The creator of the original Frankenstein laboratory equipment

[Mr. Mazz]

Kenneth Strickfaden, Dr. Frankenstein's electrician by Harry Goldman

This is a fantastic book for anyone who might be interested in the man that pretty much single handedly built all the equipment used on all the original Frankenstein films, Flash Gordon etc from 1920's to the present day.

Excellent look at his life, work and is filled with some fantastic little sketches of devices he made, together with the wonderful names he gave to all his pieces of equipment. Tesla coils, jacobs ladder, large concave mirrors used for projecting large errie shadows on walls....... some amazing things.

Thought I'd share this little gem with you all!

[Wilhelmina Frame]

and all of those original movie props were subsequently used in the most excellent Young Frankenstein.

[pakled]

dangit...my one fact about the original equipment, and someone beat me to it..
I know that the two-wire contraptions that have upward-moving arcs are called Jacob's Ladders.

[oldskoolpunk]

The rotating pointer arc device, which can be seen in Young Frankenstein, is a real device. It's a high-voltage voltmeter, consisting of a sequence of air gaps of increasing size, with a rotating pointer that moves from air gap to air gap.  This seems like a weird idea, but because it is independent of frequency, it had its uses. I saw a U.S. Navy version in a surplus store once. 

[SPBrewer]

Is this the device that egor (Oops, I mean Igor) has to hit in order to get it to stop, as they were powering things down?

                                       The Sky Pirate

[oldskoolpunk]

Is this the device that egor (Oops, I mean Igor) has to hit in order to get it to stop, as they were powering things down?

Yes.