Bl Working

Ladies and Gentlemen, Hurry! Hurry! Gather round and listen in. There is a new and better game in town. Its one the whole family can play. Its more interesting that last weeks Guess Whats For Dinner?" and its more rewarding that the old standby "How Does My Finger Smell?"

So everyone put down your copy of Sudoku Digest Weekly, gather your friends and family around the warm glow of an LCD monitor, and lets get ready to play a round of . . .


NAME
                THAT 
                                TOOL!!!

This weeks contestant is a reader of the blog, Kenneth D. and he writes:

Hi there Oldwolf,

Im trying to do some artifact research on this tool but I cant seem to figure out what it is? It seems to be some sort of prying tool but do you know what it might have specifically be used for? Bottle opener? paint can opener? horse-shoeing tool? Relative dating with other associated tools (small and large hand planers, level and pulley) place the item around the same time as the occupation of the homes original architect: 1890 to 1920. Any and all help would be appreciated.

Thanks for your time,

Ken


There was a picture as well:
When I first heard from Ken I was interested, but clueless. If I got my hands on this I think my first instinct would be to us it to pry the top off a good bottle of beer. Somehow I didnt think I was right. So I told replied that there were lots of smarter people than me when it comes to old and antique tools. I gave him Patrick Leachs and Josh Clarks email addresses and hoped that when he was blessed with the right answer from the Rust Gods, hed drop me a line and share the knowledge.

Ken sent emails to Patrick and Josh, and to my shock and horror, they were as mystified as I was. It was like there had been a great disturbance in the force.

Patrick Leachs response was:

Ken,

I havent a clue what thats used for.

It almost looks like an inverse nail puller for
shingles, and if I had a gun against my head, that
would be my guess.

Patrick

I had offered to bring the matter to my readers if he could find no other info, Ken hit me back adding this little bit.

Ive brought the picture to the attention of my facebook friends and one of them suggested it may be a specialty tool used with a machine. The owner was known to do woodworking and have a foot powered lathe. Could it be a wood gouging tool for this purpose? If it is, I cant seem to find any others quite like this. It just looks really odd. 

The treadle lathe gives me another idea beyond beer. Could it be a sizing tool for use with the lathe? I have seen guys use open end mechanics wrenches with one side ground to an edge so they can turn down stock to a precise measurement. Like modifying a 1/2" wrench to turn out a 1/2" diameter result. Could it be a specialized wrench for the treadle lathe? It does make me think of the wrenches that came with my table saw to use in changing the blade.

Other than that Im out of ideas.

But I do know that I am blessed with some of the smartest readers in the world, and yes that is blatant pandering and no I didnt think I could sneak that fact past your massive collective intellect. So I turn this over to you. Can you help? Can you answer the challenge?

Can you . . . NAME THAT TOOL??????

Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf

When I first starting using the new, Veritas Dual Marking Gauge late last fall I wasn’t sure how often I’d actually use both sides of the gauge at once. Up until that point I used a single type gauge. Through the first week in use I generally used only one of the adjustable rods and it wasn’t until I made it a mental point to try using both rods that the fog lifted.
Two is truly better than one. Once I trained my brain to think about the dual settings I found myself using them both all of the time. Well at least whenever it was called for in the work.
For stringing, this thing is the cat’s meow. Set the desired width and scribe both sides of the line. Perfect.
For grooves and dovetails as well as most of my mortise and tenon work, the dual marking gauge is the way to go. It saves me a step or two and with all things  that need to be measured, that saved step usually means one less step to make an error.
The gauge has a large reference surface that makes scribing lines easy and effective with large brass screws to lock things in place.

Just recently, Veritas introduced a small accessory to this already excellent tool.   The optional shaft clamp. This little clamp slides over the rods and will lock a setting in place. This was extremely useful just the other day when I was setting some stringing into a few furniture components. The stringing was all the same width but the offset from the edge changed.
The shaft clamp held the width of the cutters in place while I adjusted the offset from the gauge body. Nice!
It’s always the little details that make good tools great and Veritas has done it again with the Dual Marking Gauge and optional Shaft Clamp.
Try one out for yourself and you’ll wonder how you ever got along with only one!
Cheers~