Category Archives: Inventions

Protect your hands with oven gloves.

• Oven gloves are gloves or mittens used for hand protection when handling hot items, usually in a kitchen, like pots on stoves, bakeware and other items placed in ovens.
• ‘Oven gloves’ are also known as ‘oven mitts’, and a variation of the glove style is a square, that is placed in the palm of one’s hand, and is known as a ‘pot-holder’ or ‘potholder’, and this term is often used for the glove and mitt styles as well.
• Oven gloves are typically made of textiles, such as cotton, or silicone materials, and those made from fabric are usually insulated with heat resistant material.
• Oven gloves are regularly sold individually but sometimes they are sold as pairs, and connected pairs are also available, where there is one long section of fabric that has a pocket at each end for the hands to go into.
• Textile oven gloves are often decorated in colourful patterns and are usually washable in a washing machine, so that any food residue can be removed.

• Oven gloves are often said to be invented in the United States’ Texas, in the 1870s, by the American baker Earl Mitt, that were made of wool and leather.
• Typical household oven gloves generally do not work efficiently if hot items are to be held for lengthy periods, as the heat can transfer to the hand.
• Early patented oven gloves, or potholders, in the 1890s, used paper as an insulating material.
• Depending on the materials they are made from, oven gloves generally only protect hands from heat up to 93°C (200°F) with fabric gloves, 204°C (400°F) with neoprene, and 260°C (500°F) with silicone.
• Some oven gloves are designed with finger sockets, for better grip and hand control, and heavy duty mitts, known as ‘furnace gloves’ are able to withstand much higher temperatures than the typical gloves used.

Bibliography:
The Development of Modern Oven Gloves, n.d, ProCook, http://www.procook.co.uk/news/the-development-of-modern-oven-gloves

How do I Choose the Best Oven Glove?, 2014, WiseGEEK, http://www.wisegeek.com/how-do-i-choose-the-best-oven-glove.htm

Oven glove, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oven_glove

What are Different Types of Oven Gloves?, 2014, WiseGEEK, http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-different-types-of-oven-mitts.htm

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‘A man without a knife is a man without a life.’

• A pocket knife is a knife, that sometimes has other blades, that can be easily stored in a pocket, as the blade or blades fold into a holder or handle.
• A ‘pocket knife’ has also been known as a ‘spring knife’, ‘penny knife’, ‘jackknife’, ‘jack-knife’, ‘farmers knife’, ‘peasant knife’, ‘sodbuster knife’ and a ‘folding knife’.
• Pocket knife blades generally range from 5 to 15 centimetres (2 to 6 inches) in length, and are usually made of steel and have a plastic, metal, or wooden handle or holder.
• A pocket knife has multiple uses, and can be used for opening items, cutting items or for self defence, among others.
• Basic pocket knives have been produced for at least two thousand years, and became more commonly available in the 1700s due to the Industrial Revolution in Britain, as well as more affordable.

• Pocket knives became popular among farmers and gardeners of the 1800s and 1900s, due to the knife’s cheapness and small size.
• Pocket knife blades generally do not lock in place, but, when opened, are stable, sometimes due to a spring.
• A pocket knife is typically opened using one’s fingers or fingernails, and they often have small grooves for fingernails to slot into.
• In some countries there are restrictions regarding the use, or having in one’s possession, a pocket knife, and in the United Kingdom one can not be carried publicly, if the blade is over 7.6 centimetres (3 inches), although there are exceptions.
• Pocket knives are often produced as multi-tools, meaning that they are not limited to blades, and one pocket knife can include a number of blades, as well as tweezers, scissors, corkscrew, screwdriver, saw, bottle opener and more.

Bibliography:
The History of Pocket Knives, n.d, Egginton, http://www.eggintongroup.co.uk/history/the-history-of-pocket-knives.html

Pocket Knife, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_knife

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These facts are shaded with a lampshade.

• Lampshades are covers that spread the light produced by a lamp’s light bulb.
• Lampshades were first used on public lanterns, in Europe’s Italy and Paris, in the late 1700s, to focus light downwards.
• Lampshades became more prominently used in the late 1800s, to cover the bright light of Thomas Edison’s and Joseph Swan’s newly invented electric light bulb in 1879.
• Lampshades are generally in the shape of a cylinder or cone, and come in a range of designs.
• Lampshades have, in more modern times, been used more prominently for decorative purposes instead of shading purposes.

