Reply by Lee Barker

My good friend Greg Fulton, master woodworker and inveterate tool collector, has one of these. The best theory we had was that it was from a plan in something like Popular Mechanics. Your story adds some information to the mix.

Was it perhaps a kit, with the hardware included and then the wood pieces needed to be shaped and added?

BTW, Greg’s term for the tool is “walking beam saw.”

Cool story. Perhaps there should be a thread of Inherited Tools. There would be some wonderful connections.

-- "...in his brain, which is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd with observation, the which he vents in mangled forms." --Shakespeare, "As You Like It"