# Tools that are no longer made ... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 1, 2011, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795 "2011-02-01T17:17:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Wogglebug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@Wogglebug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wogglebug)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/81 "2011-02-19T15:41:15Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > This is going to be a tricky one. Somebody at NPR has posited this particular question: Name a tool that is no longer used. This was mind-altering to me (ok, it doesn’t take much, sometimes). > **[NameBright - Coming Soon](http://www.antiquefarmtools.info/index.htm)** Quite a few of these are still made, but, I think not necessarily in these forms. If the name is the same, but the tool has changed, is it the same tool? Whatever. The site makes a thought-provoking browse, at any rate. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/82 "2011-02-19T16:02:32Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > And the [baby cage.](http://www.google.com/patents?id=tdhTAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false) Not sure if it’s based on that patent, but [here’s a pic.](http://community.livejournal.com/adski_kafeteri/1648361.html) ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/83 "2011-02-19T16:53:03Z")
> [@Wogglebug](#): > > When I was at NASA, I had occasion to look for documentation supporting a theory that I had heard that Nixon and Agnew – who cordially disliked the space program – intentionally misled NASA into believing they would have new funds for a new spacecraft (the Shuttle), if only they completely closed down the Saturn V production process. > > Unfortunately, NASA tends to be somewhat heedless about keeping a historical record of decision-making. “Somewhat” here meaning that some things are very well documented, while other significant project events are never recorded, not efficiently stored, or trashed. (Understand that I personally have pulled entire boxes of unique project history and project data out of the dumpster. When even a major project closes down, sometimes no one cares about finding the shelf space.) > > Add to this a strange (to my mind) indifference current projects sometimes have to previous work. I was once faced with developing a project where even the goals were extremely amorphous. It was, however, urgent, because the larger project had already been funded. Desperate, I turned to records of similar Soviet projects, and to earlier NASA projects of a somewhat similar nature. While my ideas were often well-recieved, managers and engineers were so uninterested in how _other_ people had solved the problems, no one even bothered to criticize. It’s the not-invented-here syndrome, but with a twist. > > Even though I was friends with the head librarian at the center, I was unable to find anything significant relating to the closure of the Saturn program. Any real explanation at all. > > I don’t think there’s any question that once the political winds turned against the Saturn V projects, the motivation for keeping the process history and the pragmatics of manufacture were neglected, or sometimes quite intentionally (though perhaps not maliciously) destroyed. One item I read claimed that the space race was much more party politics than people realized. Kennedy(D) dreamed up the main on the moon thing, so Nixon(R) wanted to shut it down and dream up his own special space thing, the shuttle. Carter(D) wanted to shut down the shuttle, but it was too far along. Reagan(R) made sure it flew. We even see echoes of that today, where the plans dreamed up by Bush were abandoned now that Obama is running the show. I assume for something like the Staurn, there’s a motivation to “move on” as part of the push of a new program. The administration doesn’t want the other side to just start building them again after the next election. * * * I guess the problem with any tool is that there is so much variety in the world, you will still find someone somewhere making a product if only for nostalgia. Slide rules, tube testers, 8-inch floppies, suits of armor (and for your horse), yew bows and feathered arrows, even non-fuel-injected carburetors for cars; somebody somewhere makes them. Freon? DDT? Banned, but I’m sure someone makes it. A technology would be gone if it was replaced for a simple reason - the replacement is better, simpler, cheaper, faster. Hence analog anything can probably be simulated better with digital computers. Someone somewhere still uses buggy whips. Obsolete - 78rpms, 8-track, L-Cassette, reel-to-reel (?), those electrostatic and laser videodiscs, reel-to-reel computer tape, countless old computer backup devices of various formats, analog slow-scan ham TV equipment, hand-cranked auto engines (even motorcycle kickstarts are getting rare), piston steam engines… ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/84 "2011-02-19T17:09:46Z")
Wooden butter mold? Haven’t seen one of these int the stores for some time now. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/85 "2011-02-19T17:23:03Z")
> [@Wogglebug](#): > > Even though I was friends with the head librarian at the center, I was unable to find anything significant relating to the closure of the Saturn program. Any real explanation at all. > > I don’t think there’s any question that once the political winds turned against the Saturn V projects, the motivation for keeping the process history and the pragmatics of manufacture were neglected, or sometimes quite intentionally (though perhaps not maliciously) destroyed. The Apollo program and Saturn family production was just pretty much shut down in 1972 with little in the way of closeout. Although the attempt was made to morph the Apollo Extensions Program (the follow-on program that included more ambitious Lunar missions, orbiting space stations, possible Venus or Mars flybys, et cetera) into the Apollo Applications Program that would just use surplus Saturn stages, CSMs, and hardware, that too was cancelled after only the relatively modest Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and the Skylab launch and manned missions. A lot of smaller vendors that built hardware for the Saturn vehicle and Command/Service Module went out of business, or at least, exited the spacecraft business. The work on the Space Transportation System (Shuttle) was divvied out among the major contractors and thus to smaller contractors with political connections, regardless of previous work on Apollo or other space programs. The death of Apollo was a purely political decision, and as such, no real consideration was giving to preserving any of the engineering “tribal” knowledge or heritage for future use. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/86 "2011-02-19T17:24:28Z")
