What is it? CXCV

Unfortunately, lots of strange things are loose in Central Florida. I sold about 100 of the large version from a closed nursery at Renninger's Flea market in Mt Dora about 12 years ago. The antique freaks were buying them by the dozen, to use for decorations.

Nope, that's not what I was looking for.

Rob

1078 appears to be a fish, crawfish or crab trap of some sort. I'd be most inclined to say fish.

There's a secondary definition of "smudge" as a noun that is "a smoky fire". Now it's most often used in connection with protecting fruit plantaions from frost, but you'll also find it in woodscraft and outdoorsmanship guides to refer to a fire designed to throw smoke, rather than burn cleanly, either to keep away insects or as a signal.

That jibes with what I found, which was that the Jarecki Mfg Co was a maker of oil-drilling and brass-fitting equipment in Erie PA, established in 1865. "The principal specialties of the works are malleable iron fittings, oil well supplies, brass work for engine builders, plumbers and steam and gas fitters, which comprehends a vast variety of articles of various styles and sizes."

about 1/4 of the way down the page.

Aha. Thanks, Barbara. I think we have several of those smudge pots here on rec.crafts.metalworking. They're definitely designed to blow smoke.

-- Ed Huntress

1076 looks like the weights used to turn cattle horns down.

Groves in Florida spray a fine mist that freezes on the fruit, then harvest and process it as fast as they can, so it doesn't thaw and go bad. I used to live in Lake county, and you KNEW when it dropped to 34 degrees during the night, when all those diesel pumps were fired up.

"Michael A. Terrell" fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net:

They do that now - and since the late 70's - because EPA made them stop "firing" the groves.

I had a grove pot for many years that I used to cleanly dispose of used motor oil. If it's tuned correctly, it will burn anything you can vaporize below about 400F, and can be made to burn with a clean blue flame. The grove people used to deliberately make them run rich and smoke, in the belief that the smoke "would hold the heat in".

I grew up in Florida in the 50's and 60's. It was common for school-aged boys to hire out to fuel and re-fuel the pots in the wee hours.

LLoyd

By way of making a smudge when the mosquitos got bad my Dad used to pull the air filter and squirt some oil into the air intake on his lawn tractor. Seemed to work and looked cool as Hell (at least to a 6 year old). Probably wreck the emission control system these days.

That sure looks a lot like the second picture. This patent looks like the first one but only has one set screw. Patent number 1,287,540 issued Dec 10 1918. See:

My first visit was in '66. I moved here about 21 years later, onto 5 acres of a frozen out 25 acre orange grove.

Just to the right of the pool is where the house was. I now live north of Lake county.

Thanks for the patent Leon, I didn't have that one yet.

Five of them have been answered correctly this week, but I haven't been able to verify what the lock is used for.

Rob

Hi Rob,

It looks like Jeff W's. lock. If so I've looked for it before and didn't find anything worth mentioning. I was actually kind of hoping someone could ID it too. Curious device.

I have had a soft spot for locks ever since I was a kid. If I ever come across something like it...

Good memory, it is Jeff's, looks like it might be a hard one to nail down. I would guess that there aren't very many of these locks around.

Rob

#1075 looks life a thumb cuff but they come in pairs.

Dennis

It resembles patent # 2,656,706, granted to Lucas in 1953 to keep a tractor from hooking up to a trailer's kingpin.

The key mechanism on yours looks older. I wish I knew when trailer kingpins may have been 1-1/4" or less.

How many people do you know who have thumbs 1-1/4" wide?

That is a nice guess and maybe right. I dug around for awhile with that thought in mind but couldn't come up with anything better than your referenced patent number.

One thing I see that is somewhat troublesome is the keyhole. It doesn't leave a whole lot of room for clearing the shoulder on the hitch pin. I guess we would have to see some of the old hitch pins to be sure.

The type of key suggests it was a lever lock which is an old reliable design. Pin tumblers have been around since the

1850's (Yale patent ~1848). I would suspect that the lock dates back to the 1800's going by construction & key, but I'm just guessing. I kind of think it has a Railroad look to it myself (shrug).