Heavy Brass Shaker

[mojjax]

It's marked CENTRAL SCIENTIFIC CO. CHICAGO on the bottom .The middle section appears to unscrew , but no matter how hard I try I just cant do it - However , the bottom pops off revealing a piece of cloth mesh towards the center . It weighs over a pound .

mojjax

 

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[diggummup]

I haven't figured out what it is exactly used for, but if i'm reading this right, it should date between 1900 and 1909.


The company was incorporated in 1900 as Central Scientific Company, located at 315 Wabash Avenue in downtown Chicago. It was formed out of what was left of the Olmstad Scientific Company after a disastrous fire in 1898, which killed the founder and owner, W.A. Olmstad, and ten of his staff. Olmstad had been in the science equipment business since at least 1889. Records are sketchy, but another Chicago Company, the Central School Supply House, may have been involved in founding Central Scientific.

From the begining, Central Scientific manufactured and distributed science teaching equipment for schools, colleges, and universities by catalog mail order. The company put out its first complete catalog dated 1903 (but issued in 1904), a larger one in 1909, and a much bigger one in 1915. The trademark "CENCO" was used from 1909 onwards, and is still in use today. By 1915 the company had moved several times, and was then in a facility on East Ohio Street, where they stayed for twenty years. They had also diversified, and were making and selling equipment for industrial laboratories as well, including food testing.

 

[doublet2a]

It was for grinding up there dope in those days
Still get them today


HH TIM

 

[Gypsy Heart]

My guess off the top of my head is that it was a screen to sift with before weighing....something valuable like gold flakes ......but a better guess is to look here
:
Click on a object and all the pics listed will come up
http://www.humboldt.edu/~scimus/Inst_index.html

 

[jscorpio]

more info

http://www.humboldt.edu/~scimus/Manufac/Cenco/Cenco.htm

 

[wesfrye53]

When I took Soils in college we would pass samples through a number of mesh screens, each one smaller than the one before it. The bottom was solid. We would then weigh each mesh and from the results determine the type soil... % greater than 1", % greater than 0.5 inch...etc. The solid bottom was % fines. This data would then be used in roadway design, foundation and structures design, etc.

However, the screens we used were about a foot in diameter. I suspect this is a similar instrument but I can't help with what it analyzed. Sorry.

 

[Angelo]

Here are the catalogues for them in PDF.

http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections
/Trade-Literature/Scientific-instruments/CF/SIsingle-record.cfm?AuthorizedCompany=Central%20Scientific%20Company


Tony

 

[zlathim]

When I took Soils in college we would pass samples through a number of mesh screens, each one smaller than the one before it. The bottom was solid. We would then weigh each mesh and from the results determine the type soil... % greater than 1", % greater than 0.5 inch...etc. The solid bottom was % fines. This data would then be used in roadway design, foundation and structures design, etc.

However, the screens we used were about a foot in diameter. I suspect this is a similar instrument but I can't help with what it analyzed. Sorry.

I work in Highway construction and do this on a daily basis. We actually report the % passing a certain seive instaed of treporting the % retained on a certain seive. It is called a seive analysis or a gradation and it is used to insure that aggregates and soils are within the specification limits as dictated by the contract.

You are correct, that small thing would certainly not work for any of our applications. I am guessing that the seive part made from brass is there to protect the fabric mesh from damage done by larger particals. We nest seives like this when we are straining material over a #200 seive.

 

[bakergeol]

It also would have to be used to sieve material which was soft as the cloth would not stand up to hard materials- rock ect. Perhaps powder or grains.

 

[wesfrye53]

The more I thought about this I began wondering if it was a "sifter" similar to a flour sifter used in kitchens in order to obtain a specific consistency of a powdered chemical in the laboratory.