My wife was looking for a rectangular (loaf-shaped) angel food cake pan with the little feet sticking out on top so it could cool upside down. You can find the doughnut-shaped ones with the hole in the center, but not a loaf pan. Things go in and out of style. Does anyone make clackers? Leather football helmets? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/87 "2011-02-19T17:53:17Z")
They don’t make Greek fire throwers anymore, because they’ve forgotten how to make Greek fire. Though of course, those were just flamethrowers, mechanically. I’m quite sure they don’t make medieval medical tools anymore either, such as gigantic tin syringes for enemas. Then there’s the patented crop rotator. Can’t even find spare parts for them these days. ETA: how about bed warmers ? My grandmother still has one, a kind of copper box on top of a long wooden handle. You put hot coals in the box, close it and sweep it inside the drapes to…well, warm the bed before you get in. Unnecessary since the advent of central heating. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/88 "2011-02-19T17:59:06Z")
sheets, not drapes, sorry. False friend. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/89 "2011-02-19T18:07:08Z")
> [@Daylate](#): > > Wooden butter mold? Haven’t seen one of these in the stores for some time now. On a related note, hotels and guest houses in Britain used to have small butter curlers on the breakfast table to enable one to slide it over the top and end up with a serated thin tube of butter to spread upon toast. Haven’t seen one of those for a decade, and can’t give any good reason why tools for such ornamental butter flourishes were ever needed. Anyway, I was going to say **[eel spears](http://www.antiquetools.co.uk/articles/eel1.htm)**, based on the fact that although we were given to understand jolly cockneys subsisted on jellied eels a hundred years ago, I have never met anyone who ate eel nor do our rustics wear eelskin waistcoats anymore. Or eelskin tracksuits. However, with any past technology or pastime England will _always_ step up to produce some elderly or middle-aged cloth-capped lunatic who devotes his entire life to maintaining that discipline ( particularly when it involves Steam ): **[The last eel catcher left in Cambridgeshire](http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/features/eel_man_is_keeping_a_tradition_alive_1_1592332)** Admittedly he uses willow traps, as have done his family for 500 years, but the fact eels are still eaten somewhere probably means spears are still used in some localities. And from that article, to confirm that the Chinese language has no words for ‘_That is too disgusting to eat_’: _Baby eels can be sold in China for as much as £800 per kilo._ ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/90 "2011-02-19T18:14:00Z")
How about punch cards and card writers? We used to have to wait in line to punch our computer programs into cards back when I was in school. There were also vending machines to sell punch cards. Telegraph equipment can’t still be made or used anymore, can it? Also, ticker tape machines. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/91 "2011-02-19T18:17:53Z")
> [@Sparky812](#): > > OK, how about the [old bumper jacks](http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://images.canadianlisted.com/nlarge/bumper-jack_4840981.jpg&imgrefurl=http://winnipeg.canadianlisted.com/car-parts/bumper-jack_462365.html&usg=__A8VYV9iT0cRfVOiRpOngcmWpWF4=&h=500&w=666&sz=159&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=DLupIboVfCxioM:&tbnh=128&tbnw=179&ei=MaNJTaOsNsH_lgfnqt31Dw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbumper%2Bjack%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1148%26bih%3D684%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=126&vpy=75&dur=5094&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=158&ty=119&oei=MaNJTaOsNsH_lgfnqt31Dw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0)? > The can’t make these suicide machines anymore, can they? I can’t count how many times I had one tilt, move or fall. I remember reading stories of people being killed or maimed often. They do. [![](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31H0fpbPCsL._SL500_AA300_.jpg) ](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31H0fpbPCsL._SL500_AA300_.jpg) Used on highly modified 4x4s with extreme wheel articulation. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/92 "2011-02-19T18:26:21Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > And from that article, to confirm that the Chinese language has no words for ‘_That is too disgusting to eat_’: > > _Baby eels can be sold in China for as much as £800 per kilo._ If you see the 2010 remake of Karate Kid, there’s a quick bit towards the end of the movie where they walk down a small alley (off Wangfujing shopping street, a few minutes walk from Tien Amen) where they sell anything and everything - bug on a stick with the legs still wiggling, cooked baby pigeons, frogs, snakes, scorpions and lizards, and cherries in fried honey on a stick. Since the cherry vendor was next to the bug seller, I didn’t try that either. ---
**Author:** ![VernWinterbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c67d28/32.png) [@VernWinterbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VernWinterbottom)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/93 "2011-02-19T18:28:45Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > Hand cranked dental drill and extraction key: [http://antiquegadgets.com/dental.html](http://antiquegadgets.com/dental.html) > > Especially the extraction key - I’m guessing nothing like it is used/made anywhere today. I own a tooth key that’s a year old. [TOOTH KEY](http://www.gggodwin.com/CartGenie/prod-48.htm) Historical reenacting provides a market for the manufacture of things like this. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/94 "2011-02-19T18:43:33Z")
I think the Saturn V is the best answer here. Yeah, there are still rockets, just like there are still cars. But while a modern car can do everything that a Model T could do and more, there is no modern rocket that can do what the Saturn V did. We used to have a tool for getting humans to the Moon, and now we don’t. Plus, unlike many of the other tools mentioned here, we can be absolutely certain that there are no amateurs making functional replicas. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/95 "2011-02-19T19:38:51Z")
