The Henderson Castrator isn’t an elastrating tool; it’s used by cutting open the sac. It connects to a drill and twists the testicular cord until it breaks, leaving a knot so tightly twisted that no bleeding results
LOL. Wow, it sure does. Funny, it seemed rather innocuous when i wrote it.
But i think it would be a good sig line, if i ever decide to change.
You are correct, of course. But i think the tool i have does look a [sub]little[/sub] bit like an elastrator.
The Henderson Castrator seems like a pretty brutal device, IMO. But i don’t suppose i would be happy with ANY type of cutting, twisting, drilling, or knotting tool close to my balls.
I love a good mystery. Good half-hour of searching on Google and Dogpile turned up naught. Clearly, as many other posters have pointed out, it is designed to perfom some type of grab-and-stretch operation. Or a grab-and-pull-apart operation. If the NORM-MESS stamped into it does mean Standard Measure (possible, german for standard is normal; to measure is messen), then it may mean it is calibrated to perfom some precision operation. What is it? We may never know, sadly. Nearly every manufacturing industry has it’s own specialty tools used to perfom just one specific operation, and aren’t used anywhere else, and may even be specific to one particular maufacturing plant. That said, there is one thing I did notice, that someone else pointed out too: those springs seem to be an afterthought. There aren’t any well-defined attachment points for them. It’s possible whoever owned or used the tool previously added them to aid the action for repetetive work. Also, judging by the rough quality of the workmanship, it was made quite a long time ago, maybe as far back as the turn-of the century (the one before this one, of course). I hope we can find out what it is–it’s driving me nuts.
I’m against this whole ‘spreader’ idea. I mean, if you’re using a plier-like apparatus, you’re trying to gain a mechanical advantage on whatever you’re trying to spread. What’s the purpose if you negate that by adding a pair of rather strong springs on the other side of the fulcrum?
I think it works the other way around: pulling stuff together rather than pushing stuff apart. Just a theory.
It wouldn’t take very much to expand those springs. As you say, there is quite a bit of mechanical advantage, and the springs are quite close to the fulcrum. The tool is obviously designed to exert a force outwards when the handle is squeezed. Broadly, it’s either a “stretcher” or “spreader” of some sort.
Mhendo, a few dopers have suggested that the sides clamp down on each other before spreading apart. From the pictures, it doesn’t look like this is the case. A little clarity, please?
Are you absolutely certain it’s a tool? The thing it most resembles (to me) is a hand-exerciser http://www.orthobionics.com/rehab1/exercise/hand/handgrips.htm
could it be a primitive version of one of these>?
You might have missed the post on the first page of this thread, where i think i explained about as well as i can.
Let me know if this makes sense (you need to follow with the pictures that i have placed on the web).
When you pick the tool up, the jaws are open and the handgrips are spread wide - see the first two photos. Then:
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The images entitled rest and rest closeup show the position of the jaws before any pressure is applied. This is the way the tool is when no action is being performed.
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Images action_1 and action_1 closeup 1 show the position of the jaws when the handgrips are closed about 3/4 of the way. The only action so far is that each set of jaws has closed.
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Image action_1 closeup 2 is the same, but taken from a slightly different angle to show the fact that the springs are still fully compressed.
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The image final action shows what happens when the handgrips are closed completely. As you can see, the two sets of jaws stay closed and spread apart, away from each other. You can also see the expansion in the spring, which makes this last part of the action quite a strain on the hand.
You can also see that this last action involves a very small range of motion - i don’t think the distance between the two sets of jaws increases by more than about 1/3 of an inch, or about 8mm.
The tool will not grip anything unless you are press the handgrips. All the actions occur in reverse order as pressure on the handgrips is relaxed.
So, essentially, the tool seems designed to grip something tightly in two places just under an inch apart, and then stretch the object, or pull two objects apart slightly.
Hope that helps.
+1
from my experience in marine engines this would have saved a lot of split fingers and rags.
Okay, I’ll take a guess. I very seriously doubt that this has anything to do with woodworking, or electrical work, and it most definitely isn’t a castration device (except accidentally :eek:). It’s almost certainly for automotive or aeronautical mechanical work.
