Twar, looks like a drilling hammer used with a star drill to hand drill holes in stone or concrete.

It's a species of draw hoe which looks heavy enough to be approaching a mattock.  I believe that I've seen something similar but I do not recall when and where.  I suspect it is old, possibly 19th century.  It is certainly made for heavy work.  Chopping with that tool all day in the hot sun would be a tough job.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

On 7/18/2022 at 6:06 AM, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

I could be wrong but I think the generation that really used gelatin an mixed random bits of food in it remembered the Great Depression, and it was their version of stone soup,

 

 

  I know The Grapes of Wrath was a work of fiction, but it's so much about what my grandparents went through. The great depression wasn't enough, they had to deal with the 7 year drought on top of it. That triggered there move from Nebraska to Oregon. Don't know how many times I heard "better save it, somebody might need it some day". 

 

I believe they are called lead floats for filing lead on auto bodies.  In high school we had a lead sprayer that was used in auto body work.  It had a hopper to melt the lead in and would then be sprayed onto your body panel with compressed air.  We didn't do auto body in school and I can't remember what we were using it for.

And that sure does look like a drilling hammer but I never understood or had it explained to me why they had that specific shape.

11 hours ago, JHCC said:

Old school auto body file

Second that. 

The other thing might be a type of fence stretcher. At first I thought it might be an old tire/wheel tool for earlier cars but can't find anything close. 

I like the fence stretcher idea, especially with the ratcheting mechanism. Either that, or it’s a failed attempt at an adjustable tong clip. 

9 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Twar, looks like a drilling hammer used with a star drill to hand drill holes in stone or concrete.

Thank you Thomas.

Do not forget lead spoons and the lead sled.

Drill hammers have the curved top shape to reduce the space needed to swing by mimicking the arc of the arm swinging it. The length of the handle was usually shorter for the same reason. I think that one may have been re-handled in the past, it's not uncommon to see drill hammer, heads on single jack sledge, handles.

There was a set of lead body tools on display in high school auto shop class. Lead fill body work was forbidden by time I was in high school, in public schools that is there were some shops doing restoration work with "lead" body filler. We did watch a couple films that showed lead body work as a comparison to using modern polymer epoxy fillers, "Bondo." The thing I remember was washing the pulled dent with copper sulfate, copper plating it lightly so the lead would bond. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Back in my youth early '60s, I hung around a body shop that specialized in lead work on older vehicles. The body man (Pappy) would paddle lead into seams with a wooden spatula then smooth out the lead with one of those float files. He also was amazing doing hand & brush pin striping. Those were the days.

I was lucky enough to witness those things on some classics we worked on and some vehicles that still had hand painted pin stripes. 

Young ones are missing out on all of that. Still have a horse hair pinstripe brush I was given. 

That is all pretty much long gone. 

When I started we had got paint wheels to match some hand painted pin stripes. 

12 hours ago, Frosty said:

Drill hammers have the curved top shape to reduce the space needed to swing by mimicking the arc of the arm swinging it. The length of the handle was usually shorter for the same reason. I think that one may have been re-handled in the past, it's not uncommon to see drill hammer, heads on single jack sledge, handles.

Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks! It was specifically the curved top I was wondering about. Your "arc of the arm" explaination makes sense.

You see the same thing with picks.  Mining picks are more curved than ordinary picks because of the limited room to swing something underground.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Makes perfect sense, but I've thought of that. 

There were a reason the old cars were called "lead sleds"!

Speaking of motor vehicles, it’s been seven years to the day since I decided to start smithing again, and never once in that time had I salvaged a truck’s mudflap bracket from the side of the road. Today, this beauty was waiting for me on the entrance ramp to I-80 in central PA:

(Of course, I spotted another about 20 or 30 miles down the road, but traffic was too heavy for me to pull over and nab it.)

Now you can scratch that seven year itch! Bummer not being able to get the second one, maybe you need a swing out mud flap snagger so you don't have to stop. Maybe it'll develop into one that'll pluck them off trucks traveling your way.

The potential is stupendous!

Frosty The Lucky.

As an additional amusing note, this was a business trip, for which the rental car gods had decided to bestow on me a Mustang convertible. I’m pleased to report that I managed to fit the mudflap in the trunk with my suitcase and shoulder bag. 

Better and BETTER!

Frosty The Lucky.

And in the “everything has its use” department, my bike ride to and from work should now be a bit safer.And in the “everything has its used “department, my bike ride to and from work should now be a bit safer.

Ahh an aiming bar!  There were several mudflap bars at the scrapyard today but I already have way too much 1/2" square stock.

 

Are the mudflat bars mild steel or spring steel?

The one I have found tested as spring steel.

Thanks Irondragon, that was my suspicion. I’ve seen plenty of trucks with them broken off, but haven’t seen any on the side of the road yet. There’s plenty of scrap haulers in my area that keep the side of the road pretty clean of metal. 

I went to the monthly "Friends of the Library book sale".  One of the folks there had saved out a couple of books for me.  Library bindings of "Practical Blacksmithing" and "The Art of Blacksmithing"; of course being hardbacks they were more expensive---US$1 apiece.  I've had both for years if not decades; so a local forge friend is stopping by to get them  in a couple of minutes.  Most of the rest of the books I got were ones I've read before and liked and I was replacing paperback copies with hardback copies.