Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer

Subject: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Penny S.
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 10:40 AM

Turning out my Dad's house, I came across an odd gadget in the kitchen drawer. It is obviously for dealing with a range of round things, from 3mm to 10mm in diameter, but what I do not know. It seems a bit too complicated for scraping oven shelves or barbecue grills, which is all my imagination can come up with.

This tool has a plastic handle, with a steel rod, as if it were
going to be a screwdriver. The rod is bent about two thirds of the
way along, through an angle of about 45 degrees. The end is flattened, and to it is fixed an octagonal disc, with a knurled knob on a screw, which goes through the centre of the disc. The edges of the disc have each been indented with a semicircle, varying in diameter from 3mm to 10mm. There is a set of off centre holes on each side of the disc, which engage with a small protrusion from the flattened rod to hold the disc firm. The disc can obviously be rotated to eight different positions.

Does this ring any bells?

Penny

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Bernard
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:20 AM

Only if you clout them with it...!

Can you take a photo and post it somewhere, as someone once said it would be worth a thousand words!

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: bubblyrat
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:23 AM

Sounds like a "Sweetbread Swizzle", used for castrating lambs,but can be used for peeling cooking -apples as well. But a photo would help, yes !

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Bernard
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:29 AM

My first guess is that it could be an elaborate dowel scraper... normally used by a carpenter to trim down oversized dowels.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:42 AM

Actually, your description seems fairly clear. But I don't have a clue what it's for. My guess is, it has nothing to do with cooking.

When you described holes of various sizes, the first image that came to mind was a drill-bit gauge. It's used for identifying drill bits by size (since many drill bits are too small to have readable markings). I suppose a gauge like this wouldn't need to have circular holes; semicircular holes along the edge of the plate might work.

A drill-bit gauge wouldn't need a handle, though.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: EBarnacle
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 01:12 PM

Could it be, depending upon size, either a lemon squeezer or a jar opener? A picture would be helpful.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 01:18 PM

Could be for removing different sized bottle tops. Sheer will power and determination usually works, especially if you really believe it is going to, but occasionally it doesn't, and some kind of device with a handle is required.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 01:35 PM

When you get old like me, you get used to finding odd things in your drawers, which you can't think of a use for!

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Becca72
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 01:42 PM

As stated already, it sounds rather like the old jar opener my mother used to have

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: SINSULL
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 01:47 PM

My guess would be a tool used to measure the diameter of drill bits or screws.
Any manufacturer's marks on it? Copyright?

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 01:50 PM

Your description reminds me of a gadget I found in my father's kitchen in a lower drawer. He was the King of Kitchen Gadgets, and we still haven't ID'ed them all.

View 1

View 2

Any similarities? I think it is for cleaning the grill, for the different sized wires on the rack. And maybe for cleaning tools or something like that. Instead of a bend, the crease that you see partway down the metal handle is a point where it turns easily, but it doesn't unscrew, it just twists.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 01:59 PM

Please post a picture. I am growing curious too.

The oddest thing we have in our kitchen drawer is a my little pony mane and tail brush that belonged to TSO's daughter.

We can't remove it. He says it is traditional.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: bobad
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 02:12 PM

John...too much information!

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: gnu
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 02:23 PM

Hahahahahaaa... good one John!!

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 03:26 PM

I think it is an Aldebarian Rod Measurer, used in contests between males to determine dominance on the planet Aldebaran IX.

A

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 03:32 PM

Home trepanning for fun and profit.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Amergin
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 03:44 PM

Really, Amos? I thought they only did that in Ohio....

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Rasener
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 04:17 PM

SRS
Isn't that what they used in the war, when the soldiers had Syphilys.

They attached a scraper to the end and then pushed it up the guys tadger and then spring released the scraper and then pulled it back out.

Yes the eyes are watering at the thought LOL :-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 04:34 PM

*I* think SRS has it! My first thought was that it was used for scraping various parts of a grill, no matter what some possible original use might have been. Her photos convinced me.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 04:53 PM

I'm frankly astonished that I beat Bill D to posting a photo of an oddball gadget. :)

We need to see if my odd gadget is anything like Penny's odd gadget.

That isn't an invitation to check out our drawers, John.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 05:09 PM

LOL... well, I have a wire gauge, but it is for very tiny measurements and is nowhere near what you showed.

(Hey I got lotsa odd gadgets.... you never know what some things are good for until you see a problem and think "ah-HA!")

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 05:19 PM

Who are these ladies with odd gadgets in their drawers,
That all the saints adore them?

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 07:13 PM

Necessity is also the step-mother of invention--when you have a job and finally figure out what that pre-existing device must really be for!

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 09:13 PM

something like these?

