On Mar 22, 7:58 pm, "R.H." wrote:
"Leo Lichtman" wrote in message

...

937--Exactly like the dictionary stand on my living room. Mine has a
Webster's Unabridged on it'

Any idea if the small platform above the legs has a purpose or is it just
decorative?

It wouldn't make very much sense to put your glass of scotch _above_
the book in case it spills, right?

R

Hey Rob. I don't think that the tool pictured in 938 has anything to
do with elephants, though similar looking tools are used in that
application. Here's a link that shows various types of elephant
hooks. http://www.upali.ch/hook_en.html The second tool picture,
938a, has Chinese or Japanese writing on the butt of the handle, and
Asian elephants are predominantly from areas where Chinese writing
would be unusual to find. http://www.upali.ch/asian_en.html

My main reason for believing the tool had another origin and purpose
is because I owned one that was identical to the tool pictured in 938,
except for the cross-hatching on the handle. It's pretty weird to see
a tool you own pop up in one of your "What Is it?" quizzes! I'd
picked it up when I bought an estate tool collection. The collection
has tools that I'm still trying to figure out, but all of them are of
American or English origin. The hook had a tag that said it was a
pickaroon, used for handling smaller logs - maybe as in firewood as
someone else suggested. Here's Lee Valley's
version:http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...08&cat=1,41131

I demonstrated some antique tools at a local country fair a couple of
years back, and the pickaroon was a favorite. It was _fun_ to give a
quick flick and have it stick into the end of a log. Made manhandling
a log a breeze. I really don't think you could design a better tool
for that application.

Anyway, thought you'd like another opinion. Take it for what it's
worth.

R


Thanks, I've added your comments to the answer page.


I've gotten a further translation. In Chinese, the inscription says
"Zi Cai Bu".

Chinese does not directly translate into English, but roughly; Zi is
related to words meaning 'capital' or 'information'; Cai is related to
'materials', and 'Bu' means 'department'. "Zi Cai Bu" probably means
the tool belonged to an official materials and maintenance department,
possibly at a large organization like a construction firm or
university.

This makes it highly unlikely to be an elephant stick. I'm even more
comfortable with the idea that it is a wood handling tool.

--riverman

And thanks for the translation, it has also been posted on the answer page,
along with an email from someone who used an identical tool to move large
fish, I've also got a link to a video where similar hooks are used at a
Japaneese fish market. If I had to put money on it, I'd bet on fish moving
tool or log pickeroon over elephant trainer's hook.

http://pzphotosan161z.blogspot.com/


Rob

"humunculus" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Mar 24, 6:45 am, "R.H." wrote:
934) ... It would be interesting to see other views, to see whether
there
is some provision for adjusting the thickness per slice.

I don't own the microtome but might see it again next weekend, if so I'll
take a few more shots.

Six of the seven have been answered correctly this week, please see the
answer page for more details:

http://pzphotosan161z.blogspot.com/

Rob

I'll get a better translation in a day from some multilingual friends,
but the best I can translate the chinese characters on the bottom of
938a tells me it says something like "wooden tool department". The
first character is a bit hard to tell, since the top of the character
is mugged up; without a radical on top, it actually means 'shell',
which doesn't make sense to me. The middle character is 'cai', which
means wood, and the bottom one is 'bu' which means department.

I don't know of many regions where they train elephants and use
Chinese characters, so the fish picaroon seems more likely to me.

--riverman

Picaroons/pickaroons are used in plywood mills when there is a build-up of
scrap veneer along the green chain. They just whack the thing in to some
veneer, and drag it of to the chipper to be made into presto logs, or hogg
fuel. Don't ask how I know!

Steve R.

