 at Katipunan station, passing through the University of the Philippines Diliman and Katipunan Avenue, while the Line 8 system will terminate at this station with a spur line towards its depot further inside UP Diliman.
When completed, the station will serve the following destinations: University of the Philippines Diliman, U.P.–Ayala Land TechnoHub, Philippine Coconut Authority (PhilCoa), and the Commission on Human Rights Complex.
The station, unlike the separate Quezon Memorial stations of Lines 7 and 8, will be situated at the same complex with the Line 8 building platforms side-by-side the Line 7 platforms thereby creating a common station.


William Fife

William Fife Jr. (15 June 1857 – 11 August 1944), also known as William Fife III, was the third generation of a family of Scottish yacht designers and builders. In his time, William Fife designed around 600 yachts, including two contenders for the America's Cup. The Royal Yachting Association was formed in 1875 to standardise rules, and Fife and his rival G.L. Watson, were instrumental in these rule changes. Around one third of Fife's yachts still exist. His last designs were built in 1938.
Biography.
Fife was born in Fairlie, North Ayrshire on the Firth of Clyde. His father William Fife Sr. (1821–1902) and grandfather William Fyfe (1785–1865) had also been designers and boat builders in Fairlie. The family business operated from a shipyard on the beach in the village. Fife began building yachts in 1890 and soon surpassed the achievements of his father and grandfather and became known as one of the premier yacht designers of the day.
As the third generation of a venerable Scottish boat building family, William Fife inherited a rich legacy but was quick to establish his own reputation as one of the top designers in the yachting world. Often dominating his chief competitors, Fife was a master of his trade who received commissions from European royalty and from clients as far away as Australia. Following on the heels of the success of his design "Dragon" (1888), Fife adopted a stylized Chinese dragon as his trademark. Thereafter, those yachts that took shape on the shingle at Fairlie were known throughout the yachting world by this distinctive scrollwork.
Fife designed two America's Cup yachts for grocery and tea magnate Sir Thomas Lipton who challenged for the cup a total of five times. The Fife-designed challenger "Shamrock I" (1899) lost to "Columbia" (Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, 1899) and "Shamrock III" (1903) lost to "Reliance". After the establishment of the first International Rule in 1906, Fife became a prolific designer of metre boats, designing and building several successful 15-Metre and 19-Metre yachts in the years leading up to the Great War. Between 1907 and 1913, William Fife Jr. designed eight of the twenty 15mR yachts ever built, but his first 15mR named "Shimna" was not built at his famous Fairlie boatyard, but by Alexander Robertson & Sons, because all Fife's principal yacht builders were needed to work on Myles Kennedy's new 23mR, "White Heather II".
Fife died on 11 August 1944 at the age of 87 in Fairlie, North Ayrshire. He never married or had children. He was buried in Largs. The yard was continued for some years after his death by his nephew, but never achieved the renown known under Fife's ownership.
Quotes.
French yachtsman Éric Tabarly, two-time winner of the OSTAR and owner of the Fife design "Pen Duick" wrote:
While Fife established a leading reputation on the yacht racing circuit, his work also included a number of fine cruising vessels. Dr. William Collier wrote of Fife's 1920s work:
Vessels.
The Fife yard also had a reputation for the extremely high quality of the craftsmanship of the yachts built at the yard. Today, it is thought that there are somewhat less than 100 Fife designs still in existence. Of these, there are around fifty still sailing, most notably:
Fife once said that the secret of a great yacht was that it should be both "fast and bonnie".
Honours.
He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1919 New Year Honours. In 2004, he was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame.