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Art Thieme
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:49 PM

It is what Spike Milliken often referred to on the Goon Show as an Uncle Frightener. He sold them in estate auctions I think. ;-)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Art Thieme
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:51 PM

Alas, necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows!!!!!

Art

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 09:45 AM

Is it an Amish Moustache trimmer sharpener?

RtS

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Penny S.
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 12:15 PM

I knew a photo would help, but have no way of posting one at the moment. SRS's gadget looks very much the same sort of thing. I found myself in the loo, staring at my sister's box of bits used in decorating, and saw that the handle was very similar to that of the gadget, which immediately made it a not-a-kitchen thing.

We've had many odd things in kitchen drawers over the years. Including a small Shiv ling, with elephant and snake, carved out of soapstone. I had that as an ornament fro a number of years until I noticed the Shiva calendar in the newsagents, and gave it to them.

Penny

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Penny S.
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 01:14 PM

3mm is a bit small for a dowel, I would have thought. But the elaboration of the thing seems too much for grill scraping.

Penny

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Gurney
Date: 24 Feb 10 - 04:02 AM

A squasher for the little onion or the olive in a cocktail?
A punch for making patterns in leatherwork?
A device for venting heavy-crust pies? Or patterning the edges?

If it was in a toolbox, I'd think it was a paint/varnish scraper for fluted woodwork, provided it looks like Sage's device.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Feb 10 - 04:34 AM

It may be the 'thingummyjig that was stolen from the Dundee Weaver. I believe she kept that, in her drawers.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 24 Feb 10 - 08:23 AM

I think we should be grateful that John MacKenzie hasn't added any photographs.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Feb 10 - 08:40 AM

How true, how true :)

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: kendall
Date: 24 Feb 10 - 09:17 AM

John is hot today!

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Penny S.
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 10:11 AM

There are photos at

Another place

where I have also enquired.

Penny

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:16 AM

A Rosette Set has interchangeable heads for making batter-dipped fried doughnuts.


A

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 06:21 PM

That the device has a plastic handle dates it most likely to sometime after about 1940 or so. There was some use of "celluloids" much earlier, but those would most likely have deteriorated by now to the point of falling off or being unidentifiable.

Since "celluloids" have a distinctive "stink" if you poke them with a red-hot needle in an inconspicuous place, the handle could be tested, and finding that the handle was indeed celluloid/cellulose rather than what most would call "plastic" might date the device a decade or two older.

The expected period of the device is about the time when furniture pretty much ceased being assembled with full tenon joints, and the use of round wooden dowels became quite common. Unfortunately round dowels provide inferior holding ability and would frequently loosen, creating the notorious "rickety chair" phenomenon.

For repair, the joint was often just stuffed full of splinters to jam it back together, but for a proper repair the joint needed to be pulled apart, the old glue scraped off from the dowel and picked out of the socket, so that the joint could be properly re-glued.

The angled bend is to permit reaching around adjacent parts to clean up the dowel without completely disassembling the furniture, and the larger "arcs" allow scraping of the dowel sizes commonly used in light tables and chairs. A true crafstman probably would have disassembled all the joints and perhaps would have used a similar tool without the bend but more likely would have used a full-circle "dowel shaver," so this device was obviously for "homeowners" who were handy.

The smaller arcs obviously were intended to make the device more "generally useful" (as a sales gimmick) but would have been described as being useful fo cleaning swizzle sticks and toothpicks for re-use. (Householders of the era tended to be very frugal, unlike today; and this attribute was especially a characteristic of those prone to buying weird gadgets from the early TV commercials.)

This latter additional use/feature likely would suggest a half-decade more recent production since "house parties" involving fondue pots were not particularly popular (in my recollection) until somewhat nearer the end of WWII and in the decade or so after - ca. 1947+.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: pdq
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 07:05 PM

It may be a device for cleaning the built-up crud off of a barbecue grill.

The several size settings allow you to clean different sizes of grill.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 07:21 PM

I did several searches on dowel scraper, dowel cleaners, furniture repair dowel joints, and things like that, and I can't find any devices that look anything like the ones being discussed in this thread. Are you speaking from personal experience, John, or are you speculating?

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 04:49 AM

The handle looks like it came straight off a paint roller, as it has those lugs which stop a roller sliding into the paint tray, when your back is turned.
It begins to look more and more like a scraper of some sort.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 05:33 AM

CarolC -

I know that's a dowel scraper 'cause I just made the whole thing up for myself about 9 or 10 hours ago.

Actually, I was sort of hoping it might stimulate someone to look at which "edges" of the thingy might be tapered or slanted or flattened in the manner of similar known tools. It would help to identify the "working surfaces" of the thing so that more "directed" searches might be fruitful.

I figured the bit about using it for a toothpick recycler would be enough of a clue so most people wouldn't take it too seriously.

