What is this??

[Beerman]

Bought this at local flea market the other day. Tried to research, but can't find any info. It's some sort of measuring device, I'm guessing for blueprints. Has a wheel along the bottom. Looks like you roll it across a flat surface, turning the wheel in the process. Made by a co. called K&E.

Any ideas???

 

[Chief919]

I've always seen them listed as map measurers, you roll across the map and have an exact measurement to convert distances from.

 

[4xdog]

A Tiffany opisometer. Nifty.

 

[rlitman]

It's for reading the length of a curve on a map.
Strange to see an ampersand in the middle of the K&E. Usually they use a + sign.
The geared dials and reset button make this a REALLY nice one!

 

[henry29]

http://www.mathsinstruments.me.uk/page71.html

 

[WWheeler]

Decades ago (80s & 90s) when I was a foreman for a tree trimming service doing work for power, telephone, and cable companies we called that tool a "wheel" (Map Measuring Wheel). I still have several buried somewhere.

We used them every month on utility grid maps to "roll" off the miles of line my crews had trimmed. I'd have to ride with the utility forester to inspect the line together and mark the maps as to what was complete, then meet in his office to roll them to get the company paid by the mile of primary line per contract.

edit: Your pics are shadowed so that they obscure the actual 'wheel' on the bottom used to trace lines on a map. The button on top zeroes the device.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Duckface wants!!!!!

 

[cvairwerks]

Probably similar to the map wheel, but for building drawings. Run the measurements on the blueline and then multiply by the blueline reduction scale to get a real world length.

 

[WWheeler]

I found one of mine. I believe it's an 'Alvin' and the case says 'made in Switzerland'. edit: also says "swiss made" on the dial.

Somewhere here I have more than one that I believe are exactly like the OP's or very close to it. Not sure where I've buried them though. Like I said, we used to use them all the time, but I haven't touched them in decades.

 

[wvrailroader]

I don't know.
But if it works and it's for sale and you have a PayPal account let me know by pm.
If it is a map scale(I have never seen one in hundreds, leading to thousands, of inches which would make for a hellish big map), and I don't think it is, it is merely a historical doodad and they have as much value as a tool as a buggy whip would.
I think it's a type of runout guage. Or that's what I would use it as, cumulative error measuring of time versus distance in a fabric mill or a lathe or some such. Or simply. To measure diameter precisely and quickly to better than five hundredths on any size pipe up to 10,000 inches. Or expansion of railroad rail at different temperatures.
Thousands of uses, I don't think a map is one of them. Could be, just not a practical scale.

I am sure it is not something used to measure rail expansion. It is much too precise for that. We make marks on the rail base and tie plates when expanding rail to get the proper neutral temperature.

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[WWheeler]

I am sure it is not something used to measure rail expansion. It is much too imprecise for that. We make marks on the rail base and tie plates when expanding rail to get the proper neutral temperature.

FIFY

It is not accurate at measuring short distances. If you are trying to follow curvy lines on a map of 12" / 30cm or more where accuracy of +/- of a cm or .5 of an inch isn't a big deal, then you're where this tool shines. If you want to measure short curvy distances more accurately than that this is not the tool for you. A piece of string is a better more accurate tool for that. I've had to resort to using string many times.

 

[wvrailroader]

FIFY

It is not accurate at measuring short distances. If you are trying to follow curvy lines on a map of 12" / 30cm or more where accuracy of +/- of a cm or .5 of an inch isn't a big deal, then you're where this tool shines. If you want to measure short distances more accurately than that this is not the tool for you.

I just know that the only instrument we use to measure rail expansion is a good old fashioned tape measure. Nothing fancy like this instrument. Besides, as tough as railroaders are on tools and equipment, something like this wouldn't last 30 seconds lol.

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[WWheeler]

A tape measure is waaaay more accurate than a map measuring wheel, or opisometer, if you prefer. It's dial graduations are misleading, because it's accuracy depends more on how you hold it upright while moving it along.

