Aircraft latches and you.

Aircraft surplus,.... One of the few rewards of the war effort that hot rodders have taken full advantage of in post war peacetime. When you mention the words Hot rod and aircraft surplus, a few images immediately come to mind.... probably the most popular, being the Bomber seat, a favorite of the post war lakes racers as a cheap lightweight seat for their racecars. But let's not forget, the aircraft seatbelts.... Fuel tanks and filters, ....Oxygen tanks converted for water or fuel, and of course my favorite, the Bellytank..... Years of government paid engineers windtunnel testing pollywogs, just to be taken full advantage of by hot rodders seeking land speed records. Ya gotta love it.
But one of my favorite little items I discovered at my local Burbank surplus supply center, is the aircraft latch. Obviously designed to latch a door or panel while staying flush, and not sticking out in the airstream,....exactly what I need for the door of the bellytank. Modern SCTA rules require that the latches for a door must be actuated from the outside as well as the inside, in case of an emergency.

There is a wide variety of interesting latches out there, here is a sampling:


I picked the latch that had the largest open button.


The two buttons sit flush with the skin of the body



In case your wondering how I'm gonna open the door from the inside, I still have to attach a pull tab to the inside under the "Push" button.







If you use your imagination, you can think of all sorts of uses for these latches on a hot rod.

Accessory turn signals of the 20's and 30's

For a few years now, I have been fascinated by a very odd automotive accessory,..... the add on turn signal / Stop light...... Mainly because of the seemingly endless variety of styles and companies that made these things from the teens through the 40's. I seem to come across a different one at least every month, and they just keep getting stranger and stranger.

You see, ... as strange as it may seem to anyone under the age of 65, most cars didn't come stock with turn signals..... Not until the late 40's early 50's. And as necessity is the mother of all invention, you can only imagine how many model T's and A's smashed into each other due to the lack of information form one driver to another as to which direction you were about to suddenly go. Of course everyone could use hand signals, but you can imagine how many people actually did, I mean,... what if it's raining ?.. are you gonna roll down your window and stick your arm out of the car every time you want to turn? Probably not.

Hence, the accessory turn signal. I hope you enjoy them.











As much as I would love to own them all, and some of them are from my small collection, I have come to the conclusion that trying to get them all would be a very time consuming and money wasting experience, as I have seen some of these crazy things sell well into the hundreds. So for now, I am content with saving the images, and collecting them on my hard drive.