What is it? Set 538

This week's set has been posted:

Larger images:

Rob

3141. I'm fairly sure this is a nut. Or possibly a fence tool.

Steve

3139 : Bee Hive Smoker.

3140 : Third Hand Tool, for adjusting bicycle brakes.

3141 : Radiator Cap.

3142 : Router Tip.

3144 : I've seen these but can't place it at the moment.

Hmm, so this was wrong but I've definitely seen these before too. I don't think it simply and incense burner.......No, this one has got my brain ticking.

3139 Something to feed plants 3141 nut for a wheel axle or some other decorative nut. 3142 reamer for a brace (wish I had this one) 3143 lap counters for 2 events... might be for race cars one might be overall laps, the other laps since pitting or filling up. 3144 swaging tool (tool and die)

3141 Gear Shift Knob

At 2 1/8 diameter, that's some big kind of cap nut. And why the decorative engraving?

3139, tea strengthener, to boost the cuppa. 3140, beaker holder for chemistry. 3141, decorator lug nut for Egyptian chariot. 3142, pipe reamer of some kind, or hole reamer. 3143, some kind of push button counter. Two counters. Set up so as to provide two separate counts. 3144, fence tool?

It's rather large but 3141 looks like its one of those decorative nuts that hold down a toilet to the floor.

-bruce snipped-for-privacy@ripco.com

3141 maybe a nut to hold the steering wheel on an old car

Running an analysis...

My first guess is that 3143 was a production line quality control counter mounted to a small run or slow production line.

Both buttons have red residue on them. The angle of the buttons suggest automation.

Counter A counts all the objects on the line up to that point.

Counter B counts remaining objects that pass by.

Between the two, someone or some contrivance pushes or drops damaged, underweight overweight or otherwise out of spec items off the conveyor.

The difference between the two counters gives a quality control tally.

Possibility B...

A counter that goes up to 999,999 and some poor sod with red paint on his hands had to push the buttons.

3143: clock for blitz chess?

Correct, I think I posted one of these a couple years ago, someone just sent me this photo so I decided to go ahead and repost it.

No one has guessed the right answer for it yet, I'm not sure if this is a reproduction or an original, but these were used until the early 1800s.

Correct

I don't know the exact reason these were mounted in wood but lap counters sounds like a good use for them.

Another good sounding guess but I don't know if we'll ever get a verifiable answer for this one.

Posting in the usenet newsgroup rec.crafts.metalworking as always.

3139) Interesting. In part it looks like a whistle, including the fipple formed half by the wood and half by the end of slot.

But -- if it were a musical whistle, it would have larger holes on the side, and with variable spacing and sizes to tune them to specific notes.

And the perforated cone would not be there at all.

Perhaps it could be a whistle which is powered by a vacuum drawn through the perforated cone.

The shape of the fipple appears wrong for it to be powered by steam fed in through the perforated cone. You only show one view of this, and I suspect that there is a hole though the wood just behind the fipple.

3140) Strange. All formed from a single piece of wire.

At a guess the duck-bill to the right fits into a tube, and it supports a tubing (glass or rubber) in the other two. Perhaps used in a chem lab.

Maybe it could hold a test tube on the end of a distillation condenser for sampling before the final product goes to a larger container.

3141) That is the most decorated Acorn cap nut I have ever seen.

Unlikely to be a commercial product, though it might have started life as a normal Acorn cap nut.

And the size is rather large for most acorn nuts.

3142) A pipe reamer. Used for removing burrs from the inside of a just cut length of pipe.

Used in an old style brace from the "Brace and Bit" days,

BTW The "large photos" site seems to have the two views of the acorn nut and the pipe reamer interleaved for whatever reason. :-)

3143) Two normally hand-held counters. Likely used at the admissions gate to count two different classes of entrants -- say Men vs Women or adults vs kids.

3144) I think that this is a tool used by a blacksmith for punching a hole through sheet metal of whatever thickness. Heat it red hot first.

I think that the two parts separate, but they might work assembled into the hardy hole of an anvil.

Now to post this and then see what others have suggested.

Enjoy, DoN.

No definitive reason has been found yet for the two counters but the rest of the answers have been posted:

Rob

I'm curious about the one described as a saw set. It looks rather large -- unless it is for sawmill sized saw blades -- or perhaps for the two-man saws used for firewood and trees.

Enjoy, DoN.

You're right about it being for larger saws, I think it was for crosscut saws that were used on trees, as you mentioned. The actual size of this saw set is 3-

1/4", I had incorrectly marked it as 2-1/2". I posted this tool a long time ago and didn't have an answer for it until Leon sent me some information on it.

Rob