Todays Barn Finds

[Eli Taylor]

Like a moth to flame I'm drawn to old barns with piles of old over-built tools rusting in the corner, and so it is that i came home with a pile to put in the corner of my barn!

A nice champion vice

A very cool hand forged log skidder

I love how the links were bent around and peened

A bucket of mostly star punches with some drifts and rr spikes

A big pair of bolt cutters, 36" and 48" pipe wrenches, some axle stock, and a couple of misc hammer heads

And honestly I'm not sure why I have this but I couldn't turn down what appears to be a 10 Ton chain hoist (which we had to lift with the 1 Ton chain hoist)

I also picked up a couple 3 jaw pullers, some manure forks and 40' of heavy chain.

All in all a good days haul

And I forgot to mention; a 100lb anvil!

[C-1ToolSteel]

Whooooweee! That's a nice haul!

[Hammerfall]

Nice pickin

[Will W.]

Yeah, that's a really good day. Nice finds.

[Lionel h]

What kind of vise you got there , looks just like one I've got. 

[SmoothBore]

In my experience, the "log skidder" is called a "log grab", ... and the "star punches" aren't punches at all, ... they're "star drills".

 

Just nit-pickin', of course, ... but accuracy in the terminology, saves a lot of confusion.

Sure, YOU know what you mean, ... but some other forum reader might not have the same point of reference.

[Dave51B]

10 minutes ago, SmoothBore said:

In my experience, the "log skidder" is called a "log grab",

 Hey Soothbore, while we're nit-pickin'....I have always called those "log tongs"       Life is Good                  Dave 

[SLAG]

Speaking of log tongs, the device resembles tongs for handling ice blocks. In the days before electric refrigerators ice was cut from river surfaces in winter. They are still fairly common in Eastern Canada. (& probably other areas).

SLAG. 

[Eli Taylor]

3 hours ago, Lionel h said:

What kind of vise you got there , looks just like one I've got. 

It's a Champion, 5" jaws, with a real wide mouth (18" in I'd say). There are some marks on the inside of the casting but I haven't looked up a model # yet.

1 hour ago, SmoothBore said:

the "star punches" aren't punches at all, ... they're "star drills".

Ive actually never really known what they were (have a bunch from various sources over the years).

How are they used? For metal?

22 minutes ago, SLAG said:

Speaking of log tongs, the device resembles tongs for handling ice blocks.

There were three types of tongs there best we could tell for Hay Bales, Ice Blocks and Log Skidding.

The Hay ones were wider and thinner, the ice tongs had their bite perpendicular to the tong and these which we assessed for logs have a very aggressive bite back in again themselves.

We could be wrong on all accounts but it was our limited archaeology

[Dogsoldat]

The star drills were for making holes in rock.  Awesome haul.

[SLAG]

Star drills are wacked with a hemmer and then the drill is turned a quarter turn and wacked again. And so on. It will produce a hole in the stone and further hammering will deepen that hole. They are still used, today,  and can be acquired in larger hardware stores. They are used for percussive drilling. These tools gave way to pneumatic hammers that had a rifle bar that did the turning. That is in industrial settings. They are most commonly found in mining, tunneling and construction sites.

SLAG.

[ThomasPowers]

I used a star drill for putting the bolts in the concrete when I converted the carport to a spinning studio for my wife and didn't have electricity or powertools available.  As I recall it was  over 1000 hammer blows per hole. Good exercise!

[Daswulf]

I'm a little jealous  Great Score!

 

[oldshove]

If you realy want to get old school there called single jacks not star drills .Single jack [one man use] double jack [two men one man holds one hits]  I have one I blunted the tip and use it to make stars on my wizard hats

[Frosty]

The guy holding the drill is called the shaker, once you're very deep you have to give the drill a shake before it'll turn. The guy on the sledgehammer is called the Steel Driver. John Henry was a steel driving man.

Frosty The Lucky.

[oldshove]

To funny I just heard that song on the radio

[Eli Taylor]

 

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

The guy holding the drill is called the shaker, once you're very deep you have to give the drill a shake before it'll turn. The guy on the sledgehammer is called the Steel Driver. John Henry was a steel driving man

One of my favorite bands Blue Highway has a song 'Born with a hammer in my hand ' with both of these references in it, i was just listening to this the other day

 

John Henry was a steel-drivin' man

You could hear his hammer ring across the land

But before the steam drill came, John Henry knew my name

Cause I was born with a hammer in my hand

 

The bossman tries to break a good man's back

It takes thirty men to lay eight miles of track

If the shaker holds the line, they'll be thirty miles behind

I was born with a hammer in my hand

[SmoothBore]

I was always under the impression that a "Single Jack" ( one hand ) or a "Double Jack" ( two hands ) was in reference to the HAMMER used to drive the steel.

Outside of railroad parlance, a "Single Jack" is also-known-as a "drilling hammer".

Unlike most single-hand hammers, ( where the hammer face is more-or-less parallel to the handle ) ... the drilling hammer's face forms an acute angle, to the axis of the handle.

Combined with the Single Jack's short handle, ... this facilitates striking the steel squarely, ... with your elbow bent.

( It's sort of like a "punching" motion. )

 

I'm of the opinion, that this is for the purpose of ergonomics.

 

.

 

[Frosty]

37 minutes ago, SmoothBore said:

I was always under the impression that a "Single Jack" ( one hand ) or a "Double Jack" ( two hands ) was in reference to the HAMMER used to drive the steel.

Outside of railroad parlance, a "Single Jack" is also-known-as a "drilling hammer".

Unlike most single-hand hammers, ( where the hammer face is more-or-less parallel to the handle ) ... the drilling hammer's face forms an acute angle, to the axis of the handle.

Combined with the Single Jack's short handle, ... this facilitates striking the steel squarely, ... with your elbow bent.

( It's sort of like a "punching" motion. )

 

I'm of the opinion, that this is for the purpose of ergonomics.

 

.

 

Exactly. Drill hammers were more commonly used in confined spaces like mines. The hammer face of a drill hammer being perpendicular to the radius of the handle is another reason they're so accurate and one of my favorite hammers. 

Another example of the business end of a double jack following the radius of the handle is a pick. 

Frosty The Lucky.