Tool Talk
What's-It Forum => What's-It Forum => Topic started by: wvtools on April 23, 2014, 01:42:24 PM
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Here is a rusted patented pulley. It looks like Jas. Goldsmith or Coldsmith Pat. Aug. 77 NY, but it is hard to read. I googled a bunch, but could not find it. Maybe Rusty can find it.
I have never seen one of these with a ceramic wheel before.
(http://www.wvtools.com/images/ebaystore/141780a.JPG)
(http://www.wvtools.com/images/ebaystore/141780b.JPG)
(http://www.wvtools.com/images/ebaystore/141780d.JPG)
(http://www.wvtools.com/images/ebaystore/141780f.JPG)
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Size is like those on as a suspended clothes dryer, but ceramic often means electrical insulation - so I'd go for possibly for hanging a radio aerial (antenna), or a wire washing line for use in a region where lightning strikes are common....
see: http://www.radioworks.com/ninstallant.html
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Electric fences also, porcelain was cheaper than glass...
Weird design....
Will search the patent database when I get home....
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Probably patent 194,326 , Aug 21, 1877 By Anton Bischoff of NY NY.
The main point of the patent is that the pully block wraps around the edge pully so your clothsline doesn't get stuck between the side of the pully and the block....
(The picture shows a somewhat different style pully, but it seems to describe both..)
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ceramic, so the rust from a steel pulley doesn't get on the rope and then your clothes?
Skip
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I knew it for a clothesline pulley the second I saw it. Partly because I love them. I can't resist when I find them, they are so cute.
Ceramic I never saw, but, "how prissy is this?" is what I thought the minute I saw that part. Very cool, no rust stains on the clothesline!
So what I really want to know is????????????
What about those famous 5 floor tenements in NY? And you see the clothesline stretched across the street and girls hanging their laundry out?
How did they get the line across?
A girl with a rock tied on to a tread had to toss it across to a girl on the other side?
And when they miss a rock goes whizzing down either all the way to the street or whipping back against the side of the building or maybe someone's window??
And........ How often did the line rot out and drop laundry 5 floors down?
yours Scott
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In photos of those old clotheslines, I remember seeing double lines with pulleys on each end.
Wonder if anyone ever took an other's laundry?
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in those days, you did not have heavy traffic, just walk accross the street with the
line and the person in the other house could drop a line from the window, get it
attached to the other line and hoist it up to their window.
all this done without cell phones, EH ?????
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Example-
(http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3701/1646/1600/2_clothslines.jpg)
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In photos of those old clotheslines, I remember seeing double lines with pulleys on each end.
Wonder if anyone ever took an other's laundry?
The idea is that one of your pulleys attaches on your back porch, balcony, etc.; the other runs to some distant anchor point. You bring the clothesline tight enough not to sag much, putting your knot on the top line. You pin an item of laundry on the lower line, push it out to make room for the next piece, pin that one on; repeat until the first piece of laundry is almost touching the other pulley. Let it dry, then remove the piece closest to you, pull the lower line toward you, remove the second piece, and repeat again.
My grandmother (Dad's mother) had one of these attached at her back porch, five steps from the washing machine. Very efficient, and it allowed you to use airspace not otherwise in use, high enough that it didn't interfere with traffic (in the yard or street).
It's about time for a revival of this design of clothesline.
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We are straying far from old tools here, but I'll say the discussion is worth it. Do you know that some Homeowners Associations do not allow clotheslines?
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Some associations won't let you put a boat in your back yard, so it doesn't surprise me...
I think the age of putting clothslines across the street ended when they started stringing high voltage power cables down the street. Wet clothsline and electricity....not good
Even the porcelain insulator isn't going to help you on that one...
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"We are straying far from old tools here" ... I don't know about that... ask my wife about the "tools" that she uses to do the laundry, you might get a different opinion.
Joe B