Homely Knockers

Such fun!

What prompted this exclamation this morning? Well, it's my latest find, the 1955 Gadgets Annual, a cornucopia of devices you can make from household finds but I can sense that if I asked you to define fun this would be way, way down your fun list. Anyhow for £5 you couldn't go wrong, lots and lots of devices and inventions from this treasure trove of information, I was in book heaven combining creativeness, practicality and tat all in one whilst saving money. I'm so miserly.

Look what you could make the kids, a ball baring electric railway without electric that they have to manually move using magnets, how cool is that? It doesn't stop their either, make mother a new set of kitchen tongs from two wooden ice cream spoons! Admittedly you would have to go back around thirty years to be issued with small wooden spoons from ice cream and yes they would only be big enough to pick up a small carrot but hey, it's free!

Home made stop nuts are interesting, in one swipe you can turn a normal nut into a 'gripper' nut to beat all nuts, as long as you have a vice, a metalwork file and a use for nuts around the house. I looked diligently and guess what, I have all three, how sad is that.

I love homely knockers and a mallet made from a broomstick on a chain with which to whack your front door sounds dreamy. Maybe I should use a toffee hammer instead, bet they go with quite a whack. Still, there's nothing better than an ornamental, useful, compact armchair bookcase made from thick wire and wood, to avoid unwanted children, pets etc from taking magazines and books I without permission I wonder if barbed wire would be best?

Oh wow! Home cinema! Or more to the point shaky home movies on 8mm of uncle Archibald on holiday in mablethorpe only this time on a big screen, it's like being at the movies! A enamel coated glass balled sheet of wood, who'd have thought it, but of a bugger to store but then again, it's the future. Marvel as he falls off a donkey, laugh as auntie Mabel gets goosed by a donkey, roar with laughter as the film breaks and you get to go home.

Hmm, soft head hammer? For hammering what exactly? The instructions seem a little vague and really only useful if your looking for something to 'tool up with' in the prison workshop.

My job over the next few days in between painting of course is to have a go at a few of these excellent ideas and turn our home into a house of the future. Remember you saw it here first, looks like I have got Christmas sorted too with knockers all round as gifts.

Available from all good bookshops stuck in the fifties, tomorrow how to make an bomb proof Anderson shelter and avoid Gerry's doodlebugs using only a tin can and two clothes pegs.

 

www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Foreverbunny and the Impossimals