Help identifying antique whiskey compass

Huckster79

Huckster79

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Huckster79
I picked up 4 old instruments for $50 not good for anything but art… but would like to know some info on them in terms of age. There is one I can find no info on. It’s an older whiskey compass I’m going to try to open up and clean- as it can’t be seen.

any insight?

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Huckster79 said:
I picked up 4 old instruments for $50 not good for anything but art… but would like to know some info on them in terms of age. There is one I can find no info on. It’s an older whiskey compass I’m going to try to open up and clean- as it can’t be seen.

any insight?

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I dunno. But I’m wondering if compass aging has anything on barrel aging. Give us a pirep on how it tastes.
 
FWIW department:
Buy enough compass juice that you can submerge the whole thing and re-assemble while submerged if you want ALL of the bubbles out.
The big screw that looks like it might be a filler plug can be the big screw that adjusts the pressure on the bearings and not something to fart with - more recent compasses you fill by taking the back off.
 
Question asked on my singe engine commercial ride:

How can you tell if the compass has leaked out all of the fluid.??





.....Wait for it.....





The fluid will be all over the glare shield.....
 
Looks like it could be one of the many models of the Bendix Pioneer D-12 type compass from the WW2 era. I have no specific knowledge or info on it besides that.

As I believe that Honeywell now owns all of the old Bendix avionics equipment, they might have something on it in their archives, though getting them to assist might be hard. Long shot.

You could try to reach out to these folks.
https://compassmuseum.com/aero/aero.htm

There are probably other aviation historical institutions that might have info.
 
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