MYSTERY OBJECTS

[StoneRoad]

High speed steel tap.....ie machine rather than hand powered

[Stanley]

Sorry, none of you have got it. Some of you were getting close when you suggested a tap but it's very specialised. It's a hob for cutting worm wheels. This was made by Johnny Pickles when he was building his dividing heads and is the one I used to make the worm-wheel for the 1927 copy of the Birch Lathe. Here's the hob in action.

[StoneRoad]

I ought to have got that.....my pop was a toolmaker for many years before migrating into the drawing office.....

[Stanley]

The nice thing is that this hob is the one Johnny made to cut the original worm wheel that was missing.

Try this one. It is of course a cutting tool for a lathe but there are enough clues to say exactly what it is. Another tool made by Johnny.

[Bodger]

Swan neck parting off tool ?

[Bradders Bluesinger]

For the grooves in a pulley ?

[Stanley]

Not sure what it was made for but Bodge is right in that it is a swan neck but what I'm really after is why the shape and what's it made of?

[Bodger]

A plan view would help, but it could also be for cutting square or acme threads depending ont form, material it looks as though it might have a brazed tip ?, if not high carbon steel

[Tizer]

Bodge, what are `acme' threads? I thought Acme only appeared in old cartoons, such as the Roadrunner series, as a generic name for a brand or company!

[Bodger]

Tizer, an "Acme" thread, in profile is very similar to a square thread, but instead of the vertical faces being parallel there is an included angle of 29 deg., this make the thread easier to produce, and when used on a lead screw it makes it easier to engage the split nut when screw cutting on a lathe

[Bodger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapezoidal_thread_forms
More details

[Stanley]

Bodge has got close enough I think, particularly when he mentioned high carbon steel. High Speed Alloy Steel for cutting tools was first made by Mushet in the Forest of Dean and was demonstrated at the 1851 exhibition where tools were working at such high cutting rates they were red hot at the tip but kept their edge, this would destroy a high carbon steel tool. However it was very expensive and apart from a few wealthy amateurs was outside the reach of amateurs working at home. Another factor was that they were treadling their lathes or running them of shafting with small gas engines and cutting speeds were not high enough to demand HS steel. There was also the fact that if an amateur got hold of some cast high carbon steel he could forge, quench and temper his own tools so the vast majority of tools were high carbon steel. The clue in the pic is the characteristic blistering on the shank of the tool where it hasn't been polished. The swan neck was a safety feature in that if too much cut was applied at slow speed the swan neck bent slightly and reduced the cut. The technique was to take a second cut at the same setting, what was called taking the spring out of the tool. You get a similar but smaller effect with HS steel and it's useful when you want a very fine finish. In the late 1930s another improvement came along from Germany in the shape of Wimet carbide tipped tools. Johnny bought some in 1931 when they were making thousands of CI loom pulleys as part of the More Looms System when the looms had to be slowed down.
Incidentally, Johnny told Newton that in the early days when he was working at Burnley Ironworks on a large flywheel he used cast iron tools for cutting the rope grooves. They were about 4" square and cast from the same metal as the flywheel but on a chill which gave a pot hard cutting edge. The cutting speed was very slow, it took about three minutes for one revolution of the flywheel and the result was a very good finish which was thought to be the result from cutting the CI with the same metal it was cast from. And yes, it took weeks to cut the grooves!

Here's another one, I think Bodge might be able to identify this!

[Stanley]

A deathly hush.... I'd better tell you what it is. Bodge mentioned carbide tipped tools earlier. This is Wimet's latest offering in cutting technology. The tip is made of a ceramic compound that is virtually indestructible. It can be rotated to give three new cutting points, has a negative rake and is intended for heavy cuts at high speed on powerful lathes when flooded with coolant. I have some but in truth they are not really suitable for an amateur like me, more for high speed production runs on automatic lathes.



Something completely different. An unused ledger made by Coulthard of Brierfield in the 19th century. Inside it has index pages and then individual leaves made of high quality tissue paper. So what exactly is it?

[Stanley]

Any offers? Or do you want the explanation why it is different? I promise it's interesting!

[Bradders Bluesinger]

I remember that Invoices were duplicated in a press using Tissue paper , in the office at Hendon Mills .
It was a "wet" process and would not have been used anywhere near a fine book of this sort......
I also have a "recipe" ledger from the mill , with every entry detailing the weaving of specific types of cloth....this doesn't seem like the use for your's either.....
....but was it for keeping samples of the Jaquards ......?

