Hazard A Guess: Week of June 24, 2004.

Hello from Hazard.

Don Miller of Mount Pleasant, Pa., read our guess response to Item No. 713 and had to write.

“Even the old-time workers who hoisted 120-pound sacks of flour every day didn’t have the hand strength to split metal bolts with something as small as Item No. 713.”

He says it looks more like a crimping tool for putting metal sleeves on the ends of hemp ropes.

The response also challenged Robert Haas of Navarre “on a night when I couldn’t sleep.” Here’s his response:

“There were octagon shaft protrusions on old feed and flour grinding burr, and stone grinding mills. These shafts were turned, to adjust baffle in hopper for feeding speed, also burr or stone grinding clearances for fineness or pulverization.

“This tool was used to turn the shafts for the adjustments. The Letz Company made steel burr mills for feed grinding and quite possibly made the stone grinding mills also.”

Our thanks to both readers to following up on what is likely an incorrect guess.

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The ranks are divided on Item No. 714, but the majority rules.

Pat Shoup of Mansfield, Ohio, thinks it might be a nut cracker.

Dan and Frances Morar of Minerva, Ohio, think they might have something similar, which they use to trim material. Likewise, Tom Phelps says it looks like a rotary pinking shear, similar to the standard pinking scissors most of us recognize. And Joanne Weinzen of Coal Center, Pa., identifies Item No. 714 as a rag cutter, used to cut rags for rag rugs. It’s attached to a table and the rags are fed through as the handle is turned to cut the strips.

So we’re probably close and will move on, but if these responses trigger any other thoughts regarding Item No. 714, please send them in.

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Longtime reader and Hazard contributor Les Howell of Beach City, Ohio, stopped by with a box of goodies for us to photograph. Here is one from his treasure chest.

Do you know what it is? Send guesses or comments to: Hazard a Guess, P.O. Box 38, Salem, OH 44460; or via e-mail: editorial@farmanddairy.com.