The Sands Mechanical Museum
News!
updated February 2014
I changed the default text size to be larger. As I get older and my eye sight changes, I appreciate the larger font. I have actually made it as large as normal font is at a reading distance, which is closer than the screen. So it should appear the same size as a book. Please let me know what you think.
The website is now running on the TTD server owned by Lynne.
For those of you interested in web technology, the entire site is now XHTML 1.0 Strict. The last pages to resist included some Javascript to animate various mechanisms.
The 1946 Evans Races, a pneumatically driven horse race arcade game is approaching completion. The mechanism that moves the horses has been complete for some time. There is an electonics board below the mechanical and this has also been restored. All that is required now is to join the two and finish removing any faults that appear.
The Pocket Watch Museum is now finished. We are selecting one watch each week and posting it on the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors forum to find out more about them. Eventually this information will make it to the website.
We spent a week working on the the artist's website, moving it to the new server. It is now more portable than before. You can see an example at Michelle's Art Site.
The Sands Mechanical Museum
The Sands Mechanical Museum contains many mechanical wonders, including antique coin operated games, nimble cars like the Super Seven and Elise, and unusual time pieces. While it is a virtual museum, many of the mechanisms are real and can be seen by appointment.
The goal is to reference the wonderful world of mechanical marvels, to astound and amaze you with things mechanical, both old and new. We want to show you how things work.
The arcade games are often ingenious in their design and construction. They seek to entertain. The Lotus Elise is a very advanced automobile, providing more entertainment than just the ordinary travel appliance.
Welcome! We hope you enjoy your visit.
The museum has three major wings:
- coin op game museum (http://www.coinopgamemuseum.com)
- pocket watch museum (http://www.pocketwatchmuseum.com)
- the Sands Mechanical Museum (http://www.sandsmuseum.com)
Coin Operated Arcade Games
Coin operated machines are the perfect thing to have in a mechanical museum. They are the results of the best creative minds of their time, and are built to entertain. Through time, they show the current state of mechanical and electrical engineering.
- Mechanisms see how the mechanisms inside the machines work
- Coin Operated Machines
- Chicago Express - an old pre-flipper pinball with ramps
- Confucius Say - a unique table from the 1920s
- Contact Jr. - historically significant, first to use electricity
- High Speed - an example of a full restoration
- Knockout - an old pinball machine with boxers fighting in the middle
- Ritz - art deco pinball, very simple
- Shoot the Bear - shoot at a ray of light at a little mechanical bear
Nimble Cars (Automobiles)
Automobiles are mechanical wonders. They can be basic transportation or they can be fun. These three cars all share one characteristic. They are nimble.
- Nimble Cars
- Lotus Elise from Lotus, a very light and minimalist car
- NSX is Honda's engineering master piece, an amazing car
- Super Seven, a street legal race car
Pocket Watches and other Time Pieces
- pocket watch museum has some antique pocket watches
- Spilhaus Clock, designed by Spilhaus and built by Edmund Scientific, shows the position of the stars, tides, phases of the moon.
- Geochron, shows the sun lit portion of the world and time on a scrolling map of the earth
- Lunarium shows the moon relationships, position of the sun and earth
Stuff
- Sail boat, radio controlled model, using high technology materials
- Sous Vide Temperature Controller, a new, scientific method of cooking with a precisely temperature controlled water bath. Eggs are divine, as are steaks
- Matching Colors to Repair Clock Faces, by John B. Lord Sr., reprinted with permission from the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors journal.
- There are some jigsaw puzzles here as well.
Notes:
To find out more about the museum or to contact us, please visit the contact page. The staff of the Museum create web sites and are proud of their concert music sharing forum. You can see the cars' site map and the coin operated games' site map. The site maps for the pocket watch museum and any artist websites are accessable from their index pages.
Services available at the Sands Mechanical Museum
- We used to do Museum quality restoration of old coin operated games (1930-1960)
- Radio control model sailboat construction
- Automobile suspension tuning
- Frisbee dog training