18th Century Rivet Head Maker?

[Jyes]

Hi all, I have been trying to get a positive ID on this artifact for quite some time. I have contacted a couple local Blacksmith's and also have tried previously on some forums and e-mails to individuals and really have never got a definitive answer.

I believe the most credible answer I have gotten on this artifact is that it possibly was a rivet head maker hardy. A lot of that makes sense, now you must also put your frame of thinking into the late 1700's and what tools would be needed and used in the late colonial woods of New Jersey. :0

So, my question is: Do you think this is a hardy that was used in the rivet making process, or is it part of a mold since it appears to have slots for where another half of it might have been joined.

All who have looked at it are concerned about the curvature of the item and the majority of the fancy dimples are elongated.

I am fairly certain that if it was a hardy that it could have been bent into that shape from the hammering and thus elongating the holes on the edges.

Any good thoughts on this item would be appreciated, I love trying to identify old tools, artifacts from the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Attached are photos I have taken of the artifact and I also included a photo of a mould I made using Silly Putty to show the true depth and design of the item.

Thanks in advance

Jyes Horton

[ThomasPowers]

Seeing the decorative aspects of the depressions---could it have been used to make buttons? Perhaps pewter ones with the top missing section of the mould having the sprues.

Thomas

[irnsrgn]

its a rivet head bolster used to set the bottom rivet head in so you don't flatten it while bradding the top end of the rivet

[HWooldridge]

I doubt it's steel - more likely wrought iron. I also agree with Irnsrgn that it's a support for riveting. The curvature may be a result from using it in something beside an anvil - maybe a vise, maybe a stump, maybe a swage block. The depressions are elongated from wear - note the one on the right is fairly round. Some head sizes may have been used more than others.

[ThomasPowers]

Don't you think that if they wore enough to wear elongated that the "decorative" part would have worn out too as it's much more delicate?

Thomas

[KjZitur]

I am not sure what it is but I don't think that it is a rivet bolster. With the shape being what it is, it looks like it would really ding up whatever your tyring to rivet together.........ken

[bruce wilcock]

thomas could be onto somthing as we had some old anvil tools for making brass horse harness fittings out of sheet brass the blank had tabs on to fix to the leather .

[clark-kentski]

Im with thomas.

[Jyes]

I am reading with vested interest, love the comments so far. It is IRON, and it most likely was made at a forge in NJ, perhaps as early as Rev War, but no later than 1830. I personally think based on the other artifacts that have come from this site that it most likely was made in the late 1700's.

I previously have run this item by button and coin experts and the button mold was discounted by many. Some of the coin experts came up with it possibly being a rivet head/tack head maker or something to that effect.

I know for awhile I thought for sure it was used to make some type of modified rosehead nail.

The curvature I think is from wear and tear, but that could only happen if it were hammered a lot, like if it was used in a swage block. The spike is not long or sharp enough in my opinion to have been used in a stump, but I guess it is possible.

I am still uncertain as to whether there is an "upper half" to this item. I am perplexed by those slotted holes along the outside perimeter. They had to have a purpose at one time I would think, guide holes perhaps?

Thanks for the replies so far, I hope the photographs are good enough for a final determination of this piece of blacksmith history.

Please keep the brainstorming coming, I'm sure it will all make sense in the end.

Thanks all

Jyes

[HWooldridge]

Don't you think that if they wore enough to wear elongated that the "decorative" part would have worn out too as it's much more delicate?

Thomas

Nope, I'm sticking with wear pattern. How many of us have seen tools in old blacksmith shops that were practically worn down to a feather? The smith spent time and money making the tool and then used the H^&* out of it - maybe several generations of smiths doing harness and wagon work.

I have a rivet backing bar in mild steel made for 3/16 shank rivets with round factory head. It's from a piece of 1/2" square hot rolled using a round ball mill for the depression. After backing up the setting of perhaps, a thousand rivets, the sides of the half-round hemisphere have gone tri-lobular on me - a very odd shape IMHO.

I think someone took a piece of WI and made several depressions with the equvalent of a ball end punch (back of a ball peen hammer?), then made the little rosettes with a second punch. I will concede that it may be a backup for brass rivets.

It is doubtful there is an upper half because there is no channel for the bar stock. In other words, trying to employ it as a swage would not work because the stock would be severed - even if the upper half had a channel for that purpose.

[ThomasPowers]

HW; my point is that the scale would wear out the design long before it would wear out the sides. if the sides are "worn" to that shape why is the design in the bottom still in good shape? Even if it was recut on a regular basis there should still be a wallered out place where it's been used and re-cut.

As an exasmple: take one of your headers and stamp your initials in it and see what they look like when it has been used enough to wear to eliptical.

Thomas

[HWooldridge]

Thomas,

We are discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (i.e., we'll never know...) - but let me ask, why are the depressions so oddly shaped? Do you think a smith would have made them that way on purpose? Remember that work in years past was done as cleanly and precisely as possible - no one was interested in artificial texture, so it is very unlikely that those odd shapes would have been done with intent. In addition, we don't know what the little petal design looked like when new or when it was put into place. They may have made the tool and added the design a hundred years later.

[Chris Pook]

could it be for making decorative Cabinet pull knobs?

[Jyes]

Well, here it is one year since I last posted my first and only post and I have been housebound lately to do health related issues and got interested again in my mould? I posted last year.

Just to refresh, I found this metal detecting at a very early settled homestead in the middle of nowhere that most likely was occupied in the mid 1700's to early 1800's. With that said, any relic found could be much older but more than likely would not be newer than late 1700's.

It has been batted around on this post and on metal detecting forums as to what thiis is. Even one of the curators at Williamsburg was baffled, so I am still with you guys on two possibilties but I still lean more towards it be a button/cufflink mold and I do believe it is a one half of a mold.

Now here is the e-mail reply from an indiviidual at Williamsburg, Va.

Thanks for your email - a most curious object! To be honest, I'm not sure
what it is exactly, but here are my thoughts.

It certainly isn't a nail header - these are completely different, and of
much heavier construction.

It's not a hardy either - even though it has a square-section post, it
doesn't appear to be of sufficient weight to be used as a "swage" for
glowing iron to be beaten into.

Being that it has registration depressions at the 4 corners, this is the
bottom half of some sort of casting mold - but to cast what? The shapes
made are odd, especially with their crude attempts at embellishment. If
the cavities were better formed, I might think a button mold, or perhaps
fishing sinkers, but I have to say "uncle" in this case.

Sorry!

Regards,

Erik

Erik Goldstein
Curator of Mechanical Arts & Numismatics
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
P.O. Box 1776
Williamsburg, VA 23187

One reason I still think button mold, is the design matches some buttons I saw and held that are mid 17th Century to very early 18th century buttons called appropriately enough "Nipple Buttons" or as some in England called them "Pimple Buttons". I am attaching photographs of Nipple buttonds found in New Jersey at an old homesite. I am unsure of the metal but they are very heavy for their small size and are not lead.

Jyes

[Glenn]

Jyes
Go to the top of the forum page and click User CP
Click edit profile
go to the bottom of the page and fill in your location and save.

It is nice to know what part of the world you live in.

[Ice Czar]

another consideration would be that an oval head being beaten onto a curved surface will appear foreshortened and seem to be a circle

the level of detail still visible, the nearly perfect circle of surrounding dots in the larger ones and the accurate circle depression on the right of the hardy suggest the shapes have been carefully crafted to correct an optical distortion when they are applied to some curved surface, rather than distortion from serious use