What is it? Set 399

"Rob H." fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@news4.newsguy.com:

2305 looks like an early rifling machine 2306 "Pocket toolkit"?? Maybe for a bicycle, since only two sizes

2308 looks a lot like an adjustable vignetting mask for a photo enlarger.

LLoyd

2308 Pachyderm Briss cutter?

No idea on any others this week. C'mon Rob put some easy ones in for me!

Nah, it's a ruler designed to clip into a three-ring binder. It has been cut off at both ends, perhaps to smuggle through airport security in a two-ring binder.

2306 is a telcom tool commonly called a 216B, used on binding posts in protectors,terminals and old style crossconnects (B-boxes in them olden times.) One can be seen here (scroll to the middle of page):

--Larry

Posting from Rec.crafts.metalworking as always -- and a little earlier than usual:

2305) Old gunsmith's tool for generating rifling in a rifle barrel. A cutter is mounted on the small diameter section, the barrel clamped in the wood "tombstones", and as the operator draws it by the handle at the end, the spiral grooves in the larger diameter wood part rotate the cutter as it is drawn through the barrel. 2306) Tool for two sizes of adjustment screws clamped by nuts. The outer part of the tool is used to release the clamp nut, and then the screwdriver part is advanced and used to make the adjustment.

The most common use of these in my experience was for adjustment potentiometers in aircraft electronics so the vibration common to piston engined planes would not change the adjustments in flight.

2307) This is an interesting device. The decorated part suggests that it is for music, and this would make the windup part likely to be a metronome -- but the way it sits on the table suggests that it is supposed to be that way (adjustable feet and all), and then it might be something which moves the wire frame relative to text or music over time to force reading or playing at a certain speed. The music or text may be wound around the cylinder behind the wire frame. 2308) As to *what* this is -- that is clear. it is an iris diaphragm.

However, mounting it in that red cover is uncommon. It is normally built within lens (and often shutter) assemblies. This might be used in an optical bench for adjusting illumination. The numbers are multipliers for the amount of light (thus the open area) relative to the fully closed position (1) in which it is shown.

I guess that it could be used to control air flow instead of light.

2309) No real clue on this one. It does seem that the split toothed part was welded on as an afterthought. 2310) A nice old tool -- perhaps intended to bring an edge down to flush with an adjacent surface.

Is the shown surface of the file the fine or the coarse side? That could help tell whether it is for filing wood or metal. Also, is the other surface double-cut as the shown one is?

Now on to see what others have suggested -- and back later this evening to see other suggestions.

Enjoy, DoN.

Neat site -- but I wish that it would show me the individual prices of the tools.

Enjoy, DoN.

Your first answer is correct, but not the other two.

Thanks for the link, I didn't realize they still made this tool, the patent for it was issued in 1919.

Good answer

Yes, it was created for use with electrical equipment.

You're correct that it's music related, though it's not used as suggested above. Someone looking to identify this item sent me the photos, turns out that it's missing a part that would make it easier to figure out.

This isn't for use with any kind of optics or air flow.

I agree that it looks like someone modified this tool.

I'll ask the owner and will post his reply when I get it.

Rob

Definitely! I appreciate the explanation! I couldn't "see" it.. Any idea how many times would the cutter need to be worked through the inside of the barrel to get the desired result? And who thought of rifling! : )

Bill

A lot. I have done this with a modern version of the tool, which was a piece of 5/8" square bar that we twisted by putting one end into a BIG shop vise, and two pipe wrenches on the other end. But it twisted quite evenly. (1:48, IIRC). It runs through a square hole in a piece of steel plate, with lots of grease.

I've only made a rifled barrel for a muzzleloading pistol with it, but my old friend, whose project it was, made a rifle barrel for a deer rifle. He started with a smoothbore blank from Dixie.

For cutters, I used a stack of hacksaw blade pieces cut out with a Dremel, using the thin silicon carbide cutoff wheels. After each couple of passes of the rifling tool we shimmed it up 0.002" at a time to cut deeper. I rigged a block and tackle to pull it through. Then I lapped the barrel, spending hours of progressive lapping to get a decent finish.

