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What is this?

Posts

What is this?

#1

What is this?

John W Foster

Does anyone know what this tool is?

I believe it was my great-grandfather's, he was principally a harness maker although he did some cobbling too. The left leg of the tool is about 3/16" wide and is pierced with an approx. 1/16" hole perpendicular to the view in the picture. The right leg is hammered to an edge, but I don't think it was ever sharpened sufficiently to be a cutting edge, I suspect it was more of a marking tool. My best current guess is that maybe a string or wire was fed through the hole in the one leg, and then the line was strung out taught over a hide and by adjusting the width of the tool, a series of parallel lines could be marked using the line as a guide, I could be out to lunch on this also.

Thanks

John

Re: What is this?

#2

Re: What is this?

John W Foster

Sorry, I can't find the "upload embedded file" box or the blue button next to it that are mentioned in the FAQ's.

Re: What is this?

#3

Re: What is this?

William Duffield

That's because you have not created a profile. Even if it has no useful information in it, it still works for posting pictures.

Re: What is this?

#4

Re: What is this?

Dick Coers

There is a profile for John Foster, but not John W Foster

Re: What is this?

#5

Re: What is this?

John Foster


Re: What is this?

#6

Re: What is this?

Gary Smyth

It appears to me to be a"Locking" divider. Can be used to adjust distances between spokes of a wheel. Distances on a nautical chart, divisions of distance on a board, drafting tool. Once set within its range it can make things easy and the locking screw prevents it moving in the process.

A very helpful tool.

Re: What is this?

#7

JL

Re: What is this?

JL

Off hand, it looks like a divider. Not sure why it would have a small hole in the left leg of the divider though. Most of my dividers are double pointed so I can use them as scribes (the right hand leg is your scribe).

Re: What is this?

#8

Re: What is this?

John K Jordan

>>>Off hand, it looks like a divider. Not sure why it would have a small hole in the left leg of the divider though

I wondered if the hole could have been used to fasten a pen nib or something to make a compass, but seems it would be on the short leg. Or maybe the short leg used to be longer and pointed.

Any markings on this?

JKJ

Re: What is this?

#9

Re: What is this?

Larry Clinton At Frankfort, (Central) Indiana

My best guess is that this started as a standard Compass / divider and was modified by your great Grandfather for a specific purpose. The hole in one leg was probably originally for a small screw that fastened a missing piece used to clamp a pen nib or other pointed tip. Looks to me like he rounded one leg to fit into a hole of a harness or other item and then marked a line or hole for a second location of the harness / item.

Re: What is this?

#10

Re: What is this?

Hank Knight

I agree with Larry. My guess is that the tool was used to mark equally spaced holes for harness buckles.

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