We used punch cards at my college for registration in 1985. Every class & section had a card. They used the student union cafeteria. You went from table to table collecting punch cards for all your classes. As you exited, a lady took your cards and completed the registration. Utility bills used punched cards until the early 80’s too. I’m pretty sure punched cards aren’t manufactured anymore. The equipment to make them was thrown out decades ago. > [@BobLibDem](#): > > How about punch cards and card writers? We used to have to wait in line to punch our computer programs into cards back when I was in school. There were also vending machines to sell punch cards. > > Telegraph equipment can’t still be made or used anymore, can it? > > Also, ticker tape machines. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/96 "2011-02-20T02:28:06Z")
> [@VernWinterbottom](#): > > I own a tooth key that’s a year old. [TOOTH KEY](http://www.gggodwin.com/CartGenie/prod-48.htm) Historical reenacting provides a market for the manufacture of things like this. I wonder whether those things are really “in scope” of the OP. Although tooth keys may well be made, modern replicas are essentially decorative items. Historical re-enacters do not actually use them to remove teeth, so the modern replicas are not actually “tools” as such. If re-enacting is allowed in principle as a basis for concluding that the manufacture of a tool is not extinct, then practically no tool _could_ ever be extinct - there are practical archeologists who specialise in the “live” reenactment of everything, so that they get a better handle on how things actually worked in practice, not just theory. Thus, there are people who still make purple from oysters, who still make lye “washing detergent” from ashes, water and animal fat, people who build trebuchets just to come closer to the minutiae of the technical problems involved, etc. But no-one uses a trebuchet as a weapon of war anymore. A modern version of a wicker basket used originally to wash medieval clothes just to see what wrinkles of knowledge crop up when you actually use the ashes’n’fat system is a bit “meta” to qualify, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2011, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/97 "2011-02-20T04:42:44Z")
The automotive trade has tons of tools that are no longer made. Propane torch Freon leak detectors (A real pain the ass tool if ever there was one. A propane torch with a long rubber tube attached, with the torch lit, the tube had some suction due to the venturi effect. You ran the end of the tube around various fittings, if the color of the flame changed, it signaled a Freon leak. Just two little problems. 1. You are upside down under a dash trying to hold a lit propane torch so that it does not set the car on fire, and watch where the end of the tube was while watching the flame for a color change. 2. When Freon burns it creates Phosgene gas. Nice. A chemical warfare agent in the car with you. Goes to show how little tool designers like technicians.) Ignition point adjusting tools. Tool companies used to make a little gizmo for aligning ignition points. Since the last set of ignition points went out of production 37 years ago, these aren’t made any longer. Same with dwell meters Same with carburetor specialty tools. Lots of those are gone. the Big Automotive ignition scope such as a Sun scope are dead and gone. We still use scopes, but they are small and handheld, and we don’t put the ignition patterns on display any longer. Now we look at computer signals with them. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/98 "2011-02-20T13:55:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think the Saturn V is the best answer here. Yeah, there are still rockets, just like there are still cars. But while a modern car can do everything that a Model T could do and more, there is no modern rocket that can do what the Saturn V did. We used to have a tool for getting humans to the Moon, and now we don’t. Plus, unlike many of the other tools mentioned here, **we can be absolutely certain that there are no amateurs making functional replicas**. It’s the Dope here, so you probably knew that sooner or later it was coming. In his two-volume retrospective-with-notes **N-Space** and **Playgrounds of the Mind** , Larry Niven mentions modeling a story character after a real-life acquaintance, a museum direct9or who had – you saw this coming, right? – assembled a Saturn V from spare parts he had bought up. (Larry fliply dubbed him “the world’s sixth nuclear power.”) I’d give details, but the books are in storage at the moment, so this is from memory. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/99 "2011-02-20T15:15:47Z")
I can think of a few: -those old low speed wood drills 9brace and bits)-you see them at yard sales-I have one that was made by an old company (Millers Falls) that went out of business 30 + years ago\> -those change dispensers that vendors had on their belts-these were metal things that held quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies in cylinders-you flicked a lever to dispense them. Now that small change is almost worthless, these things have gone away. Mechanical watches are still around-but most of the guys who can fix them are dying off-I wonder if anyone makes watchmaker’s tool sets anymore? ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2011, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795/100 "2011-02-20T16:10:22Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > -those change dispensers that vendors had on their belts-these were metal things that held quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies in cylinders-you flicked a lever to dispense them. Now that small change is almost worthless, these things have gone away. All the carhops at Sonic have these. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tools-that-are-no-longer-made/569795.md?page=6)