I've been inactive for a while still building up tools to get the shop going. Scored a milk crate full of top tools, riveting tools, a couple of tongs etc.

Some of these are head scratchers as far as what they are designed to do.

First up is this beast. The pin in the middle is beefy, but I can't see it holding up if it takes much force. Perhaps it registers in an already punched hole. As for the V-grooves I can only imagine forge welding 2  bars on the 45 degree edge WITH a hole drifted through. Perhaps it punches (or registers a hole in round bar and squares it? The joinery for the crossed bars is a mystery to me.

Any thoughts?

There's another with identical dimensions but no center pin. It's not deep enough for the faces to meet without the pin interfering so they are not a matched set. And they are both top tools.

Then there's this guy.  The square face is about 1/8" proud of the outside edge. We're setting a good square corner for something but I don't know what or how. 

This one  I just can't figure the offset. Should be a beefy fuller though.

Thought this was a hardy tool and it might be, but the taper is backwards. Maybe just a handheld top swage?

Ay special reason this one would be tapered back from the face?

 

Here's the entire haul.

 

I might go into the rivet making business.

The large tongs at the bottom are 7 pounds and 29" long. I should have put something in the picture for scale. They are ridiculously huge. That's a lot of beef for some 1" flat-nibbed bolt tongs. I may cut these reins down a bit and draw out some of that meat to make them more manageable. These feel like they would wear out your arm faster than swinging a hammer all day and will, most likely survive the apocalypse.

And the one that got cropped out on the right is basically a hardy hole on a stick. It does have a circular depression on one side but it's not deep enough for a header and the edges are pretty chewed up. Unless otherwise advised I'll use this as a bolster for making hardy tools and keep the heat off the face of my anvil. 

Third from the right of the top tools also cropped is a sweet, beefy countersinking puch.

Only one touchmark I found on the "hardy hole header". It's a horseshoe with the open end down, with an "A" in the middle.

Questions or comments welcome, and if you see anything you might find useful I'd trade a few of them for a nice flatter or tongs or a KMG grinder, or an air hammer.

 

 

 

Edited September 25, 201510 yr by twodogzz

Going to go out on a limb here and say that the first couple of X shapes were tools used for redressing star drill points, the type used for quarry blasting or well drilling over a century ago. The one with the pin was for hollow bits that water flowed thru. I swear that I have seen similar tools in a museum, somewhere, long ago.

Going to go out on a limb here and say that the first couple of X shapes were tools used for redressing star drill points, the type used for quarry blasting or well drilling over a century ago. The one with the pin was for hollow bits that water flowed thru. I swear that I have seen similar tools in a museum, somewhere, long ago.

Wow. Never thought about that kind of application. Makes sense about the pin.

Good call.

You were right. Look what I found on eBay:

Knowing what to google for is 99% of the battle. Never considered they could be for the end of a bar rather than for crossed bars. That gives me some crazy ideas.

 

Well done sir.

 

What part of Charlotte do you live in? I am a former resident of the great metropolis called Shuffletown.

 

Edited September 25, 201510 yr by twodogzz

East side: Idlewild Road, where Charlotte, Mint Hill & Matthews meet. Grew up here when it was still country, and a boy with a dog and a shotgun could roam freely, and the Sherriff's Deputy in a patrol car would just slow down and wave. But looking to move out to the metropolis known as Frog Pond in Stanly County in the next few years, so I can have a shop.

And yeah, I remember Shuffletown Dragway.

Had to drive through the woods to get to Matthews when I lived there. I heard Shuffletown has a Starbucks now.

Hardy hole on a stick sounds a lot like a wrench to turn a square shaft...

The hardy with the wrong taper may just have been used as a top tool mushrooming the taper wrong over time.

Special reason for the hammer shape?---Yes the smith who made it wanted it that way!

Beefy Fuller sounds like an ID to me...

I use some of the replaceable star drill points with my screw press to do ornamental impressions on stock x's or +'s

Edited September 25, 201510 yr by ThomasPowers

It may be that some of those multi-punched plates with holes are draw-plates for wire making (if they aren't beveled for use as nail headers) which might explain the tongs;used two handed to pull the fire through the plate?

The reverse taper on the hardy might have been an effort to bump up the size to fit a different anvil.