Off Topic: Attic Find: What Is It?

D107

Found this in my attic. Some kind of adjustable scaffold? There used to be a little wooden stand for a fan by the window....see photo.

JUGHNE

It reminds me of an adjustable clothes drying rack, only one half of it. Wife doesn't think so. It is too adjustable for that function.

Next thought is a copy type machine that you trace the letters or pictures and it will pencil out a duplicate.

Really just WAGs.

Where is Jamie who might collect something like this or have it in one of his houses he maintains??

ScottSecor

My guess is it's an easel or perhaps something for civil engineering?

D107

I should have mentioned this is a 1924 house.

Jamie Hall

Never seen the like! Can you take a shot of the whole length of the thing? What intrigues me is that it is clearly adjustable, and may be some kind of pantograph for enlarging or reducing a drawing by tracing -- but I'd have to see the whole thing to guess further.

JUGHNE

That is the word I was looking for.....pantograph.

KC_Jones

JUGHNE said:

That is the word I was looking for.....pantograph.

You beat me to it, I was thinking the same thing. The only thing is I don't think they typically had a sliding adjustment like that as they were set up for accurate scaling utilizing a series of holes. Of course if someone homemade one all bets are off.

D107

Ok, here's some photos. Seems like it's some kind of pantograph.
The tiny nail points must be to hold the paper in place? Sliding adjustment makes it more versatile I guess. Can't figure out what the two metal pieces are at bottom of unit in photo 1814.

Pumpguy

Looks like a curtain stretcher to me. Used for drying washed lace curtains to maintain their shape. My Mom had one that looked similar. All those little pins are my clue.

Jamie Hall

I think @Pumpguy has it. It's not right -- now that I see most of it -- to be a pantograph at all. The little pins held the fabric, and one adjusted it to the right size. Neat!

D107

Gee, thanks, never even heard of such a thing. This must come from at least as far back as the 1940s. Internet: "People did not want to risk ironing their sheer curtains because the heat of irons back then was unpredictable–––those that were heated on the wood stove." I'll have to figure out who to donate this to.

Pumpguy

1940s would be correct. My mom did have an electric iron, and no wood stove.
As I recall, after washing lace curtains, they would dry all out of shape. So to have them dry properly to their original dimensions, my mom would pin them up to one of these gadgets.