Lionel inclinometer

Very likely a WWII product.  Just a guess but this is probably for aircraft or a ship.

Ships used inclinometer, aircraft use the ball and needle.   

I am wondering if there is a book of manufacture of the wartime items Lionel made for the USN and other industries?

This is a line from the article in Wikipedia on the Lionel Corporation:

"Lionel ceased toy production in 1942 to produce nautical items for the United States Navy during World War II. The company advertised heavily." 

They have a Lionel binnacle displayed at this site: https://www.piecesofship.com/compasses.htm

This is a common device on a ship and sailboat, called an "inclinometer".  It indicates the degree of heel of the ship.  During WW2 Lionel made marine equipment for the war effort.  They made a really outstanding magnetic compass for ships.  Sought after by boaters today.  I know a guy who had the Lionel compass on his sailboat and it was very precise.

Bill

Makes me wonder if we had a similar "war effort" today, what could Lionel contribute? 

The Lionel inclinometer was affixed to the front of the Lionel Compensating Binnacle Type MBF which was used by the Merchant Marine on its ships during WW II, not the U.S. Navy.  The Navy had an all-brass binnacle which did not include the inclinometer.

Bob Osterhoff

Thank you  Bob......

bmoran4 posted:

Makes me wonder if we had a similar "war effort" today, what could Lionel contribute? 

Like too many other companies, all they could contribute is an address in China.

I remember reading an article about consumer good companies producing goods for the war effort and Lionel was mentioned. I don't recall if they mentioned an inclinometer, they did mention a compass, and I believe they also built gyroscopic navigation devices that were used in torpedoes if I remember correctly,  they also I seem to recall built portions of the targeting system used in torpedoes as well(when you hear  them in the old movies targeting about a targeting solution in a WWII sub, they are setting the torpedo with settings  based on tables based on distance to target, speed of the target ship, depth, etc).  One of these days it would be a pleasure to do more research on how they were able to turn a manufacturing base that had been devastated by the Depression, obviously lost skilled workers to the military, and on figuring out which companies to approach with building what  they needed.

The auto industry building tanks, or even airplanes, kind of is easy to see, but a lot of consumer product companies produced a wide range of components and parts for the military, how did they figure out who was best to do a particular thing. Some of which is pretty well documented, how they were able to use "Rosie the Riveter" and other people who had never  done that  kind of work to build pretty complex things, but not the rest.  Since WWII, defense products are made by specialty companies or divisions of bigger companies (it always cracked me up that the M16 at one point was made by a division of Mattel, the toy company, friends of mine who had served had a good laugh about that, for a variety of light and not so light reasons). 

The early issues of the M-16 actually had "Mattel" molded on the stock. It was a real testimonial to the quality of those first rifles .

"You can tell it's Mattel: It's swell !"

Actually, only the handgrip was subcontracted to Mattel as they had the plastic molding capabilities.  It had no effect on the actual functioning of the rifle.

The handgrip of the M16 rifle was made by Mattel. When the gun was first introduced in Vietnam, soldiers noticed the toy company’s logo embossed on the handgrip and complained. Later shipments arrived without the imprint, but the grips were still manufactured by Mattel.

Two of the watch companies where I worked were involved in war production.  In addition to manufacturing watches, both made aircraft clocks and other instruments.  While moving some old file cabinets in Quality Control we found an aircraft turn/bank indicator.  Written across the face was “failed heat cold test 6/23/44”.  It had been in that file cabinet for almost 50 years.  The second company was also manufacturing bomb and shell fuses.  The old guys said there was one, armed soldier for everyone of them; probably an exaggeration, but you could understand that security must have been tight.  They continued manufacturing these fuses through the 1950’s.

bigkid posted:

I remember reading an article about consumer good companies producing goods for the war effort and Lionel was mentioned. I don't recall if they mentioned an inclinometer, they did mention a compass, and I believe they also built gyroscopic navigation devices that were used in torpedoes if I remember correctly,  they also I seem to recall built portions of the targeting system used in torpedoes as well(when you hear  them in the old movies targeting about a targeting solution in a WWII sub, they are setting the torpedo with settings  based on tables based on distance to target, speed of the target ship, depth, etc).  One of these days it would be a pleasure to do more research on how they were able to turn a manufacturing base that had been devastated by the Depression, obviously lost skilled workers to the military, and on figuring out which companies to approach with building what  they needed.

The auto industry building tanks, or even airplanes, kind of is easy to see, but a lot of consumer product companies produced a wide range of components and parts for the military, how did they figure out who was best to do a particular thing. Some of which is pretty well documented, how they were able to use "Rosie the Riveter" and other people who had never  done that  kind of work to build pretty complex things, but not the rest.  Since WWII, defense products are made by specialty companies or divisions of bigger companies (it always cracked me up that the M16 at one point was made by a division of Mattel, the toy company, friends of mine who had served had a good laugh about that, for a variety of light and not so light reasons). 

I have never seen documentation that Lionel made gyroscopic navigation devices for torpedoes but perhaps you are thinking of the U.S. Navy Taffrail Log Lionel made, which was dispatched off the end of a ship with a rope, and looked like a small torpedo.  While Lionel never made actual guns for the war effort, they did produce a K7 mechanical gun mount for a Cal 50 battleship gun.  They also made bullet casings but without the ammo.  The study of Lionel military production can be as fascinating as the trains themselves!

Bob Osterhoff

This piece could still be useful in our hobby today. You can mount it on a flat car and test your grades to see if they are in compliance with your design.

alan

I was hoping the "inclinometer" was for measuring how inclined the user was towards running trains....groan