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The Mixer - reminds me of the typical automatic transmission valve body, the mechanical computer (before becomine a hub for electronic switches).

Further back in time, I tend to be frustrated by an argument:

“The USA is anti-semite! ‘They’ should have bombed the Auschwitz transportation complex, but ‘they’ did not care!”

Sigh. I think about all the logistics, maintenance, parts, tools, and people . . . all taking the right steps, merely to get a single B-17 into stable flight, prepared for the next mission (2 days after ‘that last, disasterous mission’).

I have 2 WW-II era electric drills (my father’s), and they still work. I keep them in order to remind me of how great ingenuity had to make up for ‘missing tools’ - ie tools hand built, on scene, “because we needed it” to fix something.

I continue to wonder, what happened to so many of those custom-made tools that USAAF maintenance created in England.

A certain shop where I worked, had some guys who could make any tool that you described. I needed a wrench that would make it easier to adjust the camber and caster on an old Oldsmobile. I bought 2 Craftsman, large box wrenches, cut away what I was not going to use, took the remaining pieces to a guy, showing him the angle that I needed between the 2 pieces I kept . . . et viola.

Thus, without repeatedly taking the car to an alignment shop, I could test multiple front end adjustment changes.

Same for the GM 4-BBL QuadraJet carburetor, testing multiple adjustment changes.

Working on mechanical stuff, resulting in some improvement - I find that is good for the brain.

BTW, did I every tell you that you write interesting stuff, and you might consider American Thinker? (Yes; I did; nudge, again.)