Sunday 4 July 2010

Wotsit?

Picked this little lot up at a car boot today...
A fiver well spent after a bit of of a clean...
Some little screwdrivers, awls and a ticketer for rolling the edge on scrapers, small spirit level, various leatherworking knives (some made from old high carbon steel cutlery), a log dog, steel straight edge, a spud(?) for barking logs.  In the middle a saw set - I was specially pleased to find that as I'm going to get some files and having a go at sharpening some good old saws.  At bottom right a tool for cutting button holes in leather.

But what on earth is the thing at lower left??
Sliding bar with steel spike is 6" long, metal inset on the end is brass.  Can't think of any jobs I'll be needing it for soon!

2 comments:

Seanhellman said...

I know exactly what it is. A nonsense tool, made up by someone to fool us toolies!
Mark has been doing the same, posting a tool that some kids have probably put together for a game.
After saying this I will be probably be proved wrong, and it will be a very useful tool and with an interesting application.

JRC said...

Probably Sean is right. My machinist's alter ego suggests, however, that it's a scribe. If you had a cylinder and you wanted to mark out 360 deg. around it, you would adjust the height of the thing by varying the angle, place the cylinder against the point, and rotate it. If you had a rectangular cross-section you could draw it across the sharp point. I suspect it's a jig sort of a thing. The maker used it to scribe some long-forgotten piece of work.