I’m reasonably convinced that I’ve managed to identify the make of one of the as-yet mostly-unidentified knobs on the Ghost Trap, the one that sits on the same side as Vector Plate.
Cyland was convinced the knob was one of these:
But unfortunately as he’d found them in an outlet store, he wasn’t able to ascertain a manufacturer name.
I believe I’ve found the manufacturer. Whilst performing a search through ebay for “radio knob” to see if I could find some teardrop Raytheon knobs, I stumbled upon this:
The knob was produced by the Heath Company, and feature on a number of their test equipment (Heathkits). Although it features an aluminium skirt, I believe it should be pretty easy to remove… I’m further convinced these are right because the picture from Cyland appears to feature the recessed edge on the knob for where the skirt would sit.
That may be down to the angle (although I admit it also seemed short to me too… but as the height of them wasn’t questioned back when Cyland revealed them, I thought nothing further of it). The screen-used one doesn’t feature a skirt, but that was probably removed. So far all the entries on eBay, and from a short Google image browse haven’t highlighted a variation specifically without the skirt.
I don’t know about the color, it looked largely black to me, with some possible highlighting caused by the gloss finish, based on some of the other screencaps: Link
At the very least, we now have a source for a close alternative. Unlike the Raytheon on the other side, like the knobs on the front cosmetic plate, we’ll have to take the closest alternative we can find in the absence of having one of the original props, in mint condition to study.
They look very close if not the same to me, the skirt is hiding the last 1/8" of the height so it looks funny. I’m wondering if Heath Kit made the knobs or if they just used a off the shelf knob from a manufacturer. I do have a larger version of the knob as well and as I remember it is unmarked as well.
I’m not seeing green but a reflection off the picture beneath.
Edit* I just did a google search for heath kit knob images guess what came up? Ratheon cranks, so I’m guessing that heath just used off the shelf knobs.
I looked through my knob collection, I have a box with all kinds of knobs in it, I wrote down the manufactures and did a little search for them. One company that looks promising is Rogan Bros Skokie Ill.. From what I can tell they are a discontinued knob made in the 60’s. Unfortunetely they only have one page of their vitage catalog on display and it’s a very small picture but one looks like it could be the ones posted above.
The place I got my supply from had a bucket of them but it must have gotten burried over the last two years.
