big lump of brass (bronze!)

[pitch pine]

I know this is metal working related but look at the shape of the handle on this "file holder" thingy...

DSCF0315 by nick tasker, on Flickr

DSCF0313 by nick tasker, on Flickr

The handle is brass and clamps on to a square section file (1 1/4 inches) that is marked Witham & Son Ltd. It came with a job lot of old woodworking tools. There is lots of information stamped on the handle, but none of it yields anything through googling. Looks like "OAP & Co Ld 8701 - 5557R" and "ITS". can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks

 

[swb58]

Can't answer any of your questions, just asking another. Is it brass or bronze?

 

[pitch pine]

You may well be right about it being bronze. I just went for brass because of the colour. Looking at it again where I have cleaned the grime off it does look a bit like the surface finish of a boat propeller I saw at a car boot sale a few months ago, and I think they are made of bronze. How can I tell the difference?

 

[Bm101]

I'd guess it was bronze because it looks cast.

 

[swb58]

You may well be right about it being bronze. I just went for brass because of the colour. Looking at it again where I have cleaned the grime off it does look a bit like the surface finish of a boat propeller I saw at a car boot sale a few months ago, and I think they are made of bronze. How can I tell the difference?

I went for bronze because of the colour
Both bronze and brass are alloys featuring copper, put it next to a known example of brass and compare. But, it doesn't really matter what it's made of does it, it is what it is. If it's not much good as a file I think it looks really good there on the desk. Clean the file to smarten it up but I'd leave the handle alone.

 

[swagman]

Ideal for filing those important documents.

 

[NazNomad]

If it's not much good as a file I think it looks really good there on the desk. Clean the file to smarten it up but I'd leave the handle alone.

I'd vinegar-bath the file and mirror polish the handle... personally.

I can't find out anything but It's a great looking object.

 

[AndyT]

I wonder if it might be American. There's a catalogue engraving of one in Alvin Sellen's Dictionary of American Hand Tools. ( It's a useful book, but doesn't give dates or sources for its thousands of old catalogue illustrations.)

It's shown holding a conventional flat file - which it can also do, of course - but your big lump of a file is unusual in itself.
A good reminder of just how much sheer hard labour there used to be in engineering shops, when big castings needed to be flattened and fettled by hand, without any portable electric grinders.

 

[swb58]

If you want a mirror polish on the handle you'd have to take a file to it first because it's such a rough casting.

I'm looking for a handle for a Stanley 5 1/2

Might the file and handle be a happy marriage? The holes in the file might suggest it was made to to be mounted on something different?

 

[Eric The Viking]

The square file looks really coarse - blacksmith's or Farrier's tool possibly?

 

[NazNomad]

More questions... Are the 4 sides of the file all the same courseness?

What might the 2 holes have been for?

 

[pitch pine]

So yes all four sides of the file are equally course, and those holes do suggest an alternative mounting (there is another pair of holes at 90 degrees to the ones you can see). The plane handle seems a really good way of getting a lot of consistent pressure on whatever you are working on. Blacksmith or farrier's seems a good suggestion in light of this, and Andy's suggestion of cleaning up castings. I don't think I will clean it any more, seems just right to my eye as it is now.

 

[Rorschach]

I wonder if the holes were for pins for it to ride along an edge for leveling a channel?

 

[AndyT]

Ok, I've done a little bit more digging.

These big square block files were a standard (though specialist) item and I think it's safe to assume that they were made with holes drilled through them so that they could have handles attached. I've not found an example of a commercial handle specially for them but when you consider the sort of workshop where they would have been used, making a bolt-on handle would hardly have been a challenge.

Here's a picture of one from a 1911 Nicholson's catalogue:

The booklet "The Ken Hawley Experience" shows a photo of one on page 52, with the caption:

Valve Rocker File. Used for hand filing of recessed valve faces on steam engines. 19th to mid 20th century.

Quite a niche tool!

The same Nicholson catalogue also has this page, showing a now familiar plane-style handle:

It's just clear enough to read the patent date - Feb 10, 1885 - which leads us swiftly here:

http://www.datamp.org/patents/displayPa ... 2&id=40653

and so to here

https://www.google.com/patents/US312012

and this image

and also to here at Lee Valley http://www.leevalley.com/newsletters/Wo ... atisit.htm
and this image of a similar one, in bronze

So, I reckon you've found two interesting and rare tools there.

The file handle, as its patent describes it, was to hold an ordinary flat file "when filing large slide-valves and other flat surfaces too large for the reach of the file."

In this case, it's successfully gripping a special file - made for those slide valves - which had holes for handles that didn't need to be used.

I reckon it would serve as an excellent paperweight and curio, ready for when you find the steam engine to go with it!

 

[pitch pine]

That is fantastic Andy, much appreciated. I hope you got as much pleasure from finding out about it as I have. It came from an advert for old woodworking tools and an intriguing photo of an old wooden chest with amongst other tools an adze. I wanted an adze and thought there might be other interesting stuff in the lot. After viewing the tools I said do you have any other old stuff and out came the file handle. It has sat in a shed for 20 or 30 years, and he was having a tidy up. I suppose this is an endless cycle of recycling among tool junkies. Coincidentally I watched "Fools for Tools" an episode of the Woodwrights Shop by Roy Underhill a few days ago. If you like old tools you must watch it.

 

[Eric The Viking]

What fun!

Assuming somebody can find Andy a cape and deerstalker, there's a whole new career opening up, methinks.

Obviously stay away from the Laudanum (and the violin) though!

Brilliant bit of detecting.

E.

 

[AndyT]

Thanks Pitch Pine and everyone - yes I do enjoy a puzzler like this one and when extra information can be found relatively easy it's very satisfying. It's getting easier, as so much information is now available online, so with a few basic books and a collection of downloaded catalogues, anyone can play.

What I especially like about threads like this is the way that everyone can contribute, and even a wrong guess can move us nearer to the right answer.

It would be extra nice to make sense of the markings on your handle - it's a pity they don't tie in with the patent date. Maybe they relate to some internal stores record system in the company where it was used.

I'm a great fan of Roy Underhill and his decades of work getting across the message that old tools work, but I shall track down that episode, which I've not seen.

And thanks for the suggestion Eric, but I don't think a deerstalker would look right with my natty waistcoat!

 

[lanemaux]

As I have stated before , if I go missing , Andy is the one I want looking for me. Superb work on research as usual amigo.

 

[AndyT]

Too kind!