Not One but Two Odd items!

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Hi All,

Just back from an auction with a crate of odd brass ware including these two odd items:

Some sort of gas burning tool but no ideas what for?

Some sort of sight glass, a lot of the other items are steam related but this one has me stumped, there is a small bung or cork as indicated. Possibly for a stationary engine?

Any ideas welcome!

Cheers, Martin

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I wonder if the gas-burner is for paint-stripping.

Item 2 I'd say a sight-glass as well, though not for a steam-engine's boiler. Catering or brewing equipment perhaps. The two lines may be max/min levels but could also be for metering a small quantity of fluid into some other vessesl.

Item 3, hard to make out and I can't establish the scale, but it looks to me like the generator for a small acetylene lamp, still with the calcium oxide residue in the upper part (the part you are holding). It look similar to the "Premier" carbide cap-lamp once used in non-gaseous mines, and until around the 1970s, by cavers: I still have two or three of these.

If so the calcium carbide was placed in the lower section, and water (the reagent) in the upper half. There would be a small valve in the central tube somewhere to give a slow drip-feed of water, perhaps in the reservoir; and the cork (or felt) plug is a filter to keep carbide debris out of the gas outlet leading to the jet. The action is similar to the Kipps [Gas] Generator used in chemistry laboratories

A photograph of it assembled and standing upright next to a rule or scale-object would help, if you can, please.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 17/08/2021 17:17:31:

I wonder if the gas-burner is for paint-stripping.

.

Or maybe it’s not a burner … it looks rather like a steam ‘wallpaper’ scorer

MichaelG.

[BizibilderParticipant @bizibilder]

The top one is probably a hair singer (The barber deliberately setting your hair alight in order to get rid of any stray hairs – No 'elf and safety in those days!!). I can just about remember as a child my barber offering to singe hair for an extra 1d or 3d I can't remember exactly – a haircut for a small boy being about 1/6d (7p in that new fangled money).

No idea about the second item.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

No 1 Stripping the hair off hides???

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Hi Nigel,

There is no item 3! The bottom pic is from the bottom of the sight glass item. Main brass body is 28.5mm diameter; 145mm tall

Martin

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Top one is a ruler, with inches on one side & milimetres & centimetres on the other half

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Thank you Martin.

I could not see the relationship between the last photos, or the last one's scale; and thought it larger than you say. I'd also read your notes as if showing more than two items.

In which case I wonder if it was some sort of lubricator, or as I first suggested a fluid-metering feed on some process or otther.

'

Hair singeing? I dimly recall seeing that on the price-list at the barber's, back in the 1960s when finishing a "short-back-&-sides" with a good rubbing-in of Brylcreem was the height of sophistication for a ten-year-old. Or stopped our heads going rusty when we walked to school in the rain. I never saw anyone have his hair singed so I can't identify the tool as for that.

[An OtherParticipant @another21905]

My Grandad was a 'Gentlemans Barber' all his life, and always used a wooden 'spill' as it was then known, to singe off stray hairs. (I always went to his shop after leaving school and waited for my Mum). I would have thought the first device above was bit 'robust' just for singeing hair – it would be more likely to take the lot off! – I'm more inclined to go with the paint or wallpaper stripping suggestion, especially given its size and shape. The tap appears to be brass, and I would have thought hot steam would make it difficult to operate after a while, so I am guessing at some sort of gas burner.

edited after a rethink

Edited By An Other on 17/08/2021 18:20:12

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Hair off hides not heads

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by An Other on 17/08/2021 18:18:00:

[…]

The tap appears to be brass, and I would have thought hot steam would make it difficult to operate after a while, so I am guessing at some sort of gas burner.

edited after a rethink

.

Good point

I wonder if Martin will have the nerve recklessness to try lighting it up ?

MichaelG.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

The top one has no air inlet so intended to burn with a yellow flame for light not heat, and the handle is too fancy for a basic tradesman's tool. Your decorator isn't going to turn up and ask to plug into the gas fire to do the wallpaper stripping. The teeth are not sharp and would be steel if needed to do real work.
Is it for gas and not air or water?

[clivelParticipant @clivel]

Posted by bernard towers on 17/08/2021 20:48:57:

Hair off hides not heads

I worked in a tannery during my student years, and hair was removed by soaking the hides in lime pits which loosed the hair – it was my least favourite area in the tannery.
After soaking, the loose hair was scraped off using a large two-handled blunt knife.

Burning hair off a hide would have probably damaged the hide, been far more labour intensive, and emitted clouds of acrid smoke smelling even worse than tanneries already do.

Clive

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Hi all,

Some progress on the serrrated item, found this very similar item.

"It is a curry comb. It has a wick at the end. The handle is the fuel tank. Made of brass. I assume its from the 1860's to 1880's" Beakins Patent Singer Curry Comb.

Maybe my item is a later form using gas? Similar in all respects?

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