Tool Talk

What's-It Forum => What's-It Forum => Topic started by: Papaw on January 26, 2012, 01:17:53 PM

Title: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: Papaw on January 26, 2012, 01:17:53 PM
This grabbed me at the pawn this morning. I kept looking at it and scraping it to see a maker. The pawnie said something like "Hey Noel!, you might scrape the price off!" He knows me well, so I know he was kidding, and it had no price on it anyway. I told him not to worry because I was going to buy it no matter what.
His question as to why, was answered by "Because I don't know what it is!"
There was another regular customer of his there and he didn't have a clue either. We were introduced, and later we went to his house, where he gave me a Thorsen #1114 14-15MM DOE, and a Bonney #MEB18, an 18MM Combo. Future trade in the making.

This is an interesting tool-
Black plastic handle, 7 3/8" OAL, a hexagonal(Thanks LG!) shaft with a 1/2" tip added on, a 1/2" diameter wheel fixed on the end. No maker's marks at all.
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: lbgradwell on January 26, 2012, 01:42:22 PM
pentagonal shaft...

It looks six-sided to me!

Either way, I have no clue...
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: Papaw on January 26, 2012, 01:47:17 PM
Dang it! I forgot how to count!
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: keykeeper on January 26, 2012, 02:11:03 PM
I think it's a tool for removing glaziers putty around windows, just a WAG.
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: rusty on January 26, 2012, 04:01:16 PM

Keykeeper is very very close....

The hexagonal shaft is not important...

It is a glaziers tool....

It is for something very particular....

Something you have driven by every day.....

Perhaps something you rode in as a kid....
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: Papaw on January 26, 2012, 04:54:21 PM
Dammit! You're a TEASE!!
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: rusty on January 26, 2012, 06:45:17 PM
>Dammit! You're a TEASE!!

Yup... ; P

Sometimes, when papaws tool isn't the right tool, this one is:
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: Branson on January 27, 2012, 07:06:53 AM
I think it's a tool for removing glaziers putty around windows, just a WAG.

For removing putty around windows, you'd use a glazier's chisel or a hack-out knife.  And if you're really careful, a heat gun.  (There were special  tips to use with blow torches for heating old putty, too.)  Utica made the best hack-out knives ever.

With the wheel, it looks to me like this tool was for pressing something into a groove, or lifting something out of a groove.  Screen?  The rubber around car windows?  I've never seen its like.
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: lbgradwell on January 27, 2012, 08:04:42 AM
Even with rusty's clues, I have no idea!
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: gibsontool on January 27, 2012, 09:25:47 AM
Maybe to spread or smooth out the putty on a window
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: Branson on January 27, 2012, 11:07:58 AM
Maybe to spread or smooth out the putty on a window

Nope.  That's what a putty knife is for, especially the angled putty knives, though some professionals use a short bladed putty knife.
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: amertrac on January 27, 2012, 12:02:28 PM
thats the tool you carry in your pocket to throw agianst the wall when one of your snap-on wrenches slip and cause skin to transfer
bob w.
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: johnsironsanctuary on January 27, 2012, 12:05:57 PM
Could it be for pressing the little vinyl strip over vinyl screen in aluminum combination screens?
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: rusty on January 27, 2012, 05:08:05 PM
>The rubber around car windows?

That's probably as close as anyone is going to get. They are for the rubber gasket used in bus and truck windows, before the type with a seperate bead that you put in the middle. (The tool in my picture is for the bead type, it slides the rubber bead into the space in the window gasket to lock it into place.

Papaws' tool is for the older stuff, which was made sort of like a zipper, one piece locks into the other , the roller and pin fold the outer piece into the inner piece locking them together.

They were quite common on old school bus windows (winshield, not the slide windows) which is why you may have ridden in the thing that it was used on...
The gasket was also common on bread trucks, construction equipment, cranes etc. We still occasionally fix them, as long as the glass is flat, we can custom cut auto safety glass for replacements.
(Getting the 60 ft crane into the glass shop was a challenge tho)

PS: papaw, if it needs a home, pm me ; P
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: Papaw on January 27, 2012, 05:50:42 PM
Rusty, I'll send it to you, but you'll have to show us pictures of how it works!
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: Aunt Phil on January 28, 2012, 01:27:00 AM
You better send him a 70s vintage car with the safety windshield and a big bottle of superslick too.
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: keykeeper on January 28, 2012, 12:45:04 PM
Hey, I was close. I had seen this tool in my past. When I was a youngen' I got to occasionally hang out in my uncles glass business and watch them replace windows in all kinds of stuff....cars, trucks, homes, businesses, you name it. I remember seeing this tool, but I didn't remember the exact use.

Coolest trick I ever saw was my uncle use a piece of clothesline cord to replace a windshield in my brother's VW beetle some 20 years ago. He made it look easy.
Title: Re: I have no idea what this is!
Post by: amecks on January 31, 2012, 03:07:55 PM
I gotta check in more often! I worked in an auto glass shop. This tool is as Rusty said for windshields. However it is for the one piece gasket type of rubber where one lip is worked under the other lip to lock it in place, common on all kinds of cars, trucks, buses, construction equipment. The tip is worked in between and the roller rolls the "loose" lip under the locking lip. These gaskets were used on any stationary window - windshield, rear window, side or quarter glasses, any non-moving window. Use of vaseline, mineral spirits, gasoline(obviously NOT a good idea) to lubricate the rubber and keep the tool moving.  The other tool pictured with a loop at the end is for the gaskets that used a separate locking round rubber strip.  The rubber strip was fed through the loop as you worked it along the window. Either way, locking in curved windows was always challenging. Al.