What the heck is this thing?? I came across it just browsing around.

ANTIQUE PRIMITIVE IRON BLACKSMITHING TOOL ! - (eBay item 120198156265 end time Dec-23-07 16:09:18 PST)

Looks like a bending/scrolling/tinsmithing/anchor/mini anvil/swage/thingamabob/whachamacallit.

Looks like a bending/scrolling/tinsmithing/anchor/mini anvil/swage/thingamabob/whachamacallit.

Why Yes! Yes it does! :D

Why Yes! Yes it does!

Always glad to be of so much help .. .hope I cleared it out for you guys:p!

Looks like a bolster of some sort - support for punching or making rivets. The odd thing is that all the holes appear to be the same diameter. One would think they'd have some variety.

Would make a nice bench anvil for gun work.

I think it was one of the first machines used to pack those awful Vienna Sausages and slime product into the can.

By the wear marks, it looks to have been used recently by someone as a header or whatever, but the configuration to me, says either from a logging operation (one of those old ones with the long cable for pulling, moving logs to a central location) or some kind of tie down, the "T" top slips into a corresponding set up to hold it and any one of the holes can be used for the clevis or attaching device.

1) It's a "Thing-a-ma-jig"
2) looks like something to make shot with ...pour melted lead through it from a hight in a shot tower into a tub of water... make round shot .

What Mende said..........

its actually a die for either cable making or rope making....the individual cords go thru it and are twisted on the other end. this might be the piece for packing the cords together as the rope itself is being twisted....made one back in my scouting days for a merit badge..HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NITE.

I was kinda thinking the same way keithh999 was thinking (oddly enough because of my scouting experience also). I'm gonna go out a limb here and ASSUME that the shelf it is sitting on is made of 2x4's. If so, and it is in fact a guide for a rope (or cable) making machine, it musta been for making something like 1-2" rope (or cable). Nice shelf-sitter for a tool collector, or a rope-making reenactor.
-Aaron @ the SCF (who still can't guarantee 100% that's what it is..... but it kinda makes sense)

Ya'll Boy Scouts Go Back To The Advanced Class, And Quit Tease'n The Slow Kids!:p

I don't know whether to bid on it or start a pool betting on how much it will bring

I'm guessing it was for making cable because of how heavy it is. Probably hung from a track above.

Steve: I don't think it would of hung from a track. IIRC and it IS in fact what I think it is, this would be the part that is spun in a circle to guide the individual strands into laying down correctly on the center strand. I'm sure any of the ropemaking sites on the web could explain it better than I could. I am also leaning more towards cable-making because it IS so heavy and because the individual hole are holes and not just divots around the perimeter of the guide. But then again, I've never seen barge rope or hay rope made, so not really sure.
-Aaron @ the SCF... offering speculative observation since 1983

EDIT: Bet on how high/bid on it yourself? I'd do both...:)