Antique mechanical contraptions have long intrigued me, and the Daisy Automatic Weather Strip for Doors does not disappoint! Discovered by Jim while recently exploring a long-vacant farmhouse, the device is still in operating condition after 101 years!
A deteriorated – but surprisingly intact – paper label states that it was manufactured by the Matthias-Wagner Co. of Cedar Falls, Iowa, a company I could find nothing about after an admittedly short internet search. It was first patented in 1900, and again in 1901, but installed in a house built in 1917.
A metal flap, or weatherstrip, folds up when the door is opened and down when the door is closed. The following photos show it in various stages of operation. Has anyone else ever encountered a similar weatherstrip?
The flap is raised when the door is open – revealing the manufacturer’s paper label. The label likely survived because of its location on a screened porch. A pin seen at left activates the mechanism.
Closing the door prompts the flap to lower itself.
The door is closed and the flap is down. I’m having trouble understanding how much (if any) protection from wind this would provide. Perhaps it was intended to drop further, or was never properly installed.
Detail of label. Instructions at left include how to reverse the position of the pin for installation on a door hinged on the other side.
Is it missing a rubber gasket on the bottom? Amazing it is still working.
Hmmm… I hadn’t thought of that. It’s either missing something like you suggest or the flap is no longer dropping as far as it should. And yes – it is amazing that it is still working! Of course, that was before built-in obsolescence was so wildly embraced!
I am always fascinated by old technologies and how creative they were at trying to solve a problem before synthetic materials were widely available. They made everything from metal, rubber, glass, and grease.
I have a restored 1912 Robbins and Myers electric fan and I am truly amazed by how efficiently it moves air around the room more than 100 years after it was manufactured. Admittedly, it is cast iron and weighs about 40 lbs, so it’s not exactly portable by todays standards.
You were wise to restore the fan. Old appliances are almost always superior to newer versions… our refrigerator is a 1930’s GE Monitor Top and we cook on a gas stove from the 1910’s… they just keep going and going! If you ever have occasion to visit an appliance dump, you’ll notice that the new arrivals are mostly late-model appliances – not built to last.
Interesting. I used to live in Cedar Falls/Waterloo, Iowa for 17 years. I also did some brief Googling and learned that the Wagner Company is the successor to the Matthias-Wagner Company, and the Daisy Manufacturing Company in Seymour, Iowa. If you search for “Wagner Manufacturing Company DASMA” you will find a PDF brochure there. It talks about the door hardware they manufactured.
Fun! Thank you for the information… I’m going to read the brochure now!
I was using a less efficient search engine, but had better luck with Google… thanks! Here is a link to a page from the November, 1902 edition of Carpentry and Building which describes this mechanical weatherstrip:
The Daisy Automatic Weather Strip
That is pretty neat!
Our house has two different mechanized weatherstrips on two of the exterior entry doors. One is on a simple pivot with a spring that pivots it up away when the door is open. There is a small screw installed on the jamb that pushes it down when the door closes (it’s an inswing exterior door).
The other has a vertical-sliding seal within the weatherstrip housing, with a plunger that projects from the side facing the hinged jamb. When the door is closed, this plunger is depressed against the jamb, extending the seal downward to press against the threshold. When the door is opened, internal springs lift it as the plunger is allowed to extend.
Both are old and deteriorated, but clever. I should search for modern replacements that are as well-designed.
Here’s a modern version which is similar to the second one you describe… it’s mortised into the bottom edge of the door:
https://www.thehardwarehut.com/catalog-product.php?p_ref=259392
There is a lot to choose from out there for threshold weatherstripping, but very little of it has a mechanical aspect. I hope you can find a suitable replacement if the old ones aren’t repairable.