RSS
This 3 beds, 1 baths house was available in Wausau, WI - when browsing through the photos you can't help to wonder what this toilet paper contraption is and if it's included. Post up your guesses in the comments, winner gets something cool from the Maker Shed.
What is this toilet paper contraption?
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 4, 2008 03:30 PM
Home Entertainment |
Permalink
| Comments (34)
| Email This |
| Digg this!
Recent Entries
- 3D renderings of the Mandelbrot set
- New in the Maker Shed: Microbe Motel kit
- Science through graphic novels
- Tiny solar-powered brass engine in a wineglass
- Maker Shed kiosks at Fry's
- New hackerspace in Chicagoland: Workshop 88
- Mint tin electronics dev kit packs the essentials
- Olympus BioScapes competition winners
- Mac mailbox
- LHC tweets its first circulating beam of 2009
Comments
Oldest comments listed first.
Leave a comment
Subscribe to MAKE Magazine!
Subscribe today, save 42% and get web access to MAKE free. MAKE Digital Edition is available only to subscribers.
$34.95 / 1 year
(4 Quarterly Issues)
That's a "toilet paper recylcling machine."
It's a joke from the 90's about rednecks. you put a "fresh" roll up top and use the bicycle mechanism to re-roll the TP as it passed between our cheeks :D
Reply to this comment
Wiping device for the handicapped?
Reply to this comment
I am in awe.
Reply to this comment
surely it's an adjustable resistance exercise device - pedal whilst in the seated position, and squeeze your cheeks to increase the resistance?
Reply to this comment
A dot matrix printer?
(PS eww)
Reply to this comment
Ever drop something down the toilet? Or wish you could fish for something flushed by your neighbor?
Hooks get covered in gunk, so you need a net-like contraption. This device allows you to flush the strip of capture cloth and then reel it back up.
Reply to this comment
Of course it's an automatic wiper... see the pedals?
Reply to this comment
This must be an old meme. 3BR/1BA for 65K? What... are those the only rooms in the house? Maybe that's it.
Clearly I'm living in the wrong part of the country for house buying.
Then again, I don't necessarily want to live in God Knows Where, Wisconsin, either.
Reply to this comment
It's a chindogu. www.chindogu.com
see http://www.chindogu.com/chindogu/tenents.html
for the tenets of chindogu.
Reply to this comment
Looks like a semi-automatic towel for your bidet. Hence the pedals
Reply to this comment
Automatic wiper. I remember an old MAD magazine cartoon showing the very same device.
Reply to this comment
it's a poster of an pedal-powered wiper. the design could use some improvement before it goes into production though, as you would currently defecate directly onto the towel, and the used towel would remain rolled between your feet for weeks instead of getting neatly flushed away.
Reply to this comment
Actually, he was my great uncle, twice removed on my step-father's side of the family, or was it my mother's.... never mind, same difference, same guy.
Who ever assembled this must have read the directions or something, because it is obviously configured improperly, (I'm speaking as one who has seen, as used it). See where it kind of dips down there near the seat? It is actually supposed to travel all the way down to the water. Uncle Rube never understood those fance Your-a-peein' bathrooms and didn't know why they would put a perfectly good drinking fountain in the toilet. They tried to say it was healthier and cleaner, but, um, YUCK!! But if they wanted wet tushes, there had to be a better way!
I don't see the turneroverer either. That was so you could use it in either direction, and if you were rich and bought two ply paper, there was another attachment to split the plys and get four times the use from one roll!
Also, it was good for hemroids if you loaded it up with emery cloth.
When this disappeared after he died, the family went back to using corn cobs... they were also useful in the fireplace though, so we got lots of uses out of them too.
Ahh, the memories this brings back of my childhood...
Reply to this comment
Perhaps its just a clever way to sell a house, given the present economy... Throw in an occasional strange picture to get people blogging it?
Reply to this comment
One of these devices was installed in an old house we once owned. It was inconvenient but necessary to pull the paper to the side until the job was done. The wiping function worked well for my wife, but I sustained numerous paper cuts and an unexplained brown stain on the parts hanging down.
Reply to this comment
It's a TP re-cycle. Get the pun?
Reply to this comment
reacted when I saw this: I think it was in MAD Magazine back when I was a kid in the late 70's!
(The issue of exactly why I have neurons dedicated toward the persistence of this memory should simply be ignored for now. Thank you.)
Reply to this comment
Top roll is for #2, front roll is for a #1.
The peddles are to reload the the front roll from the top one.
