OneGuyFromBarlick

From the mechanics of the lever action, for pressing into something soft and expelling a square cake or biscuit? Similar to P's suggestion really. (We think on the same lines....)

You're getting close with your references to food products...

Is it for placing something, or taking something from the rear of an oven? I'm thinking it extends rather than turns when you move the lever.

I think we need putting out of our misery Tiz.......

Is it for making pills?

Not pills Wendy. China, think cold, not hot.

Biscuit cutter ?

Is it an ice cream scoop for cutting 'squares' to put between 2 wafers?

Big Kev wrote: ↑14 Nov 2017, 22:17 Is it an ice cream scoop for cutting 'squares' to put between 2 wafers?

I think you're right, Kev. That jogs a memory from my dim and distant past! Funny how you forget things like that.

chinatyke wrote: ↑15 Nov 2017, 04:13

Big Kev wrote: ↑14 Nov 2017, 22:17 Is it an ice cream scoop for cutting 'squares' to put between 2 wafers?

I think you're right, Kev. That jogs a memory from my dim and distant past! Funny how you forget things like that.

It was the 'think cold' clue that got my cogs turning.

Kev, you're bang on target with that answer. Sorry I've been slow to reply but we've had an intensive bout of decorating and no time to go online!
Next please...

Ignore the scaffolding pole. Can anyone tell me what this is?

A workbench under large windows to provide good light, and it seems to have a trough, or gutter, along the front. But what for?...If that's a tree branch leaning on the scaffold pipe perhaps you put the branch in the `gutter' then ran a plane along the top of it?

Tizer wrote: ↑17 Nov 2017, 09:48 A workbench under large windows to provide good light, and it seems to have a trough, or gutter, along the front. But what for?...If that's a tree branch leaning on the scaffold pipe perhaps you put the branch in the `gutter' then ran a plane along the top of it?

And, maybe the narrow bridge at the far end was for wedging said branch underneath to stop it springing up??

I should have said that the tree branch is nothing to do with the original function. Not a workbench as such, much more specialised than that. Observation about windows is good, natural light was essential for safe operation, not least on the grounds that open flames were dangerous.....

A firework factory?

Open flames....surely not with wooden floors?? What would health and safety have to say about that??

Candles and oil lamps would have been dangerous. Not fireworks, think wood and the textile industry......

Tacklers bench in a weaving shed.

You're in the right ball park Tom, but it's not in a weaving shed and while it is a place of work it's not a bench. More specialised than that.... Think of an ancillary industry, wood and an artefact that might not be complete. What could sit on those two beams?

When you wrote `think wood and the textile industry' I immediately though of my Lancashire grandfather who was a shuttlemaker but I can't recall ever seeing inside a shuttlemakers' workshop or an image of one. I suppose the two beams wouldn't be part of such a process?

Looking at the construction of the timber thingymajig it looks like its been made to take something heavy,rollers maybe

Or hold something in line? Imagine it is made of metal, free-standing and in a machine shop..... (If they don't get it now I shall have to come clean.....)

I was going to say something to do with machining or quenching shafting but you put me off with your wood and textile industry clue. Anyway, something in a foundry?

I can see I am going to have to kill this one but it was difficult.
It's a lathe bed in Stott Park Bobbin Mill. These lathes were like brass-finisher's lathes, a long bed with multiple head and tail stocks, in effect several lathes in one. Each 'lathe' was set up for a different operation on a bobbin and it was an early form of production line. The part was passed hand to hand from one end to the other.
Next one?