Looks like the middle out of an old shoe stretcher. The short cross-bar locks into the wooden wedges and the heart shaped metal bit pushes the wooden wedges apart as the handle is turned.

John

edit: add photo

Edited By Journeyman on 22/03/2017 18:28:52

Plus 1 for Journeyman. I've just put a modern version into one of my new shoes. Do we all have one foot longer than t'other?

Can be the result of a stroke. Since mine, I have a size 8 right foot, and a size 9 right. One of these bits of kit might be the answer to my problem!

The other object is also an interesting one.

When I was in school the label 'Shatter Resistant' was always seen as a challenge

Neil

It is a Barson hammer drift I used them on a radial drill a few years ago, they came in three sizes and you used the brass hammer to knock in the drill to the morse Taper and the weight of the brass slides down to release the drill etc from the spindle.

David

Edited By David George 1 on 22/03/2017 22:50:13

So … was I correct in my first assumption, that it's just a slide-hammer action ?

The older thread that I linked to mentions a spring…

​Correct… the spring, iirc, was to assist the hammer to return to it's original starting position& to prevent the drift from sticking into the brass hammer… + possibly to ensure the drift did not 'bounce' & was kept in contact with the tang of the drill being ejected. 

​George.

Edited By mechman48 on 23/03/2017 12:55:17

I've got one of those Barson drifts. Don't use it very often as a drift, as I don't use MT very often and even then mostly in the tailstock which self-extracts. I use it more as a brass hammer.

The spring always struck me as being rather too stiff. And I always cringe at the thought of the blood blister that would result if you caught your finger between the moving parts….

I picked one of those Barston drifts up for a couple of quid 20 odd yrs ago as the end was snapped so I just welded my M T drift that I used to use on it & i've used it on my meddings drill ever since, the best bit is you can hold the chuck with 1 hand & drift it out with the other,previously you hammered the drift with a hammer & ended up with it falling down or dropping the chuck.

There are lots of words ending in "proof" which really are a load of rubbish. My favourite is "bulletproof." In practice, you can break anything if you hit it hard enough. That should be written into the basic laws of physics. Maybe it is somewhere, and it is me who is not well enough educated.