Soviet destroyer Dzerzhinsky

Dzerzhinsky () was one of eight "Fidonisy"-class destroyers built for the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. She was originally named Kaliakria ("") before she was renamed "Dzerzhinsky" in 1926.
Design and description.
The "Fidonisy"-class ships were designed as an improved version of the with an additional gun. "Kaliakria" displaced normal and at full load with an overall length of , a beam of , and a draft of at full load. She was propelled by two Parsons steam turbines, each driving one propeller, designed to produce a total of using steam from five 3-drum Thorneycroft boilers for an intended maximum speed of . "Kaliakria" was designed to carry enough fuel oil to give her a range of at . Her crew numbered 136.
The "Fidonisy"-class ships mounted a main armament of four single 102 mm Pattern 1911 Obukhov guns, one on the forecastle and three aft; one of these latter guns was superfiring over the other two. Unhappy with the reliability of the anti-aircraft gun originally intended to equip "Kaliakria", the navy replaced them with a pair of Hotchkiss guns while the ship was still under construction in March 1917, and four Maxim machine guns. The destroyers mounted four triple torpedo tube mounts amidships with fourteen torpedoes and could carry 80 M1908 naval mines. They were also fitted with a Barr and Stroud rangefinder and two searchlights.
Construction and service.
"Dzerzhinsky" transported a Soviet delegation headed by Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs Lev Karakhan to Istanbul for negotiations with the Turkish government on 11 December 1929. She returned to Sevastopol with the delegation aboard on 24 December after the latter signed a protocol renewing the 1925 Soviet–Turkish Treaty on Friendship and Neutrality.
World War II.
"Dzerzhinsky" was part of the 1st Destroyer Division of the fleet at Batumi along with "Frunze" by 22 June 1941, when the Germans invaded of the Soviet Union. Between 22 and 25 June she laid 240 mines off the Batumi Naval Base in four night sorties. With her sisters, she was sent to support the defenders during the Siege of Odessa due to a fleet prohibition on using large ships after the Raid on Constanța that was in effect until August, forcing the elderly "Novik"s to be employed. "Dzerzhinsky" arrived in Odessa on 20 August with a cargo of ammunition, and on the next day bombarded Dofinovka, firing 88 102 mm shells. On the thirteenth volley the elevator of one turret failed and it had to be reloaded by hand. She was attacked without result by three Heinkel He 111 bombers, one of many air attacks on the Soviet ships supporting Odessa. The destroyer escorted three transports out of Odessa on 23 August, and departed Sevastopol on 29 August escorting three transports, together with two minesweepers and three torpedo boats. Arriving at Odessa on the next day, she bombarded Fontanka, expending 200 shells. While engaged in this duty, the destroyer was attacked several times by Axis aircraft without result. After maneuvering in the Gulf of Odessa during the night, "Dzerzhinsky" expanded another 118 shells against Fontanka and other Axis positions during the next day, and left Odessa that night with a tugboat that towed two barges. The slow speed of the latter forced the destroyer to travel at , delaying her return to Sevastopol until 2 September.
"Dzerzhinsky" departed Sevastopol for Odessa on 6 September with a 140-man partisan detachment aboard. Arriving the next day, she found the port under Axis artillery fire. In the evening she expended 56 shells against coastal targets and maneuvered at sea during the night. Another 90 shells were fired against coastal targets on the next morning, and she continued maneuvering that day despite the failure of a turbogenerator. Early on 9 September, she entered Odessa to replenish her supplies of fuel and potable water, but fragments from near misses of artillery shells damaged a gun and her torpedo tubes. As there was no fuel in the port, "Dzerzhinsky" departed under her own smokescreen and fired a volley at an Axis battery. She spent the rest of the day maneuvering off the Vorontsov Lighthouse and departed that night, escorting a transport evacuating the wounded together with a minesweeper. The destroyer arrived at Sevastopol on 10 September, almost out of fuel and having no potable water remaining.
As the situation worsened in Odessa, People's Commissar of the Navy Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov ordered an amphibious landing at Grigorievka near the port to restore the situation. "Dzerzhinsky" and "Frunze" were assigned as part of a detachment to support the operation, and on 16 September both destroyers attempted to carry out a rehearsal at the Chersonese Lighthouse, but failed due to heavy seas. On the same day, "Dzerzhinsky" was dropped from the detachment and instead sent to support the defenders of the Isthmus of Perekop against the German advance. Departing Sevastopol for Karkinit Bay on 17 September, she expended 206 shells that day against Alekseyevka, Khorly, and Skadovsk before returning to Sevastopol, exceeding the planned 150 shells. The bombardment was conducted despite a burst pipes in one boiler and a broken gyrocompass, but the destroyer wore out her gun barrels and was replaced by the cruiser on the bombardment mission.
Between October and February 1942 "Dzerzhinsky" was under refit at Poti, which took four and a half months. Returning to service in March, she escorted the gunboat "Krasnaya Kuban" from Poti to Sevastopol between 21 and 24 March during the Siege of Sevastopol. Both returned to the Caucasus coast on 28 March, and on the next day the destroyer expended six depth charges against a suspected submarine. Between 4 and 11 April, she escorted the tanker "I. Stalin" from Batumi to Sevastopol via Tuapse. Anchored in Sevastopol between 12 and 13 April, the destroyer bombarded a German troop concentration near Mamashay. She departed on 13 April as an escort for the tanker "Moskva" and returned to Batumi two days later. "Dzerzhinsky" and the destroyer escorted the battleship on 19 April while the latter tested her main armament and maneuverability following repairs.
Together with the cruiser "" and her sister , "Dzerzhinsky" loaded reinforcements for Sevastopol at Novorossiysk on 12 May and departed for another run to the besieged port. They approached the entrance to Sevastopol channel in fog on the night of 13–14 May, and remained there to await improved visibility conditions as they had to pass through a Soviet minefield to enter the port. At 11:32 on 14 May, she was ordered to search for the minesweeper marking the cleared lane by the detachment commander, who believed that the ships were too close to the minefield. "Dzerzhinsky" headed north without deploying paravanes, and soon sighted the minesweeper, turning towards it. Before reaching the minesweeper, she struck a mine at 12:20 and sank quickly. Of the 170 crewmembers and 125 passengers, only 27 were rescued, including her captain. The destroyer was struck from the Soviet Navy on 24 June. In 2006, a Ukrainian-American team discovered her wreck.


