found these on www.thereifixedit.com and i thought that you guys would enjoy them




this one just gave me goosebumps, i really dont see how someone can think of something like this


here is one that seems pretty practical. or maybe more if it was mounted to the wall.

What function does the bottle serve? I've heard of blade switches..and at least they put a box on that switch setup..however why is the switch in the wall and the gfi at different heights? pretty lame

Wirenuts, that 'bottle' contains a euro-style receptacle, and is filled with expanding foam. It's rather similar to what Joe T had in his infamous 'soap bottle' extension cord - only this one has space for several cords to plug in.

As for the receptacle and switch in the last picture being at different heights, there might be a fire-block in the wall, preventing a cut-in box from being set higher. Many pre-1960 homes had fireblocks offset at about the 4ft. height.

Unfortunately I think Pic 1 and two aren't anywhere as bad as they look. #1 one looks suspiciously like a regular power strip just covered with a bottle to make it look cooler (well, maybe the bottom of the strip was broken), it's definitely not a regular wall outlet.

The second one is likely German (see the German On/Off stickers) and I assume that switch isn't live, just some kind of decoration or art object. Open knife switches have't been used around here since the early 1930s and then only in electrical rooms of power plants and similar locations only accessible to trained personnel.

The third one is a different beast though... but certainly not the worst I've seen.

Exactly, Ragnar,
And since when do putty knives with duct-tape on them qualify as switch mechanisms?

since when do they qualify as decoration aswell???

Depends on the kind of location you're decorating I guess
To me, this looks like something EE students might come up with to spiff up a "studying room" or something like that. Or maybe ( I know this happened somewhere near Vienna) an old power plant has been converted to a dance/concert hall and this was someone's creative idea of reusing parts of the old switchgear for what people who don't know anything about electricity might consider an "authentic look" but with a funny twist.

I read the comments on the power strip and now have four possible explanations: a) the strip is intact and has only been encapsulated for the fun of it.
b) the strip has been encapsulated for better mechanical protection (it's a household grade item and they usually don't stand being bashed around very well, but many construction guys still use them, even broken and "repaired" with paper masking tape)
c) the strip was broken and "repaired"
d) the strip was intact and encapsulated to float on water... the scariest possibility.

Both might just be jokes, remember the electric BBQ in the swimming pool with the power strip floating on a shoe! The pictures were actually staged in the aftermath of a LAN gaming party and the whole shebang wasn't connected to anything. Still, knowing some of the things people (especially first generation immigrants from some of our neighboring countries, but Germans and Austrians too) can do, the first one could be real.

Those look like circus throwing-knives, parked up for the winter. Earl 'Blind as a Bat' Zappatta and his Assistant, Olga the 23rd, used a set just like it.

If you look at picture 2 you can see pits in the putty knives which would leave me to belive this is actually controlling some sort of high amperage 3 phase system. not just a dummy panel for decoration.......they could have taken it one step further and ran re-rod or a dowel thru the three handles and made is a 3 pole switch... :P

I can't tell if that is really pitting, or simply that they were closed when the assembly was dusted with white spray paint..

Looking closely, the whole thing appears to have been slapped together using random pieces. The "terminals" are just riveted to the back (unusal, I think equipment of that age would have used screws and not those cheap rivets), the wire apparently connected to the far right knife (bottom) is connected using a choc block maybe good for 10 amps and sure to melt down confronted with more than say 20 amps, the wire doesn't appear to be any bigger than 1.5mm2 (18amps in free air I think) and the wires at the top terminals appear even smaller. The far right putty knife is obviously broken in half. The top terminals just seem to be jumpered and the far right terminal seems to be half gone altogether.

I say it's some crude joke and at worst used to control 12V if at all (the choc block does seem to indicate some kind of actual use though).

i THINK i SEE AN ARC TRACK ON THE OPEN ONE ON THE RIGHT....SHEESH

If you take a close look, it looks like the top terminals are
nothing more than springs, with the blade going between the coils. the "arc track" on the blade looks like the blade was closed when the assembly was dusted with white spray paint.. note the white in the middle of the "arc track"..

That middle picture,

Good find JoeKP, just went to the website. They got some crazy pictures there.