What is this thing? A Mystery Measuring Gauge

Hmm, looks like when I upload to photobucket I should shrink and crop my own pics, they don’t do a very accurate job of it. You get the idea however.

-- Matt CueBall Rosendaul. I don't think I've ever had a cup of coffee that didn't have cat hair or sawdust in it.

Perhaps something to do with typesetting.

my guess is for measuring sheet metal in units of “Gauge”, the center part could be for wire, put it in the top hole and slide down till it stops and read the measurment

the numbers are going in the wrong direction to measure gauge. 18 gauge sheet metal is THICKER than 24 gauge. Same with wire. 8 gauge wire is thicker than 18 gauge.

This is kind of a shot in the dark but to me it looks like a pin gage that would be used by a locksmith to measure the pins used in a lock. But the numbers don’t corrispond with lock pins unless there was at one time a different numbering method. Even that thin tapered slot in the center could have been used to measure the thin “master pins”. Would really like to see some better pictures.
MIKE

-- See pictures on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/44216106@N07/ And visit my Facebook page - facebook.com/MTEnterprises

I’ll try to upload a short video tomorrow.

-- Matt CueBall Rosendaul. I don't think I've ever had a cup of coffee that didn't have cat hair or sawdust in it.

Could it be to measure what size drill bit you need to use to tap a hole? I think when i’ve purchased a tap and bit set before the bit was numbered instead of an actual size like 1/8.

-- In the end, when your life flashes before your eyes, will you like what you see?

I’ve no idea about it.Perhaps it’s a kind of measuring tools.

-- Orange 50-60# GTX 31" draw speaker tripod http://www.sencart.com/pair-professional-speaker-stands-tripod-heavy-duty-new_p51530.html

Its a hair comb for folks with very thick hair ;-)

-- No one plans to fail, they just, just fail to plan

Here’s a video.

-- Matt CueBall Rosendaul. I don't think I've ever had a cup of coffee that didn't have cat hair or sawdust in it.

the numbers are unevenly spaced and some are heavier than others, which leads me to believe they were struck by hand with a punch. The notches are also not completely uniform in shape and appear to have been cut with a file. Perhaps its an ancient Chinese secret.

-- Matt CueBall Rosendaul. I don't think I've ever had a cup of coffee that didn't have cat hair or sawdust in it.

Is it a old Thread guage? Does the sizes seems to be the same in groups of 3…...

-- What we do in life will Echo through Eternity........

I have no idea… lol

-- Roger from KY. Work/Play/Travel Safe. Kentuk55@bellsouth.net

not a thread gauge as far as I can tell. Not in groups of three either. The number 2 slot is not twice as large as the number one. Each slot is slightly larger than the next, but only by a couple thousandths.

If the crowns between the grooves were pointy it’d make a dandy beard comb.

-- Matt CueBall Rosendaul. I don't think I've ever had a cup of coffee that didn't have cat hair or sawdust in it.

My initial thought is that it’s a thickness gauge. If you look at the #12, it looks to be about 7/64 (which is ~ 0.1094”), and 12ga steel is 0.1046”.

However, steel gets thicker as the gauge number get smaller, so that can’t be right.

Maybe it’s some old standard that was dropped when the metric system was adopted?

-- -=Pride is not a sin=-