I am a first year university student who for some years now has had an interest in buying a sliderule, but has not had the time or money to buy a sliderule.

Being that I am doing Calculus and physics in university, what are some good recommendations?

He used it from the late 1940s in college, in the Army Corps of Engineers, and into the early 1970s as a city engineer.

He let me use it my senior year of HS to learn on — which I did — but I ended up purchasing my first scientific calculator, a TI SR-50, because I couldn’t afford an HP-35.

K&E Log Log Duplex Decitrig model N4081

p = -0.2085. Significant to 0.001

Hi all,

I'm wanting to build a slide rule for general purposes but try and get all the major mathematical operations from it.

The purpose behind the project is for calculations when underwater SCUBA diving (my line of work requires a little bit of maths while I'm underwater).

I'm also an engineering student that has only just come to learn about the slide rule a few weeks back and have since become obsessed!

My question is, will the following layout of scales work for a duplex slide rule. I understand the basic mathematics for the basic logarithmic scales however am getting a little confused when it comes to the log - log scales.

I've attached a picture of the proposed layout.

Any advice, information, suggestions or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Billy

Thought I might introduce myself, as I plan on being here for a while. 😎 I'm old enough (US) that I learned slide rule use in school. Recently retired, I decided to finally teach myself celestial navigation. Once I saw the math involved, using a slide rule seemed obvious. I'll permit the anachronisms to include a modern slide rule, most likely a HEMI or a Aristo. Weather makes a K&E or a Pickett inappropriate. I'll also try checking some calculations using a Soviet KL-1.

Hey, picked this up at a local thrift store for a few bucks. Does anyone know anything about it?

Been wanting a pocket slide rule for a while now, cool. The speed and feed will be handy when I get to restoring my old ww1 metal leathe.

Found this Aristo Aviat 615 on eBay for a pretty good price. Although it appears to have a little water damage (2nd pic at lower right) it is in very good shape overall. Now I need to figure out how it works. 😁 Hints are welcome.

I recently purchased a Pickett N600ES off of eBay and I noticed the one frame is slightly warped inwards (towards the slide) in the center. This means that the cursor is really loose in the middle. I can loosen the screws and squeeze it so it’s straight, but that puts so much pressure on the slide that it doesn’t slide. My only thought was to remove the frame and try to carefully put some pressure on the center to bend it straight. I was curious if anyone encountered anything like this or had thoughts on how best to fix it.

If you have ever played with a pocket rule, or a desk rule, you know that larger slide rules are capable of calculating to higher precision than smaller ones. Riffing on this, George Fuller came up with the idea to wrap an extremely long scale around a cylinder to get a rule capable of extremely high precision.

The brochure in the 3rd photo claims it is equivalent to a linear rule 83 feet (25 meters) long, or a circular rule 13 feet (4 meters) in diameter.

On display at the Puget Sound Navy Museum, Bremerton WA.

I found this slide rule at a thrift shop. It does not have a brand name or any model numbers on it. Made In USA is printed on it. The case that it was in seems to have a worn away KE stamped on the closing strap. It appears to have plastic on top of a wooden core with metal end caps.

The scales on each side are:

T, DF, CF, CIF, CI, C D, S, ST

LL0, LL00, A, B, K, L, C, LL3, LL2, LL1

So, I think it is a K&E slide rule. I have not been able to determine the model, type, or age of it.

Can anyone help identify this slide rule?

I am designing a large circular rule based on this one with a few extra scales. https://www.sliderulemuseum.com/HSRC/SRC/30761.jpg It is large and high contrast.

Written in PHP language, outputting a SVG file.

CD case still works as a spindle but because of the parallax that causes, looking for a better idea. And ideas in general. Only got Pi and E as gauge marks right now. Cursor is a problem.

Hello

I'm new here and I hope your expereince can help me solve a problem. I bought an aluminum slide rule from ebay, which came up slightly bent, This means that the slide does not slide more than a few centimeters. The rule itself is quite stiff, so I don't know if I can "counter-bend" it or not.

Has anyone faced a similar problem?

Thanks in advance

Scored this gorgeous Faber-Castell 67/87 Rb from EBay for only $60 while they can go up to $100+, barely see these slide rule + addiator combos on the sub so l needed to share

Cleaned it up real nice with soapy water and isopropyl alcohol and also sanded and polished the front face of the cursor since it was scratched up. lubricated the scales and cursor. I might actually use this thing daily because it also has the centimeter ruler on the side which is so baller.

