what is this tool?

Called a box tool.

It is a self contained travelling steady for turning long slender parts. Usually the bushing is the size of the stock, and the tool gets set to cut the diameter required. One shot, no redoes, as the bushing will not fit after the first try on the stock.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Thanks Trevor

Hard to see that would be a particularly useful tool, but good to know what it is.

Jordan

They are used more in a production environment with a turret lathe.

Imagine you have to make 1000 little brass bolts for a project.

With this tool, you can cut the barstock down to final size in one pass, then thread the end, probably with a automatic die head, then part it off. If you started with a hex bar, you would then have a finished bolt in three fast operations. Feed in the barstock, and repeat.

Kinda a handy tool if you need one.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Or say you need a steel rod .235 dia x 10" long, and you don't have a steady rest or a centerless grinder. This method is the easy way to get the job done. and no worries about taper.

James Crombie

It looks like something Motorola Semiconductor supplied to us to "De-Lid" TO-5 and TO-66 semiconductor cans. Of course, this was about 25 years ago when Motorola was still in business AND the largest supplier of semiconductors.

Now they are only a memory and Microsemi is the leader, but can't supply everything that they show in their catalog.

What's this world coming to ? ! ?

I recently bought a gage on EBoob (along with another item that I really did want. I bid a buck on this item and neither the seller or I had absolutely any idea what it was. It looked neat tho and was worth the buck) I called B&S to find out what it was and there was only one fella left at the company who had any idea. And I had to send him a pic, at that. It turned out to be a "Bore-Gauge Setting Gauge". They had no idea beyond that what it was or how it was used. Obviously, a one-of-a-kind gauge for some special application that apparently didn't turn out to be the next cell-fone type product.

According to Jordan :

I'm taking Jordon'w word for this, because I can't get the URL to download.

It is *quite* useful in a turret lathe, as one of several tools preset for stages of a production run. I use one to reduce 3/4" brass bar to 5/8", prior to threading at 5/8-27 with a Geometric die head, knurling the OD, drilling and tapping 1/4-20 and then parting off. I can produce about eighty of them in an afternoon and evening.

Without a turret, and a production job -- you *could* make it work with careful setup of a boring bar holder on an Aloris style toolpost, but it would be more trouble than it was worth, unless you expected to follow it immediately with a Geometric die head -- without changing the cross-feed setting at all.

Enjoy, DoN.

I get it now. Thanks Don and everyone.