Tool Talk
Wrench Forum => Wrench Forum => Topic started by: miguelicious on July 14, 2013, 08:11:38 PM
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hi ! i dont know what this tool was used for and i really want to know more about it.
I can read on
Thompson MFG.CO
MEADVILLE.PA. PAT. JULY 13 1920
thanks for your help !
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Not enough picture. Looks like a nipper or plier of some kind.
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i put more picture thanks for the fast reply !
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OK- not a nipper.
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Looks like some sort of valve spring compressor to me.
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Based on length, looks like it would hold a hot rivet nicely for insertion into a girder on an iron work job.
Can you read the patent number well enough to look it up on the patent website?? Or is that the patent date?
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DATAMP only shows 3 patents for that date, and none are that tool.
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A giant pair of Cleco pliers?
Bearing in mind that rivets for structural steel were worked red hot, I think the amount of manipulation required to get a rivet into position in a tool like this before inserting it tnto the hole would be impractical. Reading up on Google books about structural riveting (Railway Track and Structures Cyclopedia - 1921) it seems there were rivet pitching tongs and rivet sticking tongs. After the rivet was heated in a forge, the rivet heater picked it up with the pitching tongs (one curved and one straight jaw) and threw it to the rivet handler. The rivet handler caught it in a metal can or bucket, grabbed it with the rivet sticking tongs (similar to the pitching tongs, but with both jaws cupped to receive the rivet shank and bent upward at a 45 degree angle from the plane of the handle to allow the rivet handler to place the rivet squarely in the rivet hole when the jaws are flat against the structural member) and placed it in the hole. The rivet handler then bucked up the rivet with a dolly while the rivet driver upset the rivet with a rivet hammer (later a pneumatic hammer) and formed the head with a rivet set, or snap.
That's one of the things I like about this part of the forum, I get to learn all kinds of interesting things while trying to figure out what a tool might be for.
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Interesting tool. As I've worked with hot stuff, I can say it has a blacksmith shop background due to the long handles, required when working at the forge. Also the handles look hand worked, not machine made. Another bit of terminology here is the handles were called reins, as horses were controlled with reins, not handles. The head definitely looks like one made to handle a rivet or bolt, a carriage bolt? If I were to make a carriage bolt, this would hold it securely, to move it to a die for threading? For more work done to the shank? I'm guessing a special use tool made for a particular job that we might discern in the future.
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I don't know what it is & also struck out on a quick Google search last night, but a nice example just recently sold on ePay & more photos can be found here:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Blacksmithing-Adjustable-Rivet-Tongs-Thompson-Mfg-Co-Meadville-PA-Forging-Tool-/151062740009 (http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Blacksmithing-Adjustable-Rivet-Tongs-Thompson-Mfg-Co-Meadville-PA-Forging-Tool-/151062740009)
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That's it!
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NzQ4WDEwMjQ=/z/dDUAAOxyYYlRuRHp/$(KGrHqR,!q!FCqBBQnGWBRuRHo3Jeg~~60_57.JPG)
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From various index's, Thompson made various auto electrical tools, comutator scrapers, battery terminal pullers, etc, but, they later seem to have moved into things related to industrial pumps, and perhaps other things as well....
Perhaps battery tongs?
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Patent no. 1,346,306 ( https://www.google.com/patents/US1346306?dq=patent:1346306&hl=en&sa=X&ei=s3DkUeL4F6r-igL9mIHIBw&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA ) battery tongs. -- Gotta get ready for work, but will put the patent in DATAMP in the next day or so.
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thank you everyone for you anwser !!
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Interesting. While searching Google, I did see that Thompson Mfg. made battery tongs, but didn't look any further into that angle since I couldn't see any reason for the long handles if you were using them on a battery post. But that's clearly what they are. The ones in the picture rusty posted have relatively long handles as well. Anyone out there familiar enough with old storage batteries to know why these have such long handles? Were they needed just for leverage, or was something that you didn't want to be too close to (splashing, arcing, etc.) liable to happen when you pulled the terminal off?
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I've seen batteries rebuilt in a shop. A lot depends on the type. Auto, home power plant, deep cycle marine batteries, but like in the photo, the lead post is sealed into the top, these days by plastic, but often times by melted lead. So we got a torch, heat, lead fumes, yes, I'd like to keep as far away as possible. Remember, the bigger batteries are often rebuilt, not just scrapped.
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I think that we are on the wrong track here. I lead welded a lot of battery cables onto forklift batteries back in the 70's. First step was to use a hollow drill to get the old cable off. That left behind a post that was the same diameter as a car battery post. New cables came with a molded banjo on the end that fit loosely on the post. The cable was welded on with a lead stick and either a carbon arc rod using the battery for power or an acetylene torch. I prefer the torch. You can do a neater job. The lead intercell connectors are replaced in the same way. Oh yeah, blow the hydrogen out of the nearby cells before lighting the torch and work quickly before it reaccumulates. I don't know much about the old Edison Alkali Batteries, they used copper strips between the cells that were bolted on. I don't know what those tongs would be used for on a motive power battery. My guess is that they were used somehow in the manufacture of batteries.
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While they may be battery tongs by the patent, I still say they would be good for handling hot rivets!!!
Just thinking like a blacksmith, is all.... :)
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I may have answered my own question. Reading the patent information posted by mvwcnews, it seems that the terminal connections "very often stick" and tongs of this type were designed to remove the terminal connections from the battery post without damaging the battery. So the long handles may well have been just for added leverage.
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Patent no. 1,346,306 ( https://www.google.com/patents/US1346306?dq=patent:1346306&hl=en&sa=X&ei=s3DkUeL4F6r-igL9mIHIBw&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA ) battery tongs. -- Gotta get ready for work, but will put the patent in DATAMP in the next day or so.
The more I look at these, the more I wonder if they were for "industrial scale" storage batteries like those used in telephone & DC current electrical systems rather than automotive batteries that jump into our minds.
By 1922, Thompson Mfg. was making the "Pelican Pliers" ( http://books.google.com/books?id=cSpaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA955&dq=thompson+pelican+meadville&hl=en&sa=X&ei=B97qUafDFoasigKx54CAAg&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=thompson%20pelican%20meadville&f=false ) for use with automobile batteries. I have a pair & they are made of fairly thin stampings.