On Mar 26, 7:28 am, "R.H." wrote:
Hey Rob. I don't think that the tool pictured in 938 has anything to
do with elephants, though similar looking tools are used in that
application. Here's a link that shows various types of elephant
hooks. http://www.upali.ch/hook_en.htmlThe second tool picture,
938a, has Chinese or Japanese writing on the butt of the handle, and
Asian elephants are predominantly from areas where Chinese writing
would be unusual to find. http://www.upali.ch/asian_en.html

My main reason for believing the tool had another origin and purpose
is because I owned one that was identical to the tool pictured in 938,
except for the cross-hatching on the handle. It's pretty weird to see
a tool you own pop up in one of your "What Is it?" quizzes! I'd
picked it up when I bought an estate tool collection. The collection
has tools that I'm still trying to figure out, but all of them are of
American or English origin. The hook had a tag that said it was a
pickaroon, used for handling smaller logs - maybe as in firewood as
someone else suggested. Here's Lee Valley's

version:http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...08&cat=1,41131



I demonstrated some antique tools at a local country fair a couple of
years back, and the pickaroon was a favorite. It was _fun_ to give a
quick flick and have it stick into the end of a log. Made manhandling
a log a breeze. I really don't think you could design a better tool
for that application.

Anyway, thought you'd like another opinion. Take it for what it's
worth.

R

Thanks, I've added your comments to the answer page.

I've gotten a further translation. In Chinese, the inscription says
"Zi Cai Bu".

Chinese does not directly translate into English, but roughly; Zi is
related to words meaning 'capital' or 'information'; Cai is related to
'materials', and 'Bu' means 'department'. "Zi Cai Bu" probably means
the tool belonged to an official materials and maintenance department,
possibly at a large organization like a construction firm or
university.

This makes it highly unlikely to be an elephant stick. I'm even more
comfortable with the idea that it is a wood handling tool.

--riverman

And thanks for the translation, it has also been posted on the answer page,
along with an email from someone who used an identical tool to move large
fish, I've also got a link to a video where similar hooks are used at a
Japaneese fish market. If I had to put money on it, I'd bet on fish moving
tool or log pickeroon over elephant trainer's hook.

http://pzphotosan161z.blogspot.com/

Rob- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm going to retract my assumption that its a wood-moving tool, and
put all my chips on a fish picaroon. Check out this picture from a
frozen tuna processing plant in Japan:
http://jordan.husney.com/archives/ph...12/000219.html

Although you cannot see the handle, the top of this tool is precisely
like the item you are showing us. The big bulb on the handle would be
a necessary thing to keep a grip on a slimy handle.

In this picture (strangely enough, from the same processing plant in
Japan) you can see a similar tool, but with the bulbous handle clearly
visible.
http://tinyurl.com/2xgq6z

I'm quite confident that its a fish handling tool from Japan.

--riverman

On Mar 26, 5:43 pm, "humunculus" wrote:
On Mar 26, 7:28 am, "R.H." wrote:





Hey Rob. I don't think that the tool pictured in 938 has anything to
do with elephants, though similar looking tools are used in that
application. Here's a link that shows various types of elephant
hooks. http://www.upali.ch/hook_en.htmlThesecond tool picture,
938a, has Chinese or Japanese writing on the butt of the handle, and
Asian elephants are predominantly from areas where Chinese writing
would be unusual to find. http://www.upali.ch/asian_en.html

My main reason for believing the tool had another origin and purpose
is because I owned one that was identical to the tool pictured in 938,
except for the cross-hatching on the handle. It's pretty weird to see
a tool you own pop up in one of your "What Is it?" quizzes! I'd
picked it up when I bought an estate tool collection. The collection
has tools that I'm still trying to figure out, but all of them are of
American or English origin. The hook had a tag that said it was a
pickaroon, used for handling smaller logs - maybe as in firewood as
someone else suggested. Here's Lee Valley's

version:http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...08&cat=1,41131

I demonstrated some antique tools at a local country fair a couple of
years back, and the pickaroon was a favorite. It was _fun_ to give a
quick flick and have it stick into the end of a log. Made manhandling
a log a breeze. I really don't think you could design a better tool
for that application.

Anyway, thought you'd like another opinion. Take it for what it's
worth.