Richard Donisthorp

Richard Donisthorp (fl. 1797) was an English clockmaker in Loughborough. He used the surname spelt "Donisthorp" as an engraved signature on the clock faces he made and was a member of the Donisthorp family who were Leicestershire clockmakers. The name of Donisthorp appears in records also as Donisthorpe.


Batasan station

Batasan Station is an under-construction elevated station of the MRT Line 7 located in Batasan Hills, Quezon City, Philippines. It is near the Sandiganbayan Centennial Building, Public Attorneys Office Building, Batasan TODA Terminal, the Commission on Audit Complex and the Batasan Pambansa Complex. It is the ninth station for trains headed towards the North Triangle Common Station and the sixth station for trains headed to San Jose del Monte.
History.
Batasan station is part of the MRT Line 7, which was proposed initially in 2004. The line was supposed to begin its construction in 2005 with a target opening date in 2007. However, construction did not start until 2017, a decade after its target opening date. Groundbreaking of the station began on October 7, 2017, with a simple ceremony being held before the concrete pouring for the station's bored pile foundations.
The official working name of the station during the design phase is Station 6. It is also known by another previous working name: "South Batasan". It was named so because it is located at the southern end of Batasan Road while Manggahan station was previously called as "North Batasan".
Services.
Batasan station is a part of the MRT Line 7, which runs from San Jose del Monte, Bulacan up to North Avenue, Quezon City. It is the sixth northbound station from the North Triangle Common Station in Quezon City and the ninth southbound station from San Jose del Monte. The station is served by jeepneys and bus lines, and the nearby Batasan TODA Station improves its access throughout Batasan Hills and nearby places.


Jacob Denner

Jacob Denner (1681 – 1735) was a woodwind instrument maker of Nuremberg.
He was the son of Johann Christoph Denner, improver of the chalumeau and credited with the invention of the clarinet. Jacob is also well known for his recorders which have become the model for many modern instruments. He is reported to have worked for the Medici court in Florence in 1708.
Jacob was also a performer and member of the Nuremberg Stadtpfeiferei.


