✅ SOLVED Odd Thermometer

[mick56]

Picked up this Taylor thermometer at a sale. It has two Fahrenheit

scales at different levels. Any idea what it's for?

 

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[Fourman110]

Dry bulb and wet bulb thermometer I believe. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1642925222...=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

[mick56]

That's it. Wet/dry hygrometer

 

[Red-Coat]

Dry bulb and wet bulb thermometer I believe. https://www.ebay.com/itm/164292522244?nma=true&si=KG2SgFAUqzuVPuhckwnaS5wzbQ0%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Agreed, and good ID.

Mick: could you kindly check whether that thing on the end of the chain is a magnet? If so, yours likely has an additional feature whereby there are "indexing rods" sitting above the mercury which record the maximum temperatures reached by the wet and dry bulbs since they were last reset (using the magnet to draw the rods back to the top of the mercury).

 

[mick56]

It is not a magnet. The center rod slides back and forth inside the hex piece about 1/4". If the ring that connects the chain would be taken off, the rod would come out of the hex piece.

 

[Fourman110]

Once the wet bulb is wet, the octagonal piece is held in the hand and the thermometer is spun in a circle on the chain. I'd think the center of the octagonal piece may spin. https://sciencing.com/wet-bulb-thermometer-5110123.html

 

[Gare]

Great job of IDing

 

[chub]

One is an Anal thermometer.
The other is an Oral thermometer.

The only difference is the taste.

 

[Almy]

Should be careful with it, probably not sling it around, even though it was designed to do that. It was made in the time when mercury was commonly used and handled. Now we know how toxic it is. When something like a thermometer breaks, the mercury often bounces around on the surface it falls on and breaks into small droplets which are hard to retrieve and their large surface area facilitates release of toxic mercury fumes. In our lab, we always kept powdered sulphur around to sprinkle on such a spill. It reacted with the mercury stopping the mercury from vaporizing and allowing cleanup.

 

[Almy]

I just saw another example of this exact thermometer set for sale on the web. It still had a wick around one thermometer. That wick would be wetted and evaporation would lower its temperature. The difference in temperatures reveals the relative humidity. Staggering them like they are keeps the wick evaporation effect from affecting the other thermometer and giving a false reading. Most double thermometer hygrometers like this have exactly parallel thermometers but spaced a little further apart to avoid the spillover effect.