What Is This Mystery Tool?
January 23, 2019 4:38 PM Subscribe
This mystery object was found in my grandfather's summer cottage on the coast of Maine. Nobody in my family has any idea what it is. Do you know? He enjoyed sailing and birding, if that gives you any ideas. Link to photo album:
Looks kind of like a boot scraper.
posted by bondcliff at 4:47 PM on January 23, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by bondcliff at 4:47 PM on January 23, 2019 [4 favorites]
Looks like a boot scraper that's missing the brush part.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:58 PM on January 23, 2019
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:58 PM on January 23, 2019
Looks like something for waxing (or scraping wax off) skis.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 5:08 PM on January 23, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Admiral Haddock at 5:08 PM on January 23, 2019 [3 favorites]
Looks kind of like a wood planer?
posted by Weeping_angel at 5:12 PM on January 23, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Weeping_angel at 5:12 PM on January 23, 2019 [4 favorites]
Immediately thought it was a boot scraper.
posted by General Malaise at 5:17 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by General Malaise at 5:17 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
(PS it's a remarkably elegant boot scraper in my experience)
posted by General Malaise at 5:18 PM on January 23, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by General Malaise at 5:18 PM on January 23, 2019 [4 favorites]
Are there any wear marks? On the metal? Looks too clean & new to have been used for anything, to me. Maybe partway through building it?
posted by TheAdamist at 5:32 PM on January 23, 2019
posted by TheAdamist at 5:32 PM on January 23, 2019
It’s not going to be a boot scraper: 1) the blade is flush with the rails; 2) it looks too narrow for a boot to go in the channel; and 3) you’re not going to make a boot scraper out of such nice wood.
It does look like it’s made for scraping, given the blade and given the space below to extract collected scrapings, and, given the wood, scraping something that is not going to mar. I am guessing skis because it looks like a ski would fit in the channel, but it’s not a great answer since you generally move a small scraper along the ski, rather than pushing a ski over a scraper.
Is the blade sharp, or just a straight edge? Is this something he would have made himself?
posted by Admiral Haddock at 5:36 PM on January 23, 2019 [6 favorites]
It does look like it’s made for scraping, given the blade and given the space below to extract collected scrapings, and, given the wood, scraping something that is not going to mar. I am guessing skis because it looks like a ski would fit in the channel, but it’s not a great answer since you generally move a small scraper along the ski, rather than pushing a ski over a scraper.
Is the blade sharp, or just a straight edge? Is this something he would have made himself?
posted by Admiral Haddock at 5:36 PM on January 23, 2019 [6 favorites]
My first thought was a mandolin slicer (user for vegetables) but the blades are at odd angles and it doesn’t look like the non-serrated blade/piece of metal is sharp enough to cut vegetables (?). Some wooden mandolin examples are here. A few look a little like your tool.
posted by MadamM at 6:06 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by MadamM at 6:06 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
Perhaps some kind of home-made barnacle scraper for boat hulls? Would be flipped upside down, and slid along the hull. The metal blade would end up flush with the hull, and would make short work of barnacles. Just a wild guess.
posted by Patapsco Mike at 6:17 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Patapsco Mike at 6:17 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
Looks kind of like a wood planer?
Nope.
posted by jon1270 at 6:21 PM on January 23, 2019 [4 favorites]
Nope.
posted by jon1270 at 6:21 PM on January 23, 2019 [4 favorites]
Did your grandfather have a kayak or a canoe with a hull section roughly the shape of the curve? I can imagine it being part of a storage or tying down arrangement, with the steel teeth used to secure a strap.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:19 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:19 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
No idea - but could it be a table top fish scaler? they have metal pointy bits.
posted by sol at 8:00 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by sol at 8:00 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
Is it possibly a bonito shaver, maybe missing a piece.
posted by humboldt32 at 8:18 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by humboldt32 at 8:18 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's an ONI OROSHI type of grater. The fish scaler also seems plausible. Need a scale for the size of the thing.
Think cheese grater that does a big-tooth texture. You push from the flat side and the teeth rip out big chunks of stuff.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:48 PM on January 23, 2019
Think cheese grater that does a big-tooth texture. You push from the flat side and the teeth rip out big chunks of stuff.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:48 PM on January 23, 2019
Some observations that might serve as clues:
It appears to be home-made.
The screws in the sides are slotted, which has been uncommon for a while, so I’m guessing it’s not a recent creation.
There are no obvious signs of wear. Maybe it didn’t work or wasn’t completed.
The “blades” look like aluminum, which is very soft edge material for a cutting or scraping tool. They’re also not shaped to cut anything very well.
The straight-edged “blade” stands well above the toothed one, so any material moved over the full length of the tool wouldn’t even touch the teeth.
posted by jon1270 at 3:07 AM on January 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
It appears to be home-made.
The screws in the sides are slotted, which has been uncommon for a while, so I’m guessing it’s not a recent creation.
