What is it? CXCIV

[R.H.]

This week's set has just been posted:

[Stephen Robinson]

1067 Earth clamp for doing electrical isolations.

[RicodJour]

R

[Rich]

1072 Ice scraper for windshields

Rich

[Dave W]

[John Martin]

1069: A homemade foot valve for some sort of water pump? 1071: Ditto on the race knife or timber scribe.

John Martin

[Don Murray]

1067 Is called a hot tap. It is for high voltage, it is missing the tee lug that a jumper would go in. The ring on the bottom is where a tool called a shotgun would go in, which is a long stick with a control rod that can hook in the ring, you hold this a foot or so above the power line and pull it down and the bill on the hot tap will catch the hot power line. Then you turn it to close the bottom jaw. ok for picking up load but not so good for dropping load. This one will work from #8 to 2/0 wire.

Don

[bremen68]

1068 Looks like a bearing puller to me I have a similar one in the garage 1071 Can opener on a pocket knife

[dav1936531]

warps.

1068: Some type of device for an unknown pipe fitting procedure. 1069: Combination pimp cane/bitch whip for keeping "da ho's" in line. 1070: Spanish Inquisition device for pulling the tongues out of non-believers. 1071: No idea. 1072: No idea. Dave OK...I got stumped so I kow I don't win anything this time.

[technomaNge]

No. 1069: Sample collector, plunged into a wagonload/truckload of grain.

technomaNge

[Matthew T. Russotto]

no idea why.

1068: Looks like a big molly bolt and probably serves a similar purpose -- flatten it, insert it into a hole in a hollow wall, then expand it to provide a support for something. 1069: George Brett's childhood baseball bat 1070: Perhaps for handling just-fired ceramics 1071: Glasscutting tool, perhaps 1072: Socket wrench sockets with an inverted drive.

[DoN. Nichols]

According to R.H. :

1067) This looks to be to quickly make and/or break connections to power lines in the range from 8 gauge to 2-0 gauge. 1068) And this looks to be to support the center of a wire spool, allowing you to unreel the wire. I *think* that it should be mounted to a pivot at the end away from the knob, but I can't see that in the photo. 1069) From the size and the location of the handle, it would appear to be a walking stick -- with a rattling center dowel to keep you from accidentally sneaking up on a bear or other critter. I think that the marble in the hole is intended to either be a magnifier, or perhaps to help in starting fires by concentrating the sun -- though it seems a bit small for that. 1070) Perhaps for handling flasks full of acid at a safe distance while diluting the acid?

I might think for handling glass which is being formed, except that wood would be a poor choice for that. :-)

1071) A strange beastie. :-)

The L-shape with the U in it is to guide the blade along the edge of something, but I can't guess what.

1072) Hmm ... they sort of look like Robertson (square drive) screwdriver bits, except for the depression on the end. Are they steel or plastic?

If plastic, they sort of look like the reel spindles for audio cassette tapes -- though nothing explains why they are stored in that white paddle.

Now to see what others have said, DoN.

[DoN. Nichols]

I don't think so -- unless your pistons are hollow all the way through. :-) How are you going to get the other three arms and the screw out of the way to slip the rings over the piston?

Enjoy, DoN.

[Pythor]

1072 is a fish scaler. Recently reviewed on Cool Tools Blog

[Bill Rider]

1070 - I think it's to hand somebody a rope.

I've worked aboard three fishing boats. The seine would be more than a thousand feet with a rope along the top and a rope along the bottom. The motor dory would take one end in a big circle around the school. Then the dory guy would transfer his ends of the ropes to the boat.

Now I can't recall how it was done. It had to be quick and simple and foolproof. With both boats bobbing it seems too far to reach up from the launch to somebody on the boat.

The tongs would extend one's reach by nearly four feet. They're too big for the nylon we used but look the right size to grab the ropes used before synthetics.

The tongs would pinch a rope at two points a handswidth apart. Pull from the bight would flex the rope where it was pinched, which could cause it to slip out. It wouldn't flex and slip at the other pinch point, toward the end. As the bight would pull toward the person holding the tongs, there would be less flexing with the second version, with its angled head.

Being almost entirely wood, they would float. They could also be used to reach down to pick up a rope on the water.

[todd]

Seriously Don, if you don't know what it is, stop with the wild guesses.

todd

[Alexander Thesoso]

I've found DoN's guesses to be observant, thoughtful, and well founded.

[Patrick Hamlyn]

I found your top posting to be thoughtless, ill-founded and hard to fix.

Todd was displaying something called humour. Irony to be precise. Look it up. And then look up bottom-posting and why it's better.

[Dave Baker]

B) I tend to find people who top post to be unobservant, thoughtless and destined for the kill file.

[Swingman]

Depends, if you don't/can't/won't trim, then I much prefer you top post. Otherwise, when in Rome ....