[Tizer]

Sounds like it could be good for a botanist to press plant leaves. It wouldn't be used for collecting postage stamps because you need stiff paper for that but postmasters probably used to keep their new stamps for sale in books like that. Or was it used for copying drawings - put the drawing under the page, make a copy, remove the original and you have a book full of drawings.

[Stanley]

Bradders has got it. It's a letter book. Missives were written using a copying ink pencil and inserted under the tissue page which was damped. All the outgoing letters were done last thing at night then the book was put in a cast iron screw press and left overnight. The following morning the script had transferred to the tissue paper. Every page was numbered and the appropriate page number was entered in the index at the front. I found this one in the skip at Bancroft demolition, never been used. Right up my street! I have an old letter book from Bankfield Shed and over 100 years later the tissue copies are perfectly legible. Typewriters and carbon paper made them redundant.
I have one of the old heavy ledgers as well that had a screw mechanism in the cover that could be slackened off so the massive ledger laid flat.

Back into the shed with this one. Clue, the shank is bent and the upright shaft has snapped off.

[Tizer]

Well I'll be blowed, good for you Bradders! Reading about the ledgers reminds me of how when I worked in the brewery the brewers' office had an enormous ledger about 4 foot across for recording all the details of each brew, from the raw materials right through to the finished beer. With records like that you took great care to insert the right numbers or words first time round, a habit that has been lost with the advent of computers.

[Stanley]

I'll put you out of your misery with the last one. It's a small ball-turning tool which evidently suffered a bad smash while being used. The upright shaft held a tool-holder and it was rotated by a worm and gear wheel turned by the knurled knob. At one time I considered repairing it but decided I would be better off making my own as the design of this one looks like an accident waiting to happen.



This isn't so much a mystery as a curiosity. It is marked Baker, Sheffield, warranted cast steel and has a trade mark


18" files go back to the days when men were men. One of my favourite quotations is attributed to a man who was apprenticed to the famous 19th century Leeds engineer, Henry Maudsley. "It was a pleasure to watch Mr Maudsley with a hand tool of any description but he was particularly fine with an 18" flat file". There's a good epitaph for you!

[Stanley]

Not perhaps a mystery object, more a shout for help. Are there any porcelain experts out there on the site? Here are two pots which a mysterious ancestor of mine brought back from the Far East, reputedly China, about 100 years ago. They are beautifully hand painted and apart from a nibble out of the spout, in very good condition. Can anyone give any clues?

[chinatyke]

I wish I had seen this last Tuesday. I was invited by a major porcelain company, Sanhuan Porcelain, to attend the opening ceremony of a Porcelain Trade Fair in Beiliu. We toured the exhibition and there were many artists who I'm sure would have shed some light on these objects. We also toured one of their factories in Beiliu. Manual labour is the norm with very little automation. I saw only one forklift truck but many large handbarrows pulled by two people. This was in a company which employs 12,000 people and produces over 210 million pieces of daily-use tableware each year.

Back to the photos: My wife says the traditional Chinese character is an4 in Pinyin, ngon6 in Cantonese. It means bank, shore; beach, coast
Is there another mark? This can often look like a square map of a maze. It might even be the faint rectangle below the character which has now become indistinguishable.

The birds on the smaller vessel are cranes which are symbolic of longevity.The flying birds on the larger piece seem to be different but the picture fits in with the meaning of the character 'an'.

I would assume it is a teapot and possibly a container with the lid missing in which the tea was stored. There's an awful lot of tea drunk in China!

Sorry I can't be of more help.

[Tripps]

Welcome to the site China - we could do with some new blood, and you certainly give a different slant on things. We could have done with you last year when we had a query from a member regarding some Chinese characters. We got there in the end, but your wife would have been quicker. I have just looked up your location on google, and it seems to be tropical with plenty of rain.
I think you are ahead of the game in your choice of residence. They say the 21st century will belong to China. I must agree. My water supply comes from a Chinese company now, and last night on TV they showed Chinese "colonising" Sierra Leone, planting rubber and pineapple crops. Interesting times - as they say.

[Stanley]

Yes China, you're right, there is another mark but the flash blew it out. I'll have another go at it.

[chinatyke]

The second character could be tian = field, cultivated, arable land. It's ambiguous because it is like reading a person's handwriting.
The top part of the first character is shan which means mountain, so perhaps it is just the name of this design eg, countryside pattern.

[Stanley]

Thanks for that China (and your research assistant!). Beautiful though they are it looks as though they were commercially produced for the tourist trade. I shall still cherish them! Now then, what can I find to tease you with.....
Exact description please!