There are no obvious signs of wear. Maybe it didn’t work or wasn’t completed.
The “blades” look like aluminum, which is very soft edge material for a cutting or scraping tool. They’re also not shaped to cut anything very well.
The straight-edged “blade” stands well above the toothed one, so any material moved over the full length of the tool wouldn’t even touch the teeth.
posted by jon1270 at 3:07 AM on January 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Looks like a kind of corn sheller.
posted by plinth at 5:30 AM on January 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by plinth at 5:30 AM on January 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
Best answer: Re: corn sheller, yes! See this example.
posted by marlys at 9:08 AM on January 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by marlys at 9:08 AM on January 24, 2019 [4 favorites]
Best answer: More observations: there are no stains or irregular dirt patterns, so if it was used, perhaps was used in an environment without water or dirt.
The teeth are irregular and hand cut and don't look sharp, which imply that their use is rough scraping, not cutting.
The two blades seem to exist in a 'two-pass' scenario, where the teeth are designed to scrape/loosen, and the flat blade designed to scrape. The fact that the blade is precisely flush with the edges does make it seem like it's used to run along a surface not meant to be scratched with the aluminum blade.
The relative irregular/imprecision of the object makes me feel like it's a tool for maintenance rather than creation -- it's not for making something, but for repeatedly cleaning something.
The height of the 'legs' makes me imagine that it's designed to fit over something so that material can fall through the hole. The rounded legs makes me think that the material that's falling through is designed to be collected, because a plate can be more easily moved in/out. I.E, what's falling through isn't sawdust or junk material.
The legs makes me think that the device is designed to be used in a stationary position, rather than being held and moved around.
Corn sheller is close.. but if it were a corn sheller, you wouldn't want the non-serrated edge to exist so that you could pull the ear of corn all the way top to bottom. Or perhaps the two blades exist for two different 'intensities' of shelling.
posted by suedehead at 9:19 AM on January 24, 2019
The teeth are irregular and hand cut and don't look sharp, which imply that their use is rough scraping, not cutting.
The two blades seem to exist in a 'two-pass' scenario, where the teeth are designed to scrape/loosen, and the flat blade designed to scrape. The fact that the blade is precisely flush with the edges does make it seem like it's used to run along a surface not meant to be scratched with the aluminum blade.
The relative irregular/imprecision of the object makes me feel like it's a tool for maintenance rather than creation -- it's not for making something, but for repeatedly cleaning something.
The height of the 'legs' makes me imagine that it's designed to fit over something so that material can fall through the hole. The rounded legs makes me think that the material that's falling through is designed to be collected, because a plate can be more easily moved in/out. I.E, what's falling through isn't sawdust or junk material.
The legs makes me think that the device is designed to be used in a stationary position, rather than being held and moved around.
Corn sheller is close.. but if it were a corn sheller, you wouldn't want the non-serrated edge to exist so that you could pull the ear of corn all the way top to bottom. Or perhaps the two blades exist for two different 'intensities' of shelling.
posted by suedehead at 9:19 AM on January 24, 2019
Need a scale for the size of the thing.
One of the pictures has some fingertips in it, but I was also wishing there was a ruler in a couple of them.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:02 AM on January 24, 2019
One of the pictures has some fingertips in it, but I was also wishing there was a ruler in a couple of them.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:02 AM on January 24, 2019
Best answer: Or perhaps the two blades exist for two different 'intensities' of shelling.
That would also help explain the huge gap between the two blades. Anything that you would try to run through lengthwise would tip into the gap and be stopped, even if the non-serrated plate weren’t there. The gap could be explained if the two blades were designed to be used separately, and in both cases you would orient the sheller so the kernels fell through the gap into the bowl below. Turn it one way to use the teeth, turn it the other way to use the flat edge.
posted by ejs at 10:37 AM on January 24, 2019
That would also help explain the huge gap between the two blades. Anything that you would try to run through lengthwise would tip into the gap and be stopped, even if the non-serrated plate weren’t there. The gap could be explained if the two blades were designed to be used separately, and in both cases you would orient the sheller so the kernels fell through the gap into the bowl below. Turn it one way to use the teeth, turn it the other way to use the flat edge.
posted by ejs at 10:37 AM on January 24, 2019
Response by poster: Thanks everyone! I think the most likely answer here is some sort of corn sheller.
-Metal pieces are aluminum
-No sign of wear or use (looks brand new)
-It doesn't appear to be partially built or anything (looks finished)
-None of the metal pieces are sharpened.
posted by lohmannn at 8:09 AM on January 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
-Metal pieces are aluminum
-No sign of wear or use (looks brand new)
-It doesn't appear to be partially built or anything (looks finished)
-None of the metal pieces are sharpened.
posted by lohmannn at 8:09 AM on January 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by lohmannn at 4:39 PM on January 23, 2019 [1 favorite]