• Lampshades are typically made of glass, textiles, plastic, or paper, and they often have a metal framework that supports the material, and attaches the shade to the lamp.
• The term ‘lampshade’ sometimes refers to a cover on a light attached to the ceiling.
• Beads, fringes, embroidery and coloured materials are some items used for decorating lampshades.
• Lampshades are often sold separately to the lamp, so if the shade is damaged or dirtied, a replacement can easily be purchased.
• A lampshade can also be called a ‘lamp shade’ or a ‘light shade’.

Bibliography:
Lampshade, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampshade

What are Lamp Shades?, 2014, WiseGEEK, http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-lamp-shades.htm

Williams P, History of Lampshades, 2013, Shades of Light & Design, http://shadesoflightanddesign.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/history-of-lampshades.html

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Don’t you love to make things sparkle with glitter?

• Glitter is typically tiny, flat particles made from material that has reflective properties, and the word comes from the Old Norse word ‘glitra’, which means ‘to shine’.
• Glitter was historically made of minerals, including mica and malachite to enhance cave paintings, and as a cosmetic, to dust women’s faces for decorative purposes in ancient times.
• In 1934, Henry Ruschmann, a farmer from Bernardsville, in United States’ New Jersey, created plastic glitter due to the lack of German glass particles during World War II.
• In the past, glitter has also been made from glass, which continues to be manufactured, and insects, and is now generally made from plastic, including polyester, acrylic, thermoplastic and copolymer, with the addition of aluminium, iron oxide, titanium dioxide or other reflective ingredients.
• Glitter comes in numerous shapes, sizes and colours, and can be as small as 1.3 square millimetres (0.002 square inches) or 50 microns and as large as 16o square millimetres (0.25 square inches) or 6250 microns.

• In one decade, beginning in 1989, 4.5 million kilograms (10 million pounds) of glitter was manufactured.
• Glitter is commonly used for decorative purposes, on clothing, in cosmetics, and in the crafts industry, and it is sometimes included in glue, and is often used by children to decorate drawings or other pictures.
• Edible glitter has become a popular cake decorating medium and can be used to decorate other food items as well, and it is often made from gum arabic, however some ‘food safe’ glitter is not necessarily edible.
• Glitter is commonly used on fish lures to imitate the reflective scales of real fish.
• If glitter is found in a crime scene, it can be used as effective evidence due to the abundance of unique particle types, at least 20,000, that can be matched, to narrow down suspects.

Bibliography: Glitter, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitter

Mangum A, Glitter: A Brief History, 2007, New York Stories, http://nymag.com/shopping/features/38914/

Simpkins C, How is Glitter Made, nd, Creative Bug, http://crafts.creativebug.com/glitter-made-1389.html

A whisk, a handle and wire, is an effective, simple invention.

• Whisks are utensils used primarily to beat, blend or whip food liquids during preparation or the cooking process.
• A whisk typically has a looped wire top and a long and slim handle.
• Historically, twigs or small branches of trees have been used to beat, whip or blend food items like a whisk, and often fruit tree twigs were used to add flavour to the mixture.
• Whisk handles and/or wires can be made of plastic, metal, wood or bamboo.
• The wire tops of whisks are usually either round shaped, or flat, although they can vary in shape and size, depending on their recommended use, and include ‘flat’, ‘gravy’, ‘French’, ‘coil’, and ‘ball’, as well as the most popular shape, ‘balloon’, which has a rounded top.

• The more wires a whisk has, the more air can be whipped into the liquid more quickly, and round shaped tops are better for this purpose, while flat ones are more suited for mixing and smoothing thick liquids.
• It is believed that wire whisks were first invented during the 1800s, and a number of patents were issued in that era for whisks that look similar to those used today.
• French whisks are an all purpose long balloon shaped utensil, and coil, or ‘twirl’ whisks as they are also known, have a spring like top designed to be twirled or pushed up and down in the one spot, and are good for frothing milk.
• Whisks became popular from 1963, due to the American chef, Julia Child, who used the item to ‘magically’ create meringue on a television show.
• ‘Whisk’ most likely comes from the Scandinavian word ‘visk’, that means ‘rapid sweeping movement’ or ‘quick stroke’, and the word first referred to a tool or utensil in the 1660s.

Bibliography:
Kennedy J, Who Made That Whisk?, 2012, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/magazine/who-made-that-whisk.html?_r=0

Whisk, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisk

Whisks – History, Types, Video, 2012, The Reluctant Gourmet, http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/whisks-history-types-video

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