MYSTERY OBJECTS

[Steeplejerk]

Haha,funny you should say that,i've always had a collection of those knifes for cutting splinters out of my hands,one fell in pieces the other day and I was sat watching tv twiddling the black part that you photographed until I could muster the courage to throw it in the bin

[Stanley]

I hadn't a clue and still don't recognise it even though I have the answer!
Tom, I find a very sharp pointed pair of tweezers is just the thing for splinters and milling chips. Roebuck make them.

[Tizer]

It's got to be a knife for steeplejacks, tweezers aren't macho enough!
The black bit in the photo is the part that you slide back and forth with your thumb on a plastic-bodied disposable craft knife.

[Stanley]

Try this one.....

[Tizer]

Is that engraved writing that I see near the top or is it my imagination? If it's writing then perhaps it was a marker of some kind. If it said `Little Billy's got a cold' then it could be a cast iron excuse for not attending school!

[plaques]

Not having any size scale makes it a bit more difficult. Could be a screw thread template or knowing Stanley a gauge for machining the grooves in a rope drive fly wheel?

[Stanley]

Curses! P has it right straight away. Templates for driving rope grooves.....

[Stanley]

Anyone got a new one? If not I shall have to go for a furtle again!

[Tizer]

Try this one then...

[Gloria]

Christmas decoration??

[Tizer]

Wrong answer Gloria although I can see why you suggest that, it would certainly be impressive!

[Steeplejerk]

Very OTT Swiss army knife

[chinatyke]

Experimental lightning conductor headdress worn by a native Indian chief. Unfortunately the experiment killed the first wearer and henceforth the group was known as the Blackfeet tribe.

[Stanley]

If those are knife blades..... Is it the centrepiece for a dinner setting for the Master Cutlers of Sheffield?

[Tizer]

Chinatyke gets a point for creative thought, but Tom and Stanley are closing in on the answer. Tom's close with the word knife; Stanley's on the mark with Sheffield and cutlers. I guess at some time it might have featured as `the centrepiece for a dinner setting for the Master Cutlers' but that wasn't it's original use. There's more to it than simply being an ornament.

[Bodger]

I was born in Sheffield, and i remember my grandfather telling me about a penknife that had a "blade" attached each year ?

[Tizer]

First prize to Bodger, your grandfather knew what he was talking about! It was made by Sheffield cutlers Joseph Rodgers & Sons in 1821, and was used for display in their new showrooms in Norfolk Street, Sheffield. They claimed that the Knife had 1,821 blades to match the date it was made, and that further groups of blades would be added regularly. It was bought by Stanley Tools in 1969 and is now known as the Stanley Millennium Year Knife. It's in the Hawley Tool Collection in Sheffield. It's described at the bottom of their web page here: LINK

[Stanley]

That was a good one...... I love knives.....



My Joseph Rogers stockman's knife, I've had it for sixty years and it's as good as new.

[Stanley]

I've asked this question before. Each blade has a specific use, can anyone tell me what they are?

[Marilyn]

No doubt one of them is for scraping Boy Scouts out of horse's hooves...

[Tizer]

The LH one is for peeling carrots, the RH one for peeling potatoes and the long one on the far right is for deterring muggers.

[plaques]

long one on the far right is for deterring muggers.

Totally wrong,. Its for getting the muck out of your fingernails.

[Stanley]

All clever but wrong. I'm not going to let it hang on.... The left hand one is a castrating blade, the middle one is a lambfoot blade for trimming sheep's feet, the right hand one is general purpose.

[Tizer]

Do you do much castrating these days, Stanley?

[Stanley]

Not now Tiz but I used to, we always castrated our own pigs and me and Ted Waite did a bullock once at Hey Farm. I've done hot iron and cord-stop castrations as well as straight incision..... Not allowed now but if done properly very kind to the beasts and much less after effects than say a full anaesthetic.