What is it? Name that air tool

Question

OK, here's one for the brain trust, or even you guys. :) My father (like I)collected all sorts of neat tools during his life. Here's something thatneither of us could properly ID. It looks sorta shopmade, or just a very customtool. Central core is asbestos-wrapped and has an electric heater (cord wouldexit the handle if it had a cord) in it. Air line goes from the valve into theback of the core. The nozzle is a cone that surrounds the inner brass part. Theouter holes in the brass are fed by the air supply. The center hole isconnected to a short 1/4" tube that goes up through the top of the housing.So it looks like it's for spraying something under heat. Plastic or powdercoating? Epoxy paint?GTO(John)

Refinish King · Accepted Answer

Looks like a propane pre heating gun John?Most likely used in the day when lead was used as a body filler.Refinish King

GTO69RA4 · Answer

How would the propane fit in? The plumbing is for air and the thing has a bigelectric heater in it. GTOJohn)

Refinish King · Answer

I thought the propane went in the air inlet:Sorry!Many tools were made to keep the metal slightly warm, so that the body mancould melt off chunks of lead bar, then paddle it down.Sorry again.

T T · Answer

Depending how hot it gets it could be used for a variety of things. Weuse similar tools at work for heating and reshaping plastic.......

Bruce L. Bergman · Answer

There, now you can just click on them.

My first thought is a primitive plastic welder - you would feed a rod of the filler plastic through the hole in the top like a hot-melt glue stick, and the hot air fuses it all together.

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Bruce L. Bergman · Answer

On 20 Feb 2004 02:58:58 GMT,      (GTO69RA4) wrote:

Don Foreman · Answer

The body and handle look lilke die castings so it probably is not a shop-made one-off.

The head is an atomizing sprayhead, but the center liquid hole is quite large as sprayheads go.

My guess would be that it produced a coarse spray of some viscous stuff that was heated to make it less viscous. Maybe some sort of bituminous undercoating?

GTO69RA4 · Answer

Thanks. I wish I knew where my father got this thing, that would make tracking down a purpose easier.

The outside body is your basic extruded aluminum tube about 3" in diameter. The core's held in place by six long setscrews going through the outer tube. I don't know how the handle was cast, but it shows signs of being sanded and buffed from a rather rough casting.

GTO(John)

What is it? Name that air tool

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