Both rolls end in the toilette.
Reply to this comment
Obviously, this is one of those early gimmick contraptions for wives who want their toilet paper hanging over the top of the roll rather than behind. "simply thread the toilet paper through our amazing device and pedal away!" They'd hawk..."and in moments your toilet paper roll will be rolled correctly!"
I think my great-uncle Ginsu sold these, but by that time they were loosing popularity to those fancy Radioactive Water Crocks (http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/quackcures/revigat.htm)
Reply to this comment
There was a game in the 1980s called "Invention" wherein one patented fake inventions and earned money on them somehow. This was one of the fake "inventions" in the game. Looks like someone decided to make it. I hope they don't use it.
Reply to this comment
Yup, I saw this in MAD magazine m a n y years ago. I believe it was dubbed "The Re-Cycler".
securious
Reply to this comment
Seems to be the "Pedal-Driven Butt Flosser" that used the extra-strength TP.
You know....for those "long runs" on the John.
Reply to this comment
Rather revolting, but that's the 'Sani-Sycle'(tm) 500, with the front cover removed. For some reason, the important wall-mounted illustrated instructions are also missing.
The chrome plated front cover (imitiation leapord-skin optional), is not only important for aesthetic purposes, but it also limits the unfortunate effects of centrifugal force durring overenthusiastic pedaling.
The patented reusable cloth ribbon, when it is finished and rolled up on the take-up reel, is inserted into a automatic clothes washer, in a safe, locking two-piece perforated ribbon holder, and washed in hot water with detergent. The holder being in an attractive design that looks like a cheerful tabletop Owl. Compatible tree-shaped deodorant available separately at any auto store.
The Sani-Sycle(tm) 300, with the "mobius" feature, has been recalled, due to bleed-through, and customers having such a machine are encouraged to contact their local dealer for a special 20 dollars-off promotion on the purchase of a model 500. For a limited time only.
Reply to this comment
...that the device is not included with the house, but rather the picture (of the device) that's glued to that awesome wood paneling is included with the house.
Reply to this comment
I remember this exact (as in the same photo) as a poster from the 70's...
Reply to this comment
someone ought to check the archives of MAD magazine, because i'm fairly certain this is one of theirs.
Reply to this comment
It's a manual belt sander designed with easy wetting and clean-up in mind. You clamp the piece your working on to the seat. Then, you sit in a chair in front of the toilet and start pedaling. When your piece needs water, because it's too hot or you need more abrasion, just pedal in reverse to lower the sand paper into the water and then start pedaling forward again to apply the water to the piece. Conveniently, dust collects in the water making clean-up a simple matter of flushing. Using regular paper, the device allows for cooperative exercise for people and their small pets. Our small friends will find the pool below to be refreshing, but please remember not to flush!
Reply to this comment
That my friend is a poster on the wall,
As you can see there is a boarder around the "opening" but no door or hinges.
There is also another poster or the remnants of another poster just to the left of it.
And if all of that isn't enough proof jugging from some of the other responses this was at one time in Mad magazine.
The contraption depicted in the poster is any ones guess,
Probably some sort of auto wiper/recycler thingamajig.
-Sam
Reply to this comment
Cant you see!? Its a Recumbant Wipecycle
Reply to this comment
An adjustable back rest. If you want more tension just push on the pedals harder. They just chose t.p. to stick with the theme.
P.S. I actually agree with most other people on it being an auto-wiper, but my idea is more interesting.
P.P.S. Someone should make a steampunk version on this.
Reply to this comment
It allows people with no arms to wipe.
Reply to this comment
This is a great shot of a
"Off Grid Pedal Powered Dry Bidet" (mark 2)
with reusable organic cotton drive belt.
We had one in our bomb shelter in the 1950's.
The Organic cotton drive belt was added to replace the
OME paper belt by my second brother Mark in the 1960's after
he was thrown out of our Parents house for growing oganic "plants" in our backyard.
Mark lived in the Bomb shelter (we called the "Bunker") for 8 years and started a whole Underground movement.
Reply to this comment
we had this poster hanging up in our downstairs bathroom, it was 1977... my parents were in their early 20s...
i never thought i'd see that picture again!
Now if I could only find that pic in larger format...
Reply to this comment
It is actually a random musical composition device for this sequencer:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/08/image_scan_midi_sequencer.html
Also, did anyone notice the awesome eagle painting on the garage door in the next picture?
p.s. Sorry if this is a repost, but I've been having trouble logging in for some reason.
Reply to this comment