I’m with those who think this is some sort of clip expander. It’s almost certainly not a generic tool, but a specialty tool for a very specific item. If you read detailed auto manuals you see reference to such specialty tools all the time - “remove retaining clip using Volkswagen tool No. 26713”. Lots of the time a generic tool will do the job just as well, but there are some places where for whatever reason a part was designed differently, and nothing but the specialty tool will do the job.
Note also that mechanical advantage is rarely the point of tools for spreading retaining clips. They don’t usually require a great deal of force. The issue is almost always maintaining a grip on both of the clip ends, and preventing the thing from twisting excessively while you’re spreading it. From what I can see of how this thing works, it’s not too hard to picture a retaining clip that this thing would be designed to manipulate.
Good luck finding out the specifics. The only route I can see working, barring stumbling upon someone who was a Fokker mechanic between 1952 and 1957 (or whatever) is identifying the origins of the stamps.
I have to agree. The consensus is that it’s a clip or spring expander. There’s no need for the tool to expand the two clasp points very far, just far enough to get the material attached. For a fairly large clip, the two end points could well be an inch apart. The tool fits that criteria.
We are also fairly certain that it’s German in origin.
I work on a 1985 BMW motorcycle. It’s full of innovative connectors, springs, split rings, and so forth. They all seem to have special tools associated with them. This is a hallmark of German engineering. It’s innovative, distinctive, often non-standard, and supported by a host of specialized tools.
Find a German-born machinist/mechanic born in the 1950s or 1960s and you might get your answer.
And by the way, this isn’t some underhanded attempt to do a project in your American History classes, is it?
Cuz I know that when I studied history in undergraduate school I had a senior project to identify an “historical object”. I wasn’t told anything about it, I was just told to document my research and identify what it was.
I got a strange-looking stamp.
It turned out to be a WW2-vintage stamp issued by a Hindustani independence group that had allied itself with Nazi Germany against the English! Talk about obscure…
Okay, another (less disgusting) left-field suggestion. Maybe the springs aren’t part of the tool, but the part the tool is designed to install. The original owner may have figured it was as good a place as any to keep spare springs. I can’t tell from the pictures, but if the springs are part of the tool there should maybe be grooves or something to hold them in place. As other folks have pointed out, why do you need a counter-force to the open position?
No, i’m actually in grad school doing a Ph.D. in American History, and i’m afraid that tool identification is not a part of the program.
Well, the springs are very definitely part of the tool. I really don’t see how you could even get them off without considerable effort, and without breaking or bending the ends of the sprongs. They are firmly attached to the jaws.
I still have no idea what it could be, and no idea if these will help anyone identify it, but I was looking at the pictures again and I had some questions.
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In the final action picture, it looks like the two parts of the upper clamp are out of alignment. To what extent do the jaws stay aligned through its whole range of motion?
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Is there any pattern of wear or abraison that would indicate that a particular part of the tool was in contact with whatever the tool was used on?
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How strong is the clamping action? If you clamp a strip of sheet metal, will the jaws clamp down or slide along? Will they leave a mark? If you clamp a strip of soft wood (like a furring strip), how deeply will the jaws bite? When you get to the final action, does the tool have the strength to pull the wood apart?
Answers:
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One set of jaws is a little out of alignment, and this is obviously the result to excessive pressure or something in the past. The other set is properly aligned and stays that way throughout the range of motion.
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None that i can see.
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It seems pretty strong, but even when i close them fully they still slide along sheet metal (my filing cabinet was the only thing handy!). And the force that stretches the jaws away from one another seems stronger than the force that holds the jaws closed, because when i clamped on a thin piece of wood, the final action caused the jaws to scrape.
I really think it must be designed to work with a very specific piece of equipment, rather than with a more general category of material like sheet metal or wood.
cheers,
michael.
Most of the wear in the tool5 and tool6 jpegs is on the ends and mostly on the inside. My guess is that the wear is from tool getting shoved around of a metal assembly (or maybe into slots) to clamp and separate something, probably a locking or retaining spring.
It’s a fairly stout tool. Maybe the slots were cut into a large retaining ring.
Ok. Here’s what you do. GO to your local old folks home, and pass it around there. Nobody there knows what it is? Go to another one…keep doing this until you finally find some old guy who knows what it is. Then you’ll have solved the mystery!