Car boot gizmo identification?

Morning

I think I had quite a good day at the car boot sale yesterday morning. I did a deal with a guy on a rusty old saw and an unknown gadget, £10 for both.

unknown to the seller, saw was in fact a late 1800s two handed Disston D8, bad axe sell a modern reproduction for £430. A few hours later it was looking a lot more like it should.

but the other gadget was a burner of some sort. See picture, Looks very much like a bench mounted welding torch. It has input valve marked gas, air, and Oxy. I recently made a burner for my little foundry, and it reminds me very much of that. But not quite. Is this some kind of jewellers bench mounted welding torch? For some reason it has a 90° blade on top! All very strange. It looks like it should be really useful one day, if not it looks like a cool ornament. Any ideas?

Steve

Edited By Steve355 on 19/06/2022 08:46:20

Edited By Steve355 on 19/06/2022 08:56:45

Glassblowers torch? Possibly specific to laboratory glass blowing and the manufacture of special apparatus.

Steve, Haven't a clue what the first item is, but when I was serving my time as a joiner in the 1950s I would have given anything to own a Disston D8 Rip Saw or any Disston saw, but Disston saws were pretty unobtainable in those days, you have a valuable original tool in that saw.

MichaelR

+1 for glassworking torch. I have used a similar v shaped knife to cut hot glass but with a separate bunsen burner.

I was puzzled by the three gas inputs until I did a google image search for glass blowing torch and it came up with similar devices, many still available new, with two, three, flour and even six gas or air inputs!

Steve,

Nice Saw!

Does it have the tpi number stamped just under the handle?

Good job on the refurb also, well done.

Martin

I know, I’m over the moon about it. Almost seemed unfair on the bloke selling it but that’s the way it goes I guess. It was a rusty old saw until refurbished. I actually have another Disston saw - a tenon saw. But I think that cost me 50 quid on eBay. Result!

Edited By Steve355 on 19/06/2022 10:24:55

There is a listing on eBay. 4 x Vintage Disston D8 saws for £40, including postage.

Item no 1 I would agree as a glass blowers torch. Rather like welding you would use different gas combinations for different glass. ie soda glass oxy-methane and quartz.oxy-hydrogen. According to my ancient book on glass blowing the torches were reffered to as blow pipes (as we're pipes you blew into). I did a course in my apprentaship as a lab technician. It was great fun and similar in some ways to gas welding. Occasionally unburnt gas would collect in the tube and ignite when you blew into the tube to work it making your cheak blow out!

Barry

its true, and in fact Disston were the biggest saw manufacturer in the world in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The difference between the eBay listing saws you mention, and the one I found, was that mine has five bolts instead of four, and a “D“ model number, or indicating an earlier saw. It also has the thumb grip and is designed for two hand usage. So in fact it is quite collectible.

Realistically it’s worth between 80 and £100, Which is pretty good when it effectively cost me £2.

But it’s a great saw, these days you have to pay many hundreds to get a saw of comparable quality.

I don't know what the top-hamper on the bench gizmo, but the cast base is a standard pattern for retort stands and similar lab equipment, so the glassworking explanation sounds convincing.

George

But surely is all about cutting wood. When I was an apprentice back it the 1950's joiner's spent a lot of time sharpening their saws and plane blades, tools were very expensive compared to men's hourly pay. Now time is expensive and tool cheep. Does anyone sharpen or know how to sharpen a saw any more ?Throw it away and get one from Screwfix or ToolStation or some place similar for a fiver. John