MYSTERY OBJECTS

[Stanley]

Gloria is very close and in the right area as far as the material is concerned, think wood!

[Gloria]

To help secure the metal rim around wooden barrels?

[Stanley]

Wonderful! You are really good at puzzling these out. That's it exactly, it's a tool used by a cooper to drive the hoops onto a barrel to tighten the staves up.



Cooper Bob Butler using the tool.

[chinatyke]

I missed that and I've seen them used too. At one time the only package that was approved for transport of loose loads of explosive chemicals like picric acid were wooden barrels, so there was a cooper on our site. Full container loads , for example for export, could be packed in poly lined cardboard kegs which were more suitable and much safer.

[Tizer]

Well done, Gloria. Looking on the Web I see that it's called a hoop driver and I suppose the person using it was, to be precise, a hooper working with the cooper. This page has some good photos of the tools: LINK

[Cathy]

I watched a keg being made just the other day. The keg is the container, the barrel refers to the amount of liquid stored in the keg and there is a very small curved hook placed in position on the hoop to keep it in place called a tenterhook.

[chinatyke]

Well done, Gloria. Looking on the Web I see that it's called a hoop driver and I suppose the person using it was, to be precise, a hooper working with the cooper. This page has some good photos of the tools: LINK

And if that person was good at his job would he be a super-duper hooper under-cooper?

[Tizer]

As long as he didn't make a super blooper!

[Stanley]

Cathy, it may have been called a tenterhook but the origin of that is in stretching woollen cloth after Fulling to counteract the shrinking effect of the process. The cloth was stretched tight on long frames outside in the fields and left to stabilise. The way the cloth was held was by rows of sharp hooks top and bottom



On the right of this pic, next to the Willow or flock shaker you can see part of a tenter frame at Helmshore Higher Mill.

[plaques]

Can someone throw some light on this?
,


By popular demand a larger image.
Aren't I a Devil? I didn't want to make it too easy for you Stanley so that others had a chance.

[Stanley]

Sorry P. image too small for me to make anything out.

[Stanley]

Better. It's a powerful lamp. Not intended for use permanently outdoors because it isn't weatherproof so my guess is that it's a spotlight used in theatres. Does Hollywood call them 'Kliegs'?

[Bodger]

As an apprentice i was often told to develop blueprints on a carbon arc lamp with a tray of ammonia evaporating as the developing activator, it looked like the photo ?

[plaques]

Stanley is almost there. most of us will have enjoyed the end result of this thing in the form of 'U'..'A'..or even an 'X'.

[PanBiker]

Cinema projector lamp then.

[plaques]

Well done that man. PanBiker is right. A cinema projector that was left behind bolted to the floor of the old projection room but now in Wetherspoons newly refurbished pub the 'Wallaw' in Blyth.
.


Now situated in the foyer as an exhibition piece.
The Wallaw.

[Tripps]

I'd read elsewhere about this refurb, but didn't think the next mention would be on this site.

I visited the North East in April, and did a quick dash into Blyth for old times sake. I'd taken and picked up Mrs Tripps loads of times to and from the hospital where she worked for about two years, in the 1970's - The Thomas Knight. I doubt the place has changed drastically in the interim, but I didn't recognise the town centre at all. There were a lot more big old buildings than I remember.

It must be me that has changed. I'll go again one day.

[Stanley]

[Stanley]

Can you tell me what this is?

[chinatyke]

Chestnut roaster.

[Stanley]

No China, sorry! Interesting idea though......

[Cathy]

This one looks interesting, can't wait to find out what on earth it is.

[Stanley]

I think they are as well Cathy. I've worked on them. To give you an idea of the size the sphere is about ten feet in diameter, they are a big piece of kit. Some were even bigger and many were made by hand hammering iron plate at least 1/2" thick.

[Tizer]

It's a giant pressure cooker - perhaps for hydrolysing wood cellulose or making wood tar, judging from the trees nearby.

[chinatyke]

Anything to do with the leather industry?