Accession No
2610
Brief Description
WILD No. 5 tilting dumpy level, by Chadburn (M.D.S.) Ltd. for Wild Heerbrugg, Swiss, 1980
Origin
Switzerland; and England; London; Park Royal; 24 Trading Estate Road [Chadburn M.D.S.]
Maker
Chadburn M.D.S. Ltd. WILD Heerbrugg
Class
surveying
Earliest Date
1980
Latest Date
1980
Inscription Date
Material
metal; plastic; glass
Dimensions
case l 250mm; breadth 170mm; height 195mm
Special Collection
Provenance
Purchased from WILD Heerbrugg (Surveying Equipment Division), 1980.
Inscription
‘WILD HEERBRUGG WILD NKO5 MADE IN SWITZERLAND 410795’
Description Notes
WILD No. 5 tilting dumpy level, by Chadburn (M.D.S.) Ltd. for Wild Heerbrugg, English, 1980
Metal alloy construction with orange finish; black toughened plastic screws. Telescope; 19 times magnification internal focusing with eyepiece adjustment; stadia hairs. Long bubble set in side of telescope with hinged mirror over. Tilting screws for levelling. Mounted on circular base with graduated circle divided 0 - 360˚ subdivided to 1˚. Azimuth motion screw. Circular bubble. 3 foot screws between parallel plates. Screw thread for attachment to tripod. Sighting and centering groove along top of telescope. Fitted plastic box with screw driver and carrying strap.
References
Events
Description
The earliest form of modern surveyor’s level is the ‘Y’ level, which is a telescope supported in Y-shaped bearings. The telescope is held in place by pivoting straps, which allow the telescope to be reversed for back-sighting.
The Y level was unsuitable for difficult colonial terrain, requiring too frequent adjustments and the ‘dumpy’ level was developed in the early 19th century to overcome this. The dumpy level has a much shorter, fixed telescope, which turns about a central axis. It is compact, much more robust and is still being used in largely unaltered form on building sites and in road construction.
31/08/2006
Created by: updated by Ruth Horry on 31/08/2006
FM:44214
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