R

Thanks, I've added your comments to the answer page.

I've gotten a further translation. In Chinese, the inscription says
"Zi Cai Bu".

Chinese does not directly translate into English, but roughly; Zi is
related to words meaning 'capital' or 'information'; Cai is related to
'materials', and 'Bu' means 'department'. "Zi Cai Bu" probably means
the tool belonged to an official materials and maintenance department,
possibly at a large organization like a construction firm or
university.

This makes it highly unlikely to be an elephant stick. I'm even more
comfortable with the idea that it is a wood handling tool.

--riverman

And thanks for the translation, it has also been posted on the answer page,
along with an email from someone who used an identical tool to move large
fish, I've also got a link to a video where similar hooks are used at a
Japaneese fish market. If I had to put money on it, I'd bet on fish moving
tool or log pickeroon over elephant trainer's hook.

http://pzphotosan161z.blogspot.com/

Rob- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm going to retract my assumption that its a wood-moving tool, and
put all my chips on a fish picaroon. Check out this picture from a
frozen tuna processing plant in Japan:http://jordan.husney.com/archives/ph...12/000219.html

Although you cannot see the handle, the top of this tool is precisely
like the item you are showing us. The big bulb on the handle would be
a necessary thing to keep a grip on a slimy handle.

In this picture (strangely enough, from the same processing plant in
Japan) you can see a similar tool, but with the bulbous handle clearly
visible.http://tinyurl.com/2xgq6z

I'm quite confident that its a fish handling tool from Japan.

--riverman- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

http://perpublisher.com/Japan05/page...%20auction.htm

And here, you can see the entire tool in the hands of the man on the
left.

--riverman

humunculus wrote:

I'm going to retract my assumption that its a wood-moving tool, and
put all my chips on a fish picaroon. Check out this picture from a
frozen tuna processing plant in Japan:
http://jordan.husney.com/archives/ph...12/000219.html

Although you cannot see the handle, the top of this tool is precisely
like the item you are showing us. The big bulb on the handle would be
a necessary thing to keep a grip on a slimy handle.

In this picture (strangely enough, from the same processing plant in
Japan) you can see a similar tool, but with the bulbous handle clearly
visible.
http://tinyurl.com/2xgq6z

I'm quite confident that its a fish handling tool from Japan.

That's a bit fishy. The tool you're showing has a much slimmer
handle than the one in Rob's quiz. I owned the exact tool from the
quiz and it was labeled as being a pickaroon by an extremely
knowledgeable, now deceased, collector. The knob at the end of any
tool would be useful any time the grip might slip involved - it
doesn't have to involve fish slime, sweat can be mighty slippery as
well.

The shape of the tool is extremely straightforward, and the hook and
grab move would be useful in a lot of different applications. Similar
tools, different applications. For example, I have an amazing
stainless steel elongated spatulate spreader that is useful for tile
work, spreading glue and cleaning out tiny crevices. My father, the
orthodontist who I got it from, used it for years in the dental
business! I was shocked that he didn't know what one of his own tools
was used for!

Who determines what is the correct use of a tool? The manufacturer,
the purveyor or the end user?

R

RicodJour wrote:

Who determines what is the correct use of a tool? The manufacturer,
the purveyor or the end user?

Welll! The manufacturer is the one who determines what the tool
was " MADE " for but then anyone can "adapt" it for any other
use they desire.
That is way I look at it.
...lew...

On Mar 26, 11:52 am, Lew Hartswick wrote:
RicodJour wrote:

Who determines what is the correct use of a tool? The manufacturer,
the purveyor or the end user?

Welll! The manufacturer is the one who determines what the tool
was " MADE " for but then anyone can "adapt" it for any other
use they desire.
That is way I look at it.

Perhaps. I think that Rob should have a Rube Goldberg category. It's
so limiting to have to guess the intended use. If he posted a picture
of a hammer, and someone replied, "I use that to drive screws.", they
should get partial credit because you _can_ use a hammer to drive some
screws. I'm big on partial credit.