Suicide clutch

The terms suicide clutch, and suicide shifter or jockey shifter, refer to a motorcycle's foot-operated clutch and hand shifter to change gears, Foot clutches (rocker-clutches) and hand shifters (tank-shifts) were found on early motorcycle designs from around the turn of the 20th Century to the 1940s or 50s, and reappearing on modern retro styled custom motorcycles and choppers. Modern motorcycles do not require removing a hand from the handlebars to shift gears, using only the fingers for the clutch and the toes of one foot to select gears. In contrast, the fanciful slang "suicide" was applied to designs where the rider removes one hand to change gears, or cannot put both feet on the ground while using a foot clutch to disengage the transmission. Sometimes the shifter is referred to as a "jockey shifter" while the foot clutch is called a "suicide clutch".
Suicide clutches were common on mid-20th century Harley-Davidson motorcycles and many custom bikes today still employ this system. Harley-Davidson introduced the hand clutch on the 1952 Panhead.
More technically, "suicide clutch" can refer to clutch controls lacking a detent on the foot clutch, which would otherwise allow the rider to lock the clutch in the disengaged position. Early foot-clutch motorcycles, such as those from Harley-Davidson and Indian, allowed the rider to lock the clutch foot pedal due to its over-center geometry plus a helper spring (aka "sissy spring"), so they could place both feet on the ground when stopped. These standard clutches are called a "rocker clutch". If this device was disabled, or a custom foot clutch was installed that had no detent, it was referred to as a "suicide clutch" because stopping the motorcycle in-gear required the rider to keep his foot on the pedal. Should he lose his balance and put the left foot down, the motorcycle could lurch forward into cross traffic. The suicide clutch, especially on a chopper with no front brake, also made stopping at a red light on a hill especially precarious.
The suicide clutch is sometimes incorrectly called a suicide shifter. The suicide clutch is a foot-operated clutch that is mounted on the left side of the motorcycle's forward foot controls. The suicide-clutch moniker has derived from difficulties in operating this form of clutch and shifter. On a motorcycle equipped with a conventional hand clutch and foot shifter, the rider places the left foot on the ground when stopped and holds the motorcycle in place with pressure on the rear brake pedal with the right foot, while engaging the clutch with the left hand. On a motorcycle equipped with a suicide clutch, the clutch is held in with the left foot, requiring the right foot to hold the bike in place, with the right hand applying pressure to the front brake. Early Harley Davidson foot clutches used an over-center spring to hold the clutch pedal in the disengaged position and used a friction disc to allow the rider to adjust the sensitivity of the return. Often riders removed the spring to keep the clutch pedal from returning to the disengaged position while riding. While this spring removal allowed for the clutch to stay engaged better, it also removed the safety feature of the clutch pedal holding itself in the disengaged position. With the pedal not returning to its natural disengaged position, the rider must either shift into neutral or hold the clutch pedal with the left foot when coming to a stop. Early Harley Davidson racers removed the clutch return spring to ensure the clutch stayed in the engaged position throughout the race. This practice soon caught on with other riders. The term "suicide clutch" was coined by those who could not operate the foot clutch proficiently enough to ride a tank shift (or hand shift) motorcycle in normal traffic.
Types of shifters.
Regular clutch hand Shifter - This is where the shifter is a regular knob either located on the tank, which operates through a linkage to the transmission (tank shifter) or on a lever bolted directly to the top of the transmission (jockey shifter or slap shifter depending on the transmission design) and involves the semi-complex task of foot clutch operation and hand shifting. The foot is used to operate the clutch pedal clutch lever and the second hand is used to shift gears.
Clutched Shifter - This shifter has a clutch lever on it allowing one-handed shifting. This design allows the left foot to be free.
Technical history.