(Cause "recyling" wasn't heard of back then. You just kept usin' it until it was beyond repair, and then you used the pieces for something else. "Re-using" was expected - unlike in today's throw away culture - so it wouldn't be mentioned.)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Penny S.
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 05:46 AM

No tapering or flattening - the cut edges of the arcs are orthogonal to the planar surface.

Penny

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 10:47 AM

Yeah, I was definitely having problems with the toothpick part. You really can't clean a toothpick since they absorb some of the saliva and food residue.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 11:14 AM

I have thought about finding a tool for that use, but dismissed John's creative writing because none of the chairs at my house that need the dowels scraped and reglued are small enough to fit that tool. And on the links I sent you'll notice that there is also a right angle. I wonder if it has an upholstery use, for pulling and stringing cords and straps?

Do you know how bar codes work? The black lines look like they're the working part, but I read somewhere that it is actually the white between them that is more important. In an analogous examination of the tools, if you look not at the semi-circular shapes notched out of the disk, but look at the shapes between the notches, then there might be another answer.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 11:19 AM

It's both. There is apparently a standard alphabet which I found almost impossible to get my hands on for a project when I worked in IT.

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: Howard Jones
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 05:18 AM

Could it simply be a detachable handle for a grill pan?

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 07:03 AM

More serious speculation.

1. The plastic handle and evident "bright metal" (possibly chrome plate) finish suggest a food service tool, although other household appliances might be similar.

2. There is no visible evidence of cutting or scraping surfaces of any kind that would commonly be evident on a scraping or cutting tool of any kind suggested by the tool configuration.

The conclusion remaining is that it is a "wrench."

3. As it would not fit any common fastener, it must be presumed that it was a special purpose tool to go with a particular appliance of some sort.

The expectation would be that the object to be wrenched (turned) would have a flat surface with one or more projecting pins, or pin-like projections to be engaged in one (or more) of the semicircular recesses. It would also be necessary that an opposing recess, or the shank of the thumbnut also would engage some feature of the object to be turned.

This device is vaguely similar to tools provided for removing cleanout covers on some early hot-tub filters, covers on serving or dispensing containers, or other similar devices, although I don't recognize this tool as one I've seen. Because of the bend in the handle it would be expected that resistance to be "wrenched" might be from a gasket or belt, rather than a tight (or dirty) simple fastener.

The closest similar tool I can recall seeing was one provided for opening the fill, drain, and cleanout holes on a "soft ice cream" machine that I saw briefly ca 1948. An uncle was enamored with the notion of getting rich by opening a "Dairy Queen" franchise after seeing one of the first Kansas shops nearby, and insisted that my dad (and I) accompany him to inspect the new shop that he'd seen.

The operator demonstrated filling the machine, and opened some access covers to show how cleaning would be done. In this case most of the covers used the same tool, but one that was of different size needed a separate tool (no adjustments) and his tools had no plastic handles - just steel wrenches. The engagement of the tools with the covers was somewhat similar to the manner in which this tool might be used - if this guess is anywhere close to the reality of the tool.

No substantial torque was necessary in the cases I saw demonstrated; but the covers that needed the wrench for removal had rather husky gaskets that needed some persuasion to get the first bit of a turn to break loose.

A "special tool" likely would be an accessory only to a "high dollar" appliance, either for a special purpose application or for snob appeal in a common household activity, so the suggestion would be that this device was associated with something sold (if it's from the 40s or 60s) by door to door salesmen¹ or by a "branded" shop selling only a specific brand of "super machines."

¹ It's safe to say "salesMEN" because anything that needed a tool would have to have been demonstrated and sold by a male representative, even if intended for use by the housewife - - since women "just didn't do that sort of thing" in the era when I'd expect this thing to have come to the kitchen drawer.

Other than the fairly strong suspicion that it is a "wrenching tool" I have no idea what specific kind of appliance it might be associated with; but vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, stoves, sewing machines, (and maybe looms?) and perhaps stoves, furnaces and space heaters would be the sort of things I'd suspect. If it's intended use was associated with a "commercial machine" (as in a sausage shop or commercial bakery?) I couldn't even begin to speculate, although if dad had a farm connection a cream separator or milk chiller might be possibilities.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: GUEST,highlandman at work
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 01:34 PM

I don't know either, but all the speculation makes me wonder if the thing is not the tool itself, but some sort of backing-up device for holding the rear side of something you can't easily get to? There are similar things for reaching around the back side of sheet metal to back up a hole punch, but not quite the same.
If it is a backing-up tool then JiK's fancies may not be far from the reality.
-Glenn

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 02:18 PM

It's a handle for a specially shaped paint roller. IMHO

Subject: RE: Tech: Mysterious device in kitchen drawer
From: GUEST,guest dick greenhaus
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 07:47 PM

take a look at http://www.roxiesshop.com/custom.em?pid=820838