What is it? CCII

[R.H.]

Set 202 has just been posted:

[Norman Billingham]

#1105 is a paddle type semi-automatic morse key. Pushing the paddle one way generates a dot and the other a dash.

[Christian Stü]

and again my silly guesses

1105 morse key? 1116 counting machine 1117 a compass for drafting? ehm, no, looks different 1118 for making cylinders out of wood 1119 no idea 1120 a drill, or a milling machine. silly guess ... bottle opener? 1121 weigth holder for a big pendulum clock, or carrier for gondola lift

greetings from germany chris

[Howard R Garner]

Know a couple this week.

1105 Telegraph key or "bug" Should this be label 1115? 1121 a guess - used as a carrier on a wire to send money to a central location as in some departmetn stores.

Howard on rcm

[kfvorwerk]

1118. Looks like a tenon cutter. Karl

[Stealth Pilot]

actually I believe that it may be a scythe makers stail snaith

that is actually a real name of a real tool. I've never seen one but it fits the purpose of producing a round handle of some length for something like a scythe.

Stealth Pilot

[BillM]

1120 valve lapping tool for lapping engine valves

[guy.king]

1118 is similar to a dowel maker, except they're tapered so oversized wood can be fed in from the large end and "pencil-sharpenered" down to the size the tool's made for. I suspect this one isn't meant to move along the bit of wood, it'll be for making fixed diameter sections on things - something like tool handle ends or spokes or anything where a bit of wood has to fit into a drilled hole. 1121 looks like a counterweight for a retracting something - air line, perhaps! 1120 could undo something more rapidly than a C-spanner would - things like bomb-fuses etc. but that wouldn't explain why the restricted number of turns. 1116 counts something in units, tens and hundreds. Perhaps how many times a drawer has been opened?

[Jim Chandler]

1105 Vibroplex keyer for radio. Also known to operators as a "bug"

1106 A "digital" counter

1118 Soem soort of plane or slitter

Jim Chandler

[Andy Dingley]

1116 Decimal counter. Maybe for counting visitors through a shop door? 1117 Back and forth-flapper. The end #1 looks uncomfortable to hold, so I guess it was wedged between something. The other end flaps a clamped rod radially, not axially, so it's not a valve lapper. Other than that, I'm baffled. 1118 Trapping plane. Definitely not a tenon cutter, the point about this sort (hinged and with both handles on one side) is that it's easily variable in diameter. They're usually a chair makers' tool, used in a lathe to produce spindles with gently varying diameters. You can't turn long gradually-tapered chairback spindles with a chisel alone, unless you're a genius. These things make it easy. 1120 Now that one _is_ a valve lapper. 1121 Trolley for supporting a tool (or air line outlet), whilst allowing it to be moved along the supporting wire?

[Ed Huntress]

I'm always late for these, darn it. So I don't read what everybody else said.

1105. Vibromatic bug. (telegraph key). I used to have one that I think was older than that. 1118. Tenon cutter for round chair rails and similar.

-- Ed Huntress

[osmium]

Pushing the paddle one way issues one dash, the other way gives a *series of* dots, leading to much increased speed over an ordinary key.. The duration of the dots is established by adjusting weights, moved to the left or right after loosening the wing nuts. I don't remember *two* weights but there they seem to be. It's been a while. Usually called a "bug".

[Stuart Wheaton]

1118 For making dowels of a certain size, maybe for round tenons... 1121 Tensioner for overhead power lines, like trolley wires, but given the size, I'd guess a travelling crane or such.

[CBFalconer]

Don't all hams, other than raw beginners, use those?

[JohnM]

Fancy telegraph or cw key.

Some sort of progressive counting device.

Valve grinding tool.

Pencil sharpener or dowel cutter.

Pliers.

Another valve grinding tool.

Counterweight for retractable airhose.

John

[Bill Rider]

1121: America has had air-lines at least as far back as the 1860s, railroads built to be straight and level. Because it's spelled with a hyphen, I think it belonged to a railroad.

Photos from other angles would be helpful. There is a lever behind each wheel. I wonder if the block in the middle is wooden.

The fancy brass may have been to enhance the railroad's image for modern technology. Maybe it was to hang illumination or a schedule over the platform without having a post in the way. Maybe it was to tow a mail bag alongside a train up where somebody aboard could remove it and attach another. That may have been smoother than carrying bags on and off.

[Andrew Erickson]

1115 -- repeater style morse code key (probably not the correct name); pushing the round knob would operate like a traditional code key, but sideways, while moving the tab the other way produces a sequence of dits, if my memory isn't playing tricks on me. If not, it's the other way around. 1116 -- this sure looks like a decimal counter mechanism, seemingly missing some part to advance the leftmost cogwheel one notch at a time. No idea what it was intended to count, if indeed something particular. There doesn't seem to be a quick way to reset it, so it's presumably intended for some permanent application, and with only three digits, it's not going to count especially frequent events (like turnstile entrances). 1117 -- early valve lapping tool, probably for automobile engines. 1118 -- cutter to form dowel rods out of rough-shaped stock; the tool would seem to be used by holding the handles together and twirling it around a wooden rod. I'd imagine the blade should be far less exposed, and possibly flipped with the bevel the other way. 1119 -- crimper for something, I'd guess maybe an electronic connector of some sort, but the dies don't look at all familiar. 1120 -- Fancy spanner wrench, possibly for watch cases? Quick winder for some spring-wound machine? Rather a curious contraption. 1121 -- At first, I thought this was a part of a zip line, for traversing spans hanging from a trolly suspended on a cable, but the shrouds around the wheels don't permit a horizontal application of this sort, and the connection at the bottom doesn't look too convenient to mount a handle or sling onto. It looks like the cable or rope must enter and leave vertically, and seemingly passes directly across from the bottom of one pulley wheel to the other (over the reddish block). This would seem to suggest it's part of some sort of a hoisting system; and with the "Air-line" name, I'd fancy a pneumatic-powered (freight?) elevator.

Now on to other guesses.

[Tom]

1121: Part of a department store cashier's system, see:

[Bill Rider]

Emanuel Gipe and Charles Hildreth, May 5, 1896. Patent 559,700. It looks complicated.

William Lamson had a small store where he devised a cash carrier in

1881. It took balls to get his idea rolling. In 1882 he founded the Lamson Cash Carrier Company in Boston. The trolleys said Lamson on one side and Air-Line on the other. The Southern Pacific used them. So did post offices.

Hildreth supervised the machine shop at the Lowell Mill from before 1893 at least until 1902. I guess he moonlighted for Lamson. Gipe lived in the midwest. I wonder how he came to collaborate.

This film shows one in action.

[Tanus]

1119. Crimper for edge joining sheet metal?

Tanus