What Is it?

WyattPro

Found this at a flea Market. Suppose to have belonged to a plumber. Any Ideas?

Gordo

It Looks Like

A  pipe-making jig.  I posit  that a rectangular piece of sheet metal was inserted into the inner groove and the handle cranked to form the tube.  I'm not sure how the inner lip was dealt with, but the seam would then be soldered.

WyattPro

Inefficient Tool

Thanks Gordo your your feedback. I thought this might be the case myself. But Sheet metal Piping? Seems like a lot of work for just a little pipe doesn't it?

EricAune

sheet lead

I believe this was used to form pipe out of sheet lead.

Gordo

Well, They Didn't Home Despot ;-)

In those days, you were expected to make your own solder flux, too.    None of that expensive, store-bought stuff for the Dead Men, no sir.  No telling what junk the store put in it.



I've also got turn-of-the-last-century books with recipes for making  pipe dope.



"How do you make rabbit stew?"



"First, you catch the rabbit..."



Thanks for sharing this wonderful tool!

Jean-David Beyer

I remember reading the New York City Plumbing Code

I remember reading the New York City Plumbing Code from sometime in the 19th century.

It included how to run the gas pipes throughout a house for gas lighting. How to arrange that it went downhill and have no traps in it. It even told several methods of making illuminating gas (because it was not usually available commercially).



One way to do it was to bury a large tank filled with gasoline. On the surface you had a large bellows with a heavy weight on top to push it down and compress the air in it. You lifted the weight every few days. As the bellows collapsed, air was pushed through a pipe to the bottom of the gasoline. As it bubbled through the gasoline, it absorbed it making a rich mixture of gasoline and air (sort of like an inefficient carburettor) that was piped throughout the house piping. They did warn to treat this carefully due to fire and explosion risk.



I guess we are wimps these days to just get the stuff through a meter from a municipal or commercial supplier.

bill_105

Is it called?

Either a brake or a folder used in the sheet metal bussiness?

Steve Whitbeck

spacer maker

I used to use one of those years ago.

It is used to make 1 inch ( or whatever length ) spacers to space the supply duct down from the floor joists.

You would cut a strip of metal 1 inch wide by about 2 inches long and put the short end into the slot of the inner rod and give it a spin and wala out comes your spacer. ( you have to pull the rod out of the center and pull the spacer off of the rod.)

WyattPro

SpaceMaker question

Thanks for the post tinkerer. How would you make a seam?

Steve Whitbeck

No seam

You don't make a seam - It is just a small roll of metal that you put above the supply duct and then pound a nail through the duct and then through the spacer and into the floor joist. The spacer just holds the supply duct down the 1 inch needed per code.

WyattPro

We are getting Close.

Tinkerer, Thank you for your response. It is amazing that you have actually used this tool before. Amazing! I think your use of it makes a lot of sense. But something tells me that this may not be the original design. The tube is 24" long. So that means that it could make spacers longer than a foot. This seems quite inefficient.

Steve Whitbeck

What is it

You  didn't make one spacer at a time. I would make as many as I could fit and still get the center rod out of the outer tube. Hint You kept turning as you pulled it out.

After the rod is out the spacers slid off the rod.