http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2006-11/what-is-this-1.jpg
(it’s nothing NSFW. Just some type of tool or piece of an old machine or something)
Can you give us a scale? Is that things a hundred yards across, or 1/10th of an inch?
That would help, wouldn’t it. I have no idea though. It appears to be some sort of wooden handle on the 4 points. So made for a human hand to grip. So i’m guessing 12-18" across? This post isn’t some kind of trick question. I came across this pic at another message board where they came across this pic and were asking what it is. They don’t know the scale either.
It looks like some sort of shoe tree.
My WAGs:
It’s designed to be held by two people standing opposite each other, holding one handle in each hand.
The slot is significant.
Whatever it is, is designed to fit over something thin, and the users slide the object onto that something. Possibly they slam it onto the something, to tamp it down.
It looks like the bottom-right handle (in this orientation) is slightly bent away from the camera too.
The slot down the middle makes me think it’s part of a portable, collapsable table or work bench. The bottom two knobs contact the floor and the top two support the table surface. This piece and a corresponding identical piece are held together by some sort of slotted beam that connects them. When the components are taken apart they can store flat in, say, a pickup truck or the back of a closet. Just my WAG.
My WAG is a toaster stand.
It appears to me that it is built to sit flat on a surface with the wooden knobs protecting the surface from burning. The slot in the middle is for attaching to whatever appliance it came with.
Hey you kids! Get away from that thing! Don’t put yer lips on it!
Is it a saggar-maker’s bottom-knocker?
After you take the tip covers off, you grab one point between your thumb and bent forefinger and in an overhand motion throw it at your opponent.
It looks like the base for a chair or table. I bet if it were turned upside down it would have holes of weld-nuts for mounting something. It looks very hefty.
Maybe something to wind yarn on, or fishing line.
The first thing to come to my mind is “cord winder” – the thing slides onto a fitting on a mill engine or something like that, and either rotates to take up the cord (or rope, or yarn, or whatever), or acts as a guide for the reel. I have no idea how to search for that.
It looks like it is one part of a pair. You would slide the two slots together (one facing up, the other facing down). You would end up with four knobs on top and four knobs on the bottom.
If that were the case, I’d think that the slot would most likely only go halfway down. This slot clearly goes farther than that.
That is my kind of night.
I suspect another view would clarify its use and/or purpose. Something makes me believe we’re given the worst possible vantage point to make a decision from.
Perspective eye-fooling photography perhaps.
Imagine looking at a pool cue from the end. That sort of thing.
An early conception of the Glaive? With wooden covers?
Close. I believe that it’s a tool used for making and repairing shoes.