Otherwise the quiz becomes so rigid, with _only_ one "right" answer.
It smacks of Fascism. Can't we all be right? Can't we all be
winners? Can't we all just get along...?

How about it, Rob? Are you willing to lighten up on the iron-fisted
control a bit?

R

Otherwise the quiz becomes so rigid, with _only_ one "right" answer.
It smacks of Fascism. Can't we all be right? Can't we all be
winners? Can't we all just get along...?

How about it, Rob? Are you willing to lighten up on the iron-fisted
control a bit?

R


I probably should ease up some, I wouldn't want to risk any
newsgroup/interweb sanctions for facist behavior.;-) Maybe I could start
using satisfactory/unsatisfactory when answering guesses. Actually, the
next set doesn't have any ambiguous objects, so it will be at least another
week before I change my ways.

Rob

On Mar 27, 8:09 am, "R.H." wrote:
Otherwise the quiz becomes so rigid, with _only_ one "right" answer.
It smacks of Fascism. Can't we all be right? Can't we all be
winners? Can't we all just get along...?

How about it, Rob? Are you willing to lighten up on the iron-fisted
control a bit?

R

I probably should ease up some, I wouldn't want to risk any
newsgroup/interweb sanctions for facist behavior.;-) Maybe I could start
using satisfactory/unsatisfactory when answering guesses. Actually, the
next set doesn't have any ambiguous objects, so it will be at least another
week before I change my ways.

Rob

Well, ambiguous or not, I spend hours last night looking at
google.images under "Tokyo fish market", "Japan Fish Market", "Tuna
auction" and "Tsukiji", and saw dozens of pictures of people using
tools exactly like that one, especially with the characteristic shape
of the shaft and the large bulb. Additionally, the writing on the
bottom could be Japanese as easily as it could be Chinese; in fact the
characters at the top of the logo look like Katakana. I'll have a
Japanese friend look at it later tonight.

Although I am sure that 'a hook on a stick' is probably a pretty
common tool, considering that I haven't seen any images of wood
picaroons that have bulbs at the end of the handle, and the abundance
of similar tools from google.images, I think its even more assured
that this particular tool was designed to move frozen fish around,
probably at the Tsukiji Fish market in Tokyo.

Here are some of the more convincing photos clearly showing the tool
with the distinctive handle:
http://www2.bayshore.k12.ny.us/prima...s/DSC06204.JPG
http://www.mediaworkshop.org/hses/ma...GES/japan3.jpg

And here are some videos that show the tool clearly also;
http://tinyurl.com/2hqrcg
http://tinyurl.com/35uf4b


This one shows the tool the most clearly.
http://tinyurl.com/2zdtbr


--riverman

On Mar 26, 9:19 pm, "RicodJour" wrote:
humunculus wrote:

I'm going to retract my assumption that its a wood-moving tool, and
put all my chips on a fish picaroon. Check out this picture from a
frozen tuna processing plant in Japan:
http://jordan.husney.com/archives/ph...12/000219.html

Although you cannot see the handle, the top of this tool is precisely
like the item you are showing us. The big bulb on the handle would be
a necessary thing to keep a grip on a slimy handle.

In this picture (strangely enough, from the same processing plant in
Japan) you can see a similar tool, but with the bulbous handle clearly
visible.
http://tinyurl.com/2xgq6z

I'm quite confident that its a fish handling tool from Japan.

That's a bit fishy. The tool you're showing has a much slimmer
handle than the one in Rob's quiz.

True. I'm looking at the tool he tagged into the answer page. I think
the tool in the quiz is something else....for starters, the point on
the sharp end is quite a bit different from the fish snagger thingy.

--riverman

In article .com,
says...


Although I am sure that 'a hook on a stick' is probably a pretty
common tool, considering that I haven't seen any images of wood
picaroons that have bulbs at the end of the handle, and the abundance
of similar tools from google.images, I think its even more assured
that this particular tool was designed to move frozen fish around,
probably at the Tsukiji Fish market in Tokyo.

