What is it? Set 342

[Rob H.]

The latest set of items has been posted:

[Alexander Thesoso]

1968 (step one in the making of a) Bowling pin?

[kelly]

I reckon you are right:

[Doug Miller]

But I *KNOW* what #1968 is -- it's a bowling pin.

[Andy Dingley]

locate in holes / grooves on the test piece that should be a known distance apart, at which point the scale on the end reads 0. Any discrepancy and the scale shows it.

#1965 Maybe a coachmaker's, cooper's or wheelwright's shave. Can't tell too easily without seeing the business end, which is underneath. It might even be a chairmaker's travisher. It's a long-handled router plane, a relative of the spokeshave, used for woodworking. A chisel edge on the opposite end of that metal tooth shaves the bottom surface of a groove. Many of these are highly specialised tools made for a single task, and a particular worker might use a large number of them, but intermittently.

#1967 Herbal cannabis grinder. It's the Summer festival season, these things turned in nice timbers can be good sellers for woodturners (use bamboo kebab skewers for the pins).

#1968 Some funny Yankee sporting goods. A rounders bat, basketball club, that sort of thing.

[WW]

1964.... Cover for a fire hydrant. WW

[Rob H.]

There was one more photo of this tool but I don't think it will tell us very much:

[Alexander Thesoso]

1963 I agree that this looks like a gauge, to check that the distance between two points is within some limit, but... The shape of the pins (conical, blunted tip, parallel diagonal flats on corresponding sides) is cause for some thought. They seem designed to give bad measurements if used for common subject points. To measure the distance between two planes, they should be spheres. To measure the distance between two round holes, they should be cylinders. The pin-shape seems to be designed for a very special measurement. Seth Thomas was primarily known for making clocks, but I'm hard pressed to think of parts of a clock that are about 1.5 inches apart that would be gauged. Perhaps this is used for set-up of some machine tool?

[Rob H.]

The point on the end is stationary, the other point can be moved within the quarter inch slot, when it's centered in the slot the points are exactly one inch apart.

Rob

[Rob H.]

Correct!

[DoN. Nichols]

1963) (hmm ... what was I doing in 1963? :-)

Anyway -- I believe this to be a test gauge for verifying the center-to-center spacing of either small holes or center-drilled shaft ends.

The conical pieces go into the holes, and the pointer at the flat end shows how much over or under size it is.

The end conical piece is rigid, but he center one can move back and forth in a slot.

The flats on the sides of the conical pieces allows the center distance (with a correction added in) to be measured with a micrometer or a snap gauge.

It looks as though it can be re-zeroed for different center distances by adjusting the knurled collar to read zero with the proper size snap gauge in place.

It looks to be capable of displaying up to 0.006" over or undersized from zero.

What is the full maker's name on the indicator part? It does not look like one which I know -- but it also looks like a very old one.

1964) Strange thing.

From this angle, it looks like one of two things

1) Cover to prevent access to a fire hydrant. Two screws on the left hand side to open it -- with perhaps two more on the other side -- or a hinge. 2) Possibly a cover over a large valve, with the black top disc acting as the valve handle. 1965) If it were not for the sold wedge holding in the metal piece, I would think that it might be a very narrow plane for grooving a wood workpiece. 1966) Do the metal rods (which I expect to be actually hollow tubes) have a thread on the far end similar tot he one on the near end of the bent funnel object?

If so, I would think that it is designed to feed oil or some other liquid into something which is otherwise hard to reach. You screw together as many tubes as needed together, with the plastic one being the last to slide into a hole on the side of the machine.

A rather nice carrying case on it, however -- which makes it sort of look like a medical accessory.

1967) At a guess -- metal covers for the ends of wood parts to prevent them from splitting on impact -- as from someone driving them into the ground

The spikes on the inside of the caps would attach them firmly to the end of the wood, and the rim would be a nice fit on the wood OD.

1968) Looks like a rough wood shape being built up prior to decorative turning of something like a table lamp. Normally, I would expect more different colors of wood, but perhaps these woods take stains differently.

Now to see what other have suggested.

Enjoy, DoN.

[DoN. Nichols]

Actually -- it does. I was wondering where the shavings went with the solid plug there, and this shows a path.

Enjoy, DoN.

[Lobby Dosser]

Are you sure? Looks more like a sub-species of Dalek.

[Steve R.]

1963 a special clockmakers depthing tool for mass produced clocks.

Steve. R.

[J Burns]

The name of the village, Greenville MA, is intriguing. It's a dam erected on a mill stream in 1724 for a saw mill, then a grist mill. In the 19th Century it began producing scythes, and that supported a charcoal industry. Then, through much of the 19th and into the 20th Century, it sold machine knives worldwide as the Stiles and later Hankey Machine Knife Manufactory. The stream was inadequate, so they built an aqueduct several miles long about the time of the Civil War. If a machinist in Greenville produced a measuring device, was it to make machine knives?

Greenville was one of several manufacturing villages in Leicester, which in the 19th Century had a population of about 2,000, mostly farmers. From 1780 to 1890, Leicester produced a third of the textile cards in America. Several tanneries and a wire mill sprang up to supply the card mills.

Shuttles, bobbins, heddles, and heddle frames were also produced. If the device was not to manufacture machine knives, could it have been useful for making cards, shuttles, bobbins, heddles, or heddle frames?

[whit3rd]

1963: the 60-degree tips suggests this is a thread pitch checker. Zero it on a known standard, and the needle swings if the unit under test is the wrong pitch.

[Andy Dingley]

Indeed. As the measuring axis is axial, the flat surfaces are the important ones. This is a tool for grooves, not holes, and it's grooves with angled walls.

As another poster has suggested, this probably means thread pitch measurement.

[Andy Dingley]

Looks like a scraper, more than a chisel edge, so the shavings will be minimal anyway and won't need much space to clear them.

As it's a scraper, this is probably for end grain or cross grain working. Nearest I've seen to this thing before has been tools for inlaying marquetry bandings. The groove is cleared initially with a chisel-like router plane, this end-on scraper is then used to form the groove exactly to size.

[Mike]

Seems Bicknell-Thomas made clutches.

it be some kind of gauge or tool for clutch making.

[Rob H.]

Good answer! The title of the patent for it is 'Screw thread gaging device.'

Rob