What is this tool and what does it do?

Its a hook for rebar wire stays. Little pieces for wire with a loop in each end,, you loop the wire around the pieces of rebar to be joined , run your hook thru the two loops and twist. Hope this helps.

-- JustplaneJeff

I bought one of those. I used it for twising wire ties around the rebar for my drive way. You can get those wire ties in bulk. They have a loop around either end, wrap it around the rebar where they cross, hook the tie loops with the tool and wind them tight by spinning the handle in a tight circle. Makes quick work of securing the rebar. Mine cost $2.50. Told the guy at the supply house he ought to throw it in for free seeing as I’d spent several hundred there already. That didn’t fly very well. Haven’t been back since.

It looks very much like the tool iron workers use to hook into the eyelets on the wire ties that are used to hold rebar in place.
Do I get a tee shirt or a hat if I’m correct.

Lee, if it’s for working rebar I highly recommend that you throw it away before
it can infect your woodworking tools

-- Greg, No. Cal. - "Gaudete in Domino Semper"

Used to have a index finger worked over by that hooky thingy, six years of rebar work. Used to be called “Rod Buster”, and even ran “steel” crews. Mine had a little bit more of a hook to it, helps with the speed. Them straight ones, the loops would sometimes just slide back off. Used to be, I could out tie a guy who used the pliers& and wire reel. Kind of ticked him off, too.

The ties are known as “Bag Ties”. And that is known as a spinner. You’d be surprised at how many I’d wear out in a year….

-- A Planer? I'M the planer, this is what I use

I used one of those in my younger days to twist the wire ties burly bob described, except the ones I used were made of copper and were applied to 50lb bags of crushed ice to hold them closed.

-- Don't anthropomorphize your handplanes. They hate it when you do that. -- OldTools Archive --

they make rugs with them ?

or tie down radiant heat tubing to metal grid locked in oncoming cement pour

we need to find the use in tools that surround us, to the job that confronts us, even if its tying the cat gut to a racquet

true use was for tying potato sacks with wire ties

-- as technology progresses, wood workers seem to regress...all my power tools and my favorite is a chisel and a hand plane

True use? The others were false? It can’t be multi-purpose? My days in the icehouse were a total fraud, amazing. I never knew.

-- Don't anthropomorphize your handplanes. They hate it when you do that. -- OldTools Archive --

for all the useless tools ever invented

this one seems to encompass many trains of useful thought

This is a surgical instrument from the 18th century used to clear clogged sinuses.

-- I thank God for everything, especially all of you!

A well-used ice pick? :)

-- - Crud. Go tell your mother that I need a Band-aid.

Doesn’t matter what it was, it’s a mortise-cleaner-outer now.

-- - The mightiest oak in the forest is just a little nut that held its ground.

It has a trade name that has escaped me. Pig tail or something like this. It is used to tie the wires that hold rebar. If you have ever tied rebar you will not want to do without one of these. They are a fine tool but beyond that they are like most other tools….not so good. by that I mean it would be like using a wood chisel for a screw driver but when you get the rebar ties it is a fine tool. This was no doubt designed by a person working in the trenches that had never heard of a patent so he died tying rebar with a smile on his face instead of sitting in a recliner in front of the fire place.