I don’t know what it is…but I LIKE it!
That’s very kind of you, but i’m afraid i’m just a garden-variety grad student (American History) who takes photos in his spare time. If you look at some of the other galleries on pbase, you’ll see that there are plenty of photographers out there who are far better than i am. Go to the popular galleries page and you’ll see what i mean.
I do enjoy photography, and just traded my old SLR system in for a new Minolta Dimage 7Hi digital camera, which i love but am still getting used to. Hopefully, my pictures will improve as i get the hang of digital imaging.
cheers,
michael.
Well, so far the responses from the machinist BBS have been: wire stripper, nose hair remover, double ended nipple chaser, and band saw holder pliers. I vote for the double ended nipple chaser! 
My guesstimate is it was an additional tool for a production line in an assembly plant… something that the automated stuff didn’t do, so they had a person sitting there putting the little widgets or squingees into the thing-a-ma-bob. Then the the peice moved to the next person.
If thats the case it looks like it could have strecthed a spring far enought to go between two points, in order to set the taut spring in place before it moved to the next station.
…and I want one too
I just showed the pictures to a group here at my work and one old timer says it looks like it is used to assemble and disassemble Luger pistols. It holds the firing pin in place while a spring assembly is installed. A quick search of some gunsmith tool sites turned up nothing. Sounds as plausible as anyother guess.
Another suggestion from the machinist’s board is that it might be something for working on aircraft or possibly buzzbombs.
Da hell`s a buzzbomb?
Well, I’ve got some people discussing it here.
http://www.wwforum.com/cgi-bin/forum_main/handtool.cgi?read=76048
It’s quite the mystery, isn’t it?
It certainly is. When i first posted this question i assumed that, as usual, the ever-reliable Dopers would have a clear-cut answer within five or ten posts. This is usually what happens here, especially for questions that, presumably like this one, have a fairly specific factual answer.
Thanks for posting it on your other message board. The answer provided by David Miller regarding the spring stretcher sounds the most plausible, but i don’t suppose i’ll be fully convinced until i hear from someone who
a) has one or has had one in the past
b) has actually used it for the purpose for which it was designed
Of course, if it was built before 1945, as one of your other respondents suggested, my criteria might be a bit tough.
Thanks to everyone for their interest and their suggestions. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that someone stumbles across this thread who has seen the tool in action before.
My father is an antique lure/tackle collector and dealer, and when I’ve gone to big shows with him I’ve been amazed at how many dealers have a “whatzit” table like the guy on that message board mentioned (his, of course, for tools, which my husband collects). It seems it’s not uncommon to run across an interesting something that no one can identify. Some of these people will be asking around for years without ever finding out what the odd item is.
German V-1 bomb. Called a “buzzbomb” by many because of the sound of the engine.
Well, since everyone’s just whistling in the wind here, I’ll toss in a few notes. To me, it looks like a special-purpose device for installing a stretchy component. Possibly a coil spring; possibly some rubbery piece. Either way, I’d bet it’s used for a very specific assembly/repair job on some high tech piece of equipment.
Well, since no one else has mentioned it yet, I’ll say it bears a resemblence to a certain farming implement. You put this thick rubber band on the end, grip the tool to stretch it, and apply. The picture on the website below has only two prongs, but I’ve seen 'em with four (albeit that was some 25 years ago).
http://www.restorationfarms.com/stone.htm
Sorry I don’t know how to do fancy stuff with links.
Oh, cool, it worked!
Ugh - is every guy here crossing their legs after that last link or is it just me? :eek:
Jebus! Man, warn us the next time you decide to link to a page that shows some poor bull getting his goody bits chopped off, okay? :eek: :eek: :eek:
Sorry Tuck, but a man has to expect the occasional detour in his search for knowledge.
Well, thanks for the link pqgenie, but i don’t think you’re on the right track. The movement in my tool is nowhere near great enough to permit this procedure to be performed on an animal. Also, having grown up with quite a few friends who were farmers, i’ve seen similar implements used for sheep, and that is not what my tool is for, i don’t think. Here is a picture of such a device, call an elastrator, that stretches a rubber band and places it over a sheep’s ball sack. The loss of blood causes the testicles to fall off after some days or weeks.
By the way, i was intrigued that the device linked to by pqgenie was called a Henderson Castrating Tool. Henderson is my last name, but i don’t want anything to do with that device. :eek:
But I think it’s reasonable for a man to not expect that said detour would come without warning signs which read, “Danger! Explict photos of a bull getting his nutsack removed!” or something similar.
Now there is quote that sounds rather odd out of context. :eek: