Shopsmith Forums

I bought an estate sale lot of handtools (and one power tool), thought I was pretty well able to work out what the purpose of most tools are but this one is confusing me.



They were all carpentry tools or my guess would have been that it is an antique hair curling iron but if anyone out there has knowledge of a carpentry use for it then answers on a postcard......

I think the pictures show it pretty well but just in case; it's like a scissors in the way it actions. one half of the business end closes into the other. One is basically a tube and the other is a hemisphere, they're a pretty good fit so can't see anything very thick being put in there. No maker's marks on it anywhere....

Looks like a surgical clamp or some lady's curling iron.
Bill V

This is easy... it is obviously a kidney stone extrator...

Guessing here but did that tool somehow get mixed into the carpentry tools? Perhaps a veterinarian instrument?

Strangely enough I live above a vets and my wife works in there as a tech and she said she's never seen anything like that...

Aunts got an old set of tools that look almost identical to that. Variety of sizes. They are her curling irons from when she was a young girl.

foxtrapper wrote:Aunts got an old set of tools that look almost identical to that. Variety of sizes. They are her curling irons from when she was a young girl.

Used with a wood/corn cob CI stove. Like those CI irons we now use as door stops decorated with paint or embroidery.

Ok going to call it a day on this one and call it a curling iron. Thanks for the responses...

Yes, curling iron. I have a couple just like it among our "collections". You know women were not the only one that used them. Men used them too, mostly for beards.


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