Patent Pending Blog - Patents and the History of Technology

Screw Vehicle

One of the earliest screw vehicles I've found is the Ice Locomotive, which looks like it would be so heavy that it would sink into the snow.  I wonder if any were ever built?

Corkscrewed and the Rodenator

There is a new reality show on the tv these days, called "Corkscrewed: the Wrath of Grapes".  In the show the two producers of the reality show "American Idol," Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick, buy a vinyard near Paso Robles California, and proceed to have everything go wrong with their plan to be vintners. Their grape contracts are cancelled, the heat kills their owls, and gophers start to take over the vinyard.  The rodent disaster is saved when an inventor from Idaho drives in to save the day.  That man is Ed Meyers, President of an Idaho company that sells a rodent control product called the Rodenator.

The producers feel a little sorry for the furry critters for a few minutes, then when they think of the $6 million they have  riding on the harvest, they are all for nuking the gophers, at which time Ed is happy to provide the pyrotechnics.  Ed is shown in three episodes of the show that I have seen, and solves at least one of their many problems.

The Rodenator is a portable device which mixes oxygen and propane, and sends a swirling mixture into the rodent burrows.  A spark from the device ignites the gases, and the borrows for up to 300 feet are blown up, instantly killing the gophers, ground squirrels, or other borrowing pest. The Rodenator website has more information about the device, including videos of the device in action.

Screw Vehicle Technology

Recently British adventurers Steven Brooks and Graham Stratford built a specialized vehicle which could cross the Bering Straights from Alaska to Russia, and could traverse water, ice, snow, and the tangled masses of ice ridges that can occur in that area.  It could also climb out of the water onto the ice shelf.  Their adventure is showcased at the team's Ice Challenger site.  The vehicle was a Bombardier snow grooming vehicle, driven by tracks, to which was added a screw propulsion system.

I had thought the Russians had pioneered screw propulsion vehicles, and wrote a blog post with pictures of their vehicles.  Recently I found out that the original screw propulsion vehicle was designed in 1944, during WWII, by Johannes Raedel, a member of the German Army and veteran of the Eastern Front with Russia. (Note: Raedel was originally spelled R'a'del, with an umlaut).  He had observed that in the deep snows of Russia, tanks would dig out the snow under the tracks, and the tank would become high centered on snow pressed under the belly of the tank. 

According to Siegfried Raedel, son of Johannes..."The idea evolved while looking at a meat mincer, also employing a screw type of compression. He convinced army headquarters in Berlin to allow him to make a prototype of this machine.  At that time, Austria was annexed to Germany already and he was dispatched to the Austrian Alpine vehicle test centre at St. Johann in Tyrol.  Using whatever materials were available he built this prototype during the period of 10th Feb 1944 to 28th April 1944.  It was tested extensively and the first page of this report is attached, together with a few pictures of the original.  It was very slow, but it would pull 1 ton!  It also had good climbing capabilities. It would penetrate about 30cm into the snow, no more."

The photos below are of Johannes testing the vehicle in Tyrol.  The woman and children were at a lodge at the top of a mountain, which the vehicle had climbed during testing. 

Siegfried pointed out that "something in the order of 7 tons of patent papers were taken out of Germany after the war. What amazes me though is the fact that both the US and Russia seem to have had access to these papers - and this during the cold war period!"

The page below is the first page of Johannes' report on the vehicle. 

The Mora Knife of Sweden

The region aroung Mora, Sweden, has been known for centuries as a source of quality steel articles, including knives. About 110 years ago Erik Frost began making knives and developed a style that became popular.  This general style of knife is called a Mora knife  and is still made by two companies in Mora that trace their anscestry from Erik Frost.  The companies are Frost Knivfabric and Eriksson Knives.  Mora knives have become a favorite for all outdoor activities, including Scandinavian construction workers, foresters, and is a real favorite of survival and bushcraft folks.



Mora knives come in several variations, with plastic handles, in a version with a laminated steel blade, and in the traditional wooden handle handle shown above.   I learned about Mora knives from my friend Bryan, who told me and my backpacking class about the reputation of Mora knives being used to cut down trees by pounding the full tang knife into the tree, then pounding it back and forth to cut wood fibers.  It is also reputed to be able to be driven into a tree, then support a man's weight on it.  That seems like a stretch to me, but you'll find reference to people testing that claim. 

On a hike the fall of '06 we found a tree that had a cut off branch wound that had become fat wood, from saturated and dried sap.  We used a rock to pound Bryan's Mora knife into the hard wood to chip out lengths of fat wood.  Not many knives would take that kind of abuse.

The more inportant thing is that the knife comes wicked sharp out of the box, holds an edge, is easy to sharpen, and is tough and durable.  My Mora knife has a snug fitting plastic sheath, and can be worn on the belt or hanging around the user's neck. It has laminated steel, with the center steel being harder, sandwiched between two layers of softer steel.  The combination results in a knife that holds an edge, and is very tough.  The knife has the traditional Scandinavian bevel on the edge, rather than being hollow ground like a lot of knives.  To sharpen it, you put all the metal of the bevel portion on the stone, and remove metal from the entire bevel.  That means removing a little more metal, but it also means that the angle set at the factory remains constant after many sharpenings. 

Being a backpacker, I'm more used to Swiss Army knives and folders than fixed blade knives, but having a razor sharp fixed blade knife makes some camp chores go well, like cleaning fish and fire building.  Its very light, and now I wouldn't think of hiking without it.  The big surprise is.... it sells for less than $20, and often closer to $10.  You'll see Mora knives on ebay, and knife sellers on the web.  Get a Frost or Eriksson Mora knive and let me know how you like it.

The Press Bot Coffee Maker

The best designs are the ones that make you say "I wish I'd thought of that!"  They are also usually dead simple, and probably quite a bit more subtle than they appear.  The  Press-Bot coffee maker is all that, and it makes good coffee too.   Camp coffee is always great, but coffee made from grounds in a French press is wonderful.  Since the Press Bot operates with a standard 1 liter wide mouth Nalgene bottle, that means you can make enough great coffee for three or four people at once, so it is also a very efficient method. This summer I was at Kane Lake in Idaho teaching my son to fly fish, sitting on a rock having a great cup of coffee.  It doesn't get any better than that.  This little gadget weighs only a few ounces, and I carry a Nalgene bottle anyway, so it is very practical even for ultralight hiking. 

The John Muir Trail

The Y's Hikers John Muir Trail hike, 1971

see www.backpackingtechnology.com for the trip report and pictures of the Y's Hikers JMT trip, 1971