Not as distinctive a bulb, but a bulb nonetheless, on handles from 15 inches to
6 feet long. Apparently there are enough other uses for pickaroons that Peavey
is still making them 30+ years after the last river drive.

http://www.peaveymfg.com/loggingtools.htm#pickeroons

Ned Simmons

that its a fish handling tool from Japan.

That's a bit fishy. The tool you're showing has a much slimmer
handle than the one in Rob's quiz.

True. I'm looking at the tool he tagged into the answer page. I think
the tool in the quiz is something else....for starters, the point on
the sharp end is quite a bit different from the fish snagger thingy.

--riverman



I agree that the smaller tool is a fish mover, but it's hard to say for sure
about the other one.


Rob

John wrote:
Rich Grise wrote:

On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 04:25:39 -0500, R.H. wrote:

One of the objects is very similar to a previously posted photo
from a couple years ago, so I added another picture for a total of
seven this week:

http://puzzlephotos.blogspot.com/


Sorry for going all retro, but on #931 from last week or so (the
3-phase wire hanger), what's with the swirly Art Deco styling? Is it
just that this was designed in the days when Deco was all the thing?

Thanks,
Rich

The one longer arm with the smaller notch for a wire is for the
messenger cable. That is a steel cable much stronger than the
current carrying cables. The messenger cable allows the wires to be
pulled tighter and higher than without it or used for longer spans.
On three phase applications they would be used for low voltage only.

Was out driving today and saw some in the real world, of a more modern,
presumably plastic, construction.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/3938372...7600032880812/

Note that the new ones have ratcheting clips instead of having to be
tied on with wire.

Wouldn't be surprised if some of the ceramic ones were still up around
here. If I see one and can get a picture I'll put it up on the same
site.



John

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 23:19:47 -0700, RicodJour wrote:
On Mar 23, 6:45 pm, "R.H." wrote:
934) ... It would be interesting to see other views, to see whether there
is some provision for adjusting the thickness per slice.

I don't own the microtome but might see it again next weekend, if so I'll
take a few more shots.

Six of the seven have been answered correctly this week, please see the
answer page for more details:

http://pzphotosan161z.blogspot.com/

Hey Rob. I don't think that the tool pictured in 938 has anything to
do with elephants, though similar looking tools are used in that
application. Here's a link that shows various types of elephant
hooks. http://www.upali.ch/hook_en.html The second tool picture,
938a, has Chinese or Japanese writing on the butt of the handle, and
Asian elephants are predominantly from areas where Chinese writing
would be unusual to find. http://www.upali.ch/asian_en.html

My main reason for believing the tool had another origin and purpose
is because I owned one that was identical to the tool pictured in 938,
except for the cross-hatching on the handle. It's pretty weird to see
a tool you own pop up in one of your "What Is it?" quizzes! I'd
picked it up when I bought an estate tool collection. The collection
has tools that I'm still trying to figure out, but all of them are of
American or English origin. The hook had a tag that said it was a
pickaroon, used for handling smaller logs - maybe as in firewood as
someone else suggested. Here's Lee Valley's version:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...08&cat=1,41131

I demonstrated some antique tools at a local country fair a couple of
years back, and the pickaroon was a favorite. It was _fun_ to give a
quick flick and have it stick into the end of a log. Made manhandling
a log a breeze. I really don't think you could design a better tool
for that application.

Anyway, thought you'd like another opinion. Take it for what it's
worth.

Ewww!

Anyone who would use something like that on an elephant is a Very Bad
Person, and should have it used on him.

Thanks,
Rich

Gunner wrote:

I know PG&E is..Pacific Greed and Extortion....

The *******s
And **** Grey Davis with a farriers rasp too!


Come on, Gunner! You need something with at least a 2 HP motor to do
the job right. BTW, don't forget to trim his hemorrhoids with your
plasma cutter.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida