What C. G. Conn did during WW2

[JohnL]

Saw this on board the SS Lane Victory (a WW2 era cargo ship) in San Pedro, CA.





It's the compass binnacle at the emergency steering station (on top of the rear deckhouse). Conn also built compasses during the war.

[Digidog]

This may explain why all my Conns have been so directional when playing! Who knew.

[Cool find, by the way!]

[ghmerrill]

My first reaction to it was "That looks like a Cavendish apparatus!"

[JohnL]

My first reaction to it was "That looks like a Cavendish apparatus!"

The spheres are iron; they're used to adjust the compass to correct for the fact that it's smack in the middle of thousands of tons of steel.

[ghmerrill]

So that's kind of Cavendish-y ... sort of ... You know: gravity, magnetism, ...

It's just that when I saw it, I had an immediate flashback to a very lengthy freshman physics lab episode.

[JohnL]

So that's kind of Cavendish-y ... sort of ... You know: gravity, magnetism, ...

Well, some of the equations are very similar; inverse square and all that.

Tangential to the current subject, but more music-oriented: one band I play in incorporates Heave Ho, My Lads, Heave Ho! (the official song of the US Merchant Marine) whenever we do our service salute medley. WW2-era merchant mariners are recognized as veterans by the US Government.

[robcat2075]

I suppose Axis-territory instrument manufacturers got re-tooled for similar purposes.

Anyone know what they might have been making?

[mwpfoot]

The Mighty Quinn has some pics of a Conn wartime ship compass here:

https://www.brassandwinds.com/blogs/new ... p0qmlFLcMU

[JohnL]

I suppose Axis-territory instrument manufacturers got re-tooled for similar purposes.

Anyone know what they might have been making?

I don't recall seeing anything on the subject. I expect some of them retooled for wartime production while others were shut down and their workforce dispersed to factories making war materiel.