Here is an interesting tool. Patented in 1897. I owned it for years before I found out what it was for, any guesses ?

Greetings Larry,

 

What you have is a shoemakers tools to stretch a portion of a shoe for people with corns...

 

I have a few and it always  fools people...

 

 

Have fun

 

Jim

yes it is ! i wish i posted a pics sooner, and i'll tell you what....it still works like a charm. I wonder if cobblers still use them.

Bunion stretcher---for some reason I have seen a half dozen of these at the flea market over the years always being sold as "blacksmith's tools"  even when the dealer had a whole milk crate of cobblers tools!

This one of my favorite tools.   After all blacksmiths are on their feet  constantly.   Consequently I have a 4E foot in a 2E world.  There are special stretching solutions that you can purchase however I just wet the area that needs to be streatched and work around the area a bit at a time.

 

I suspect most blacksmiths need one from time to time.   That is pretty close to being a blacksmiths tool.

Any ideas as to what these are?  I picked them up at a flea market all rusted, cleaned them up and then quenched in oil for the black finish.  They're about 4" from top to bottom, I really don't know what they are other than thinking they were interesting.

Greetings DC,

 

Looks to me like some fish tail C scrolls someone made ...    Not hard to duplicate...

 

Jim

I was just impressed with how uniform and even both of them were.  Guessing they were made with a power hammer or press using a die.  At 50 cents each I thought they were worth picking up, at least to save them from rusting away

They look like samples off a proprietory made Geman  HEBO  rolling/scrolling machine, check out some of the online catalogues from Lecky metals, Rourkes, Brundles etc.

 

Now they are made in China and exported universally,

 

For machine details and to open a can of worms/opinions http://www.usahebo.com/#!home/mainPage

Edited June 1, 201313 yr by John B

Those bunion stretchers also come in handy for precise manipulation of hot spherical objects that tongs won`t quite get a good hold on. I hate to modify a good set of tongs for something that I do very infrequently.

though generally they are fairly fragile often cast iron as they were only for use with leather---one of the nice dropforged ones would work a treat though.

 

Stretching solution---I thought that was pretty much just alcohol re-bottled and the price ++

though generally they are fairly fragile often cast iron as they were only for use with leather---one of the nice dropforged ones would work a treat though.

 

Stretching solution---I thought that was pretty much just alcohol re-bottled and the price ++

 

 

I tried the wetting solution once and it was not worth the $$$.   Been so long I can't remember the contents. But it seems like it was a bit foamy.   So when I use mine I sometimes add a little dish washing detergent .  In truth water works fine without amendment.