Swiss or Germans. The originals were their jaeger (hunting) rifles of the

17th century (I think).

Thank you for your reply (below)! Interesting stuff. My interests seem dangerous enough without trying to build guns... lol Actually, I bought a muzzle loading pistol kit when I was in high school but I lacked the woodworking savvy (and many of the other things required) to complete it properly.

Bill

I have done this with a modern version of the tool, which was a piece

In 1975, I built a muzzle loading .69 caliber flintlock long gun in anticipation of the 200 anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1976. I fired quite a few rounds through it until I ran out of lead balls. I then discovered that a 12 gauge shotgun slug fit perfectly. I butchered a lot of shotgun shells to continue the fun. I still have it tho the main spring (that propels the flint striker) broke.

[ ... ]

And another answer makes a good case that it was for terminal blocks used by the telephone company. Whether it could be used on the locknuts for the potentiometers which I suggested would depend on the size of the hex openings in the ends.

Intersting. The music relationship seems obvious from the lyre shape and the decoration, but the rest does need more parts to identify (though I did not save the larger image and zoom in (and adjust the gamma) to make some areas more visible). Of course, familiarity with other examples could also lead to correct and full answers.

Another posting (or was that in the comments on the web site) suggested that it could be for measuring spaghetti -- and with uncooked straight spaghetti in parallel bundles, it could probably have the numbers corresponding to the number of people it would serve, or the number of ounces or something similar

[ ... ]

Thanks. A photo of the other side would be a nice touch too. The side that is shown suggests metal filing not wood, but I could be wrong.

Enjoy, DoN.

Since it had what looks like five grooves in the master, and it is capable of cutting one groove in the barrel at a time (too much cutting force for more), I would say that at least five passes for a single depth, and perhaps four or five passes per groove to get the desired depth.

I would suspect that it came from archery. The flights (feather) on arrows are angled slightly to produce a spin which stabilizes the arrow in flight. I suspect that they started with just straight feathers to hold the tail behind the head, and someone by accident tilted the feathers enough to produce a spin and noticed that it made for more stable flight (likely comparing the feathers on several arrows made at the same time). Once it was discovered, they experimented until they found what angle worked best.

Once the long firearms (which started out as smoothbore, and used patched round balls) graduated to conical bullets, they discovered that the longer ones (which would carry more energy to the target) tumbled, so they looked for a way to spin them too. While bullets could have been cast with spiral grooves, actually putting the grooves in the barrel would give a more certain spin, and thus would be used by preference.

Note that an experimental/short-lived firearm called the "Gyrojet" had the powder (really "propellant") inside the bullet, fired by a central primer, and had a ring of angled holes around the primer to give the bullet a spin.

See:

Enjoy, DoN.

Rifles were around for a long time before conical bullets, Don. The original Swiss and German jaeger rifles used round lead balls -- with no patches. They used a hammer to hit the end of the ramrod, driving an oversize ball down the rifling.

2310

I would guess it is to dress the metal edge of skis, but it is not obviously reversible as would be needed to do that. Perhaps a tool for dressing a chainsaw bar?

____________________________________________________________________ Gardner Buchanan gbuchana(a)teksavvy(dot)com FreeBSD: Where you want to go. Today.

I was going to make a wild guess that 2307 was a page-turner for sheet music, but I couldn't see any parts to actually do this function, so I kept my big yap shut.

On an administrative topic... For a couple of weeks, RH's initial post has not shown up on rec.puzzles. I don't know if this is a problem with my reader, my news server, or something with RH's posting process. Anyone out there, who knows something about the news posting process, got any suggestions about how I can fix things?

Here is a photo of the other side that I just received from the owner, along with his comment below.

"If you notice on the coarse side the screw holes are not chamfered to accept the heads. This could indicate that this side was not intended for use. I didn't catch this before."