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Dusty Fuller
05-11-2009, 3:52 PM
I couldn't really decide where to post this, but I figured most of us take a peek in this forum from time to time and someone would see it. I am beginning a blacksmith shop "renovation" (renovation is an overstatement of what I'll be able to really accomplish, since we're on an emergency-purchase-only budget for a while) at Hard Labor Creek State Park in Rutledge, GA. My "day job" is assistant manager, and I do interpretive programs and lots of other stuff. Anyway, I was doing a photo inventory of the shop that we have (left over from when the Civilian Conservation Corps was doing their work here) and came across something I couldn't identify. I've attached a photo, and I think it gives a good idea of the shape. I'm familiar with various fullers and swages and such, but not this. The other picture is a box full of letter brands that the CCC boys used to make signs in their work camp. Thanks for any comments, even if its an "I dunno".

Eric DeSilva
05-11-2009, 5:14 PM
You might try asking the guys over at anvilfire... Google it, not sure I'm supposed to post a link to another forum, even if it is a blacksmith's forum.

Dusty Fuller
05-12-2009, 11:25 AM
I'll do that. I have been looking at that site this morning, I just wanted to post "where everybody knows my name" first. (And everybody really does know my name... its in every post!) Thanks for the tip.

Carlos Alden
05-12-2009, 12:25 PM
I'd love hearing the history of a place with a name like "Hard Labor Creek State Park."

Carlos

Dusty Fuller
05-14-2009, 8:42 PM
There are two stories, really, though there's no way to tell if either are true. One says that the creek was given the name by the Native Americans that lived in the area who found it difficult to ford (though its not all that big, in places it has some size but its no river). The other is that it was named by the slaves who worked the fields around it. I have my doubts about both, but you never know. The park was built originally as a land reclamation/rehabilitation area by the CCC, and was federal property from the early/mid 1930's until 1946. Its 5,800 acres (I know, just an anthill for you westerners), and the creek splits the property almost in half.

John Fricke
05-14-2009, 10:15 PM
That's one of them thar thingamajiggers.

Shawn Pixley
05-17-2009, 12:13 PM
Without a closer examination, it looks like part of a cut-off guilletine

JOHN BRODERICK
05-17-2009, 1:06 PM
I disagree with John I think it is a thingamybob.

John

Cliff Rohrabacher
05-17-2009, 1:28 PM
Looks like a casting yet to be machined and finished which when finished was intended to hold some other metal parts in place maybe for an old piece of farm equipment.

Tom Veatch
05-17-2009, 1:38 PM
You might try sending the photo to this guy for posting on his "What is it?" pages.

http://55tools.blogspot.com/

Contact information at http://www.blogger.com/profile/02571776892571984835

Scott T Smith
05-17-2009, 10:48 PM
I disagree with John I think it is a thingamybob.

John

You're both wrong... it's a doohickey...

Dusty Fuller
05-18-2009, 10:50 AM
I took it to the Southern Blacksmith Association conference in Madison, GA (which I didn't even know was going on until I met a few guys in a local restaurant), and a couple of folks said it was more than likely a part of some sort of lifting device. The "KR Wilson" company made lots of Ford tools, as well as hydraulic presses and the like. So, I still don't know exactly what it is, but I don't think it belongs in our blacksmith shop. In the drawer it goes.

DF

David Keller NC
05-18-2009, 11:04 AM
Dusty - You might try a PM to Harry Strasil (you can find several posts by him on the Neander forum to make it easy). He's a blacksmith and may well know what that gizmo is for.

Paul Atkins
05-19-2009, 2:19 AM
How big is that thing? Any wear marks on it? Looks like something for logging.

Dusty Fuller
05-20-2009, 4:32 PM
About as long as the average hand, maybe a tad longer. It doesn't show much wear on any particular part. I can't find that it relates to blacksmithing, so I may send it to our historic preservation office and have them store it (and give back the blacksmith stuff that they have...).