To get paid by contract for mileage off a grid map both you and the forester must agree on the measurement and sign off on it, so we would take turns rolling the same maps. Many many many times - actually more often than not if there was more than ~20" of rolling on a map to be done - we would take turns keep and coming up with a different value every time by an inch or often several inches, so we would have to start all over. The results were rarely ever repeatable within an inch if there was any amount of rolling to be done. I couldn't count how many times I'd have to roll the same map 5 or 6 times or more in a row before we would settle on what it measured out to.

 

[bob15]

I don't believe the website posted is correct as to the usage of this instrument.
Here is no scale to translate. I know of no map that would require 1000 inches of tracing.
I am, of course, often wrong.
So is the web.
I'll sway if you can give me an example of any even fairly obscure map that would require 1000 inches cumulative that has an accuracy of even a half mile or so.
If it is a map measuring device, solely, as the website alludes, I could sure find much better uses for it.
This is of course all dependant on the dial doing what it says;
Measuring linear inches from 5 hundreths(or better dependant on your eye sight) to 1000 inches.

Close to 20 years ago I visited a construction company getting ready to bid on building a highway extension in NY; in the office, on 3 walls was a detailed layout/map of the complete construction site. The map, though maybe 24-36" wide, was probably 60-70' long. Where they using a opisometer then?

I doubt it, but if this was the 1950's and Eisenhower Interstate system was being planned and developed, something that precise might have been used. I think the same could have been said in the 1870's when the great railroad expansion was taking place across the country. The planners would need large scale maps for the entire construction, going hundreds of miles with no computers.

How and what type of equipment was NASA using when plotting the surface of the moon in the 1960's? How big of a map would that have been?

 

[Tim37]

Lmao at first I read thenth inch and hundredth inch I was trying to figure out who the hell measures a map to a hundredth of a inch.

 

[WWheeler]

Lmao at first I read thenth inch and hundredth inch I was trying to figure out who the hell measures a map to a hundredth of a inch.

Haha! It's graduations are 1/10 of an inch. The smaller dials indicate multiples of 10 and 100 inches on the OPs. Mine has a smaller hand - hidden behind the big hand since it's zeroed out in my pic, that indicates # of feet up to a total of 25'.

It's not really accurate to measure to a 1/10" though. Depending on how you hold it while rolling you can easily measure the same straight, much less a curvy one, 10" line 5x and come up with 5 different measurements more than several 10ths off from each other. Like I said, if an accuracy of a centimeter or 1/2" is good enough for you, then this is a good tool choice.

 

[PBCampbell]

Surveyors/Civil Engineers instrument? That'd be my guess given tenths and hundreds. They'd be working off three points to do a layout, so straight lines. A table of conversions later they'd have a survey order for the surveyor to follow.
I used to know a civil engineer and I remember he had a few, but I never paid any attention to how they were used.
I do have one like WWheeler and I seem to recall it was used at a lumber operation to estimate board feet. Mine's marked Derby and Swiss Made.

 

[WWheeler]

Surveyors/Civil Engineers instrument? That'd be my guess given tenths and hundreds. They'd be working off three points to do a layout, so straight lines. A table of conversions later they'd have a survey order for the surveyor to follow.
I used to know a civil engineer and I remember he had a few, but I never paid any attention to how they were used.
I do have one like WWheeler and I seem to recall it was used at a lumber operation to estimate board feet. Mine's marked Derby and Swiss Made.

The OPs does not measure tenths or hundredths of an inch. It's not an accurate tool like that. The big dial measures in inches with 1/10 inch graduations and the smaller dials indicate multiples of 10 and 100 inches.

Just look at it. Once the big hand goes around once and hits ten inches the big hand will be back at TDC and the little hand on the right, marked "Tens Inches" will be at '1' indicating ten inches and the big hand starts over. The little hand on the left marked "Hundred Inches" will barely have moved at all.

Once you repeat that ten times to 100 inches the little hand on the right will have gone one full revolution to be back at TDC and the little hand on the left marked "Hundred Inches" will now be at '1'.

The OP's map wheel is capable of measuring 999.9 inches before it's back to being zeroed out at 1,000.