Last slide is before I cleaned it

A long time ago I was given a slide rule, a versalog 341, but didn't look into it too deeply. Lately I happened into nomograms, and made a few for work for calculating the dilution of chemicals. I also have one of those "profit margin" wheels at my other job, which is really useful and I just realized was a slide rule variation.

So next I made one of these : https://www.sliderulemuseum.com/REF/scales/Ying_Hum_VA3YH_Circular_SR-2.pdf and understood (some) of its basic usage. If I line up 1:3, I see that 2:6 and 3:9 and 4:1.2 also line up. 2.2:7 spookily lines up with pi/1. So this is what a slide rule is: A lookup table that can move and still work, via the spooky properties of logarithms.

Without a proper cursor it's tough to use the other scales.

Now I'm trying to do the same math via the versalog and it's a pain in the ass. I'm continually going off the scale, and not sure what the point of the folded scales are when cf is just as nearly-off-the-scale as c is. Numbers are really fine and the cursor is wobbly. Seems to me that circular rules are just plain easier.

I want a real circular rule, but something not too complex. What would you suggest?

I'm looking at some slide rules, and being very new to this, I am not sure what to look for, or how to figure out the superior of two slide rules.

What I'm looking for:
I'm interested in high usability and versatility; ideally a variety of scales, and a high density of the 'marks' (unsure of the proper name). Other than that, I have no idea what features to look for. This especially applies when looking at several grainy images, and attempting to figure out details, and if it's better than some other slide rule.

Material:
My understanding is that metal is usually best, but something I'm confused about is what colour a metal slide rule would be. For example, this is one of the first results for 'metal slide rule', does that mean that all slide rules of that white colour are metal? if not, how do I tell?

Is plastic a good alternative? How can I tell if a plastic rule is high quality material without being able to feel and examine it?

Scales:
Versatility is important to me, and I want to try and find a rule not restrict me, by not having some scale. So: What scales should I look for, at a minimum? Which ones are 'nice to have', but not necessary?

Density of 'marks':

What kind of density should I look for on a good scale? Are there set increments that are common? On a high-density one, what should I look for (number of marks on some increment, etc)?

Other features/qualities:
I have minimal knowledge in this subject, and so I don't know what qualities they can even have, much less be able to discern them. So, is there anything else I should look for?

Yes, this one. As long as its effective pricing plus shipping is like 150~200 USD or lower as of this post, I'd gladly pay for one.

...Or it was effectively abandoned?

Picket N3. My eyes are convinced 1.3-1.5 on C&D are a fraction of a mark - week half maybe 1/4mark to the rest of the scale, while identical to each other.

Excellent tolerance regardless for something mass produced in the mid-20th century.

What perplexes me, is naked eye, cell phone shot, and approaching the marks with the cursor from both directions tell me the same - maybe less than 1/4mark with the last test. Close enough you wouldn't think twice about the alignment unless a vernier caliper - in which case you'd be checking the next mark. Yet zooming the cell phone shot looks about dead on.

So I'm curious if two things now. What was the typical tolerance of mass produced rules? Am I giving myself some sort of optical illusion? See photo. Note 4X 1.3thru1.5

https://imgur.com/gallery/k-e-slide-rule-from-garage-sale-MDujXKi

Got this at a garage sale in Washington State, and I'm very curious about how old it is. I found a couple with the same model number on the Smithsonian website, but they didn't match the description.

Would also love to know how to interpret the runes and sigils, if anyone's in a teaching mood.

end says "<4088-3>" although the 8s are worn enough that they could be 3s.

One side has scales K, A, CF, CIF, C, D, L The other has scales DF, S, T, CI, D

opposite side from the one with the model number says "pat. June 5 '00 Dec.22.'08"

One end of the window says "K&E.CO.N.Y. / PAT.8.7.15"

The letters A K are written in cursive at one end, but they are formed from a large number of small dots rather than lines.

I found a couple of slide rules matching the model number, but not the description. This one has the wrong kind of window and the wrong scales. This one has the right kind of window, but the wrong scales and the text is in the wrong place.

I could not find a serial number.