Foot clutches with tank shifters were standard on American motorcycles such as Harley-Davidson and Indian up to the mid-20th century and many custom bikes today still employ this system. The system used by Harley-Davidson arranged the controls with the tank shifter on the left side of the motorcycle, with the throttle operated by the right hand and the shifter, spark control and front brake operated by the left hand. The Harley-Davidson rocker clutch was operated with the left foot with the heel down position to disengage the clutch (with an over-center spring to hold the clutch disengaged) and the toe down position to engage it ("Toe-to-go"). The right foot operated the rear brake, as is the practice in modern times. Indian, meanwhile arranged things differently. On an Indian, the tank shifter was located on the right side of the motorcycle, with the throttle operated by the left hand and the shifter, spark control and front brake operated by the right hand. (Indian promoted their system to police departments saying that the officer could fire his service weapon with his right hand while riding) The Indian rocker clutch was also operated by the left foot, but the toe down position disengaged the clutch and the heel down position engaged it. Harley-Davidson introduced the hand clutch on the 1952 Panhead, and simultaneously on the K model, their all-new sport model. The transmissions of the foot shift and the hand shift models were different. The hand shift gear selector mechanism was referred to as the "jockey top" or "jockey lid." On this transmission, the gears were selected in a linear fashion with the selector arm moving further and further forward with each successive gear and the gear lever moved in a slotted gate on the side of the tank. When modified to operate as a "jockey shifter," The lever would be pushed back for 1st gear and then step by step more forward for each subsequent gear. The foot shift gear selector mechanism was referred to as the "ratchet top". On this transmission, the gears were selected in a ratcheting motion, returning to its default, central position after each shift. When modified to operate with short, transmission mounted hand lever and a foot suicide clutch, this type of set-up was referred to as a "slap shifter" or "slapper". In contrast to the jockey shifter, the slap shifter would always stay in one central position between shifts. Throughout the 50s and 60s on the Panheads and subsequent Shovelheads, foot clutches and hand clutches coexisted, with the hand clutch being progressively more popular over time. After foot clutches had all but disappeared from Harley-Davidson civilian models, the last holdout of foot clutches were the police models up to the early 70's, presumably because the police officers could use their 2-way radio with the left hand while clutching with their foot.
The jockey shifter is a gear shifting device used on motorcycles before the use of a foot-operated shift lever. A jockey shifter gets its name from the location of the motorcycle rider's hand when shifting gears. It is under his seat like the position of a jockey's hand while using his riding crop on his horse. This hand shifter lever is directly mounted to the transmission and is just long enough to clear the primary drive cover or belt drive. A motorcycle equipped with this type of shifter requires the use of a foot clutch. The foot clutch comes in one of two configurations; either a "rocker foot clutch", which was stock on many early motorcycles, or a suicide foot clutch, which was never available on production motorcycles but was manufactured by daring motorcycle enthusiasts. The suicide foot clutch was usually a very simple lever, more or less a mirror image of the rear brake lever on the other side of the motorcycle; like a standard shift car's clutch lever. The rocker foot clutch is easier to use than the suicide foot clutch because it can be rocked into a position where the clutch is either engaged or disengaged - leaving the rider's foot free to be put down, at a stop, to steady the motorcycle. Sometimes a tank shifter is referred to as a jockey shifter, but this is incorrect due to the rider's hand position being in front of him, not behind him like for a horse jockey. A tank shifter is also connected to the transmission with linkage, which jockey shifters do not use. The earliest known use of a foot clutch and hand shifter, on motorcycles, was with the first multi-geared transmission on the 1915 Harley Davidson. It is a mechanical linkage that is typically mounted to the left side of the motorbike's fuel tank and is held in place by a slotted piece of metal welded to the frame or the tank. Through a series of linkages, it is connected to the transmission shift selection lever. In terms comparable to a motorcycle of current construction, it is simply a way to relocate the shift lever from the front foot controls to the side of the gas tank. Early motorcycle customizers who were trying to reduce their motorcycle's weight so as to increase its power-to-weight ratio would sometimes replace their stock rocker foot clutch with a hand fabricated suicide foot clutch, and remove the tank shifter's linkage and instead attach a shifter arm directly to the transmission (jockey shifter). This reduced weight not only made the bike accelerate better, but also gave the rider bragging rights of riding a motorcycle which required more skill to operate.


Pechatniki railway station

Pechatniki is a planned railway station of Line D2 and D5 of the Moscow Central Diameters in Moscow which is currently under construction. The construction project has been approved in June 2020. The station is expected to be built in 2021. There will be transfer to the eponymous metro station.