What is it? CXXII

708 Gage for railroad wheels, used by my dad as a car inspector.

Do you know what the various parts of the gage measured? Was his a Pratt & Whitney?

The name made me imagine the four gaps were to check diameters or thicknesses in overhauling or building an airplane engine.

711 looks a lot like the top of that metal semicircle that holds an ordinary world globe, but 6000 what? It should be 90 degrees, so that's probably not it. 713 looks a lot like the thing that telephone guys use to shove the wires into the patchboard terminals.

Thanks, Rich

Hi,

710 is upside down in the top two photos, but correctly oriented in the bottom photo. This thing sits at the free end of a sickle bar mower for hay, or a reaper cutter, or a combine cutter head. It helps the bar float with changes in the ground's surface and separates what will be cut with what will not be cut. The front point pivots to aid in the floating.

Thanks, Roger Haar (a different RH) Tucson, AZ

R.H. wrote:

#710 My guess is that this rode on the outside end of a mower sickle or perhaps a binder and kept the sickle a consistent spacing from the ground.

#715 A punchdown tool, but not the standard 66 used with older style phone blocks, or the standard 110 used with modern Cat5 wiring systems.

Yup. But what is it CALLED? Driving myself nuts here--the thing has a name! I remember them a lot more from combines than from mowers. They lifted any down crop off of the ground. Spent many a day looking down from the operators platform at a whole row of them. Just can't remember what the name of the part is.

This is correct. It is called a shoe. Sometimes there is one on both ends of the cutter bar. The one near the pittman arm is the inside shoe and the other is the outside or land shoe.

To early farmers, any dividing of a field was "laying off a land." Laying off a smaller tract was done for a couple of reasons. At the rate of a few acres per day, it might me all a farmer could till before the planting or growing season passed. And, secondly, some progress could be seen in plowing a smaller tract; the psychological benefit of seeing an end to a task.

--Andy Asberry recommends NewsGuy--

I was also thinking engines. I think 708 is a go/no-go gauge for checking tubing diameter either bent or 'blended' with a file.

Andy Asberry wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Very interesting! Thanks very much. When my wife read this it sparked some childhood memories of her father talking about the shoe on the combine.

Gary (who sent in the photo)

I suggest it's 6000 grams, in which case the object is a smallish scale like these:

but made with the general layout of this big one

to allow for a larger dial, which in this case rotates through perhaps

1/4 circle, not a full circle, and has its needle out in the open.

They are called lifters. This is a floating lifter with a pivot. Some were rigid without the pivot. They are used to lift the crop being cut. They are installed about a foot apart on the cutter bar. This lifter was not a divider or used to support the cutter bar.

Photo and instructions have been posted.

According to R.H. :

O.K. Posting from rec.crafts.metalworking as usual.

A bit late, because of a busy day.

708) Looks like a gauge for thickness. 15/16" and 1-1/16" marked for the two largest ones. No marking (at least on this side) for the two smaller ones, which are perhaps near 1/4" and 3/16".

The notches on the back edge are for measuring something else. Perhaps it is a gauge for setting up a machine made by P&W.

709) Two large forks at the ends, and smaller ones along the handle. The larger ones may be for prying apart things which snap together. The smaller ones *might* be for pulling clear safety wire which had previously been twisted into a hole in a nut or bolt head.

710) Perhaps some kind of point for breaking up sod? I'm not sure why it would be hinged -- perhaps to clear better when backing out?

711) It doesn't quite look familiar. The "6000" is part of some sort of arc-shaped scale, which suggests a pivoted pointer.

It looks die-cast, and thus not particularly strong.

712) combination hex wrench and some sort of prying tool, for disassembling something, I would guess, but I have no idea what.

713) Hmm ... looks like a cheap version of the J66 tool for punching down connections on phone termination blocks.

A good collection of difficult to identify things today.

Now to see what others have said.

Enjoy, DoN.

I'll go ahead and partly answer #711: you are correct, it's the top of the frame of a world globe. I saw three other globes this week and all of them had degrees on both sides of the frame; only the globe in the photo had degrees on one side and different markings on the other. I'll give the answer to why it has the number 6000 on it in a couple days if no one gets it.

Rob

Miles from equator?

I'm guessing Russian mils. 6,000 in a circle. Here's a link:

R.H. wrote:

Nice link!

Really makes the Minute Of Angle concept much clearer. Thanks.

Thank you! To a curious reader, those pictures were like four big slices of cake, hot from the oven.

|> R.H. wrote: |> 711 looks a lot like the top of that metal semicircle that holds an |> ordinary world globe, but 6000 what? It should be 90 degrees, so |> that's probably not it.

| I'll go ahead and partly answer #711: you are correct, it's the | top of the frame of a world globe. I saw three other globes this week and | all of them had degrees on both sides of the frame; only the globe in the | photo had degrees on one side and different markings on the other. I'll | give the answer to why it has the number 6000 on it in a couple days if no | one gets it.

Could it be the measurement in mils? There're 6400 mils in a circle. What are the other gradients shown? ____________________________Gerard S.