What is it?

[patriot45]

I got no clue?
Ill guess its some kinda sump pump.



Some guesses from the site! Comical!
I believe it is a automatic self loading flare gun.

Great White Shark Fishing reel. The only thing missing from this Gears of War esque set up is the 20' titanium rod and the body builder to cast it.

I had hoped to never see one of these again. My ex-wife had one. It's a, ahem, "marital aid". Needless to say, it didn't aid my marriage (she's happy with it, though). I won't go into more details. It's too painful

Oh it is a gun all right... a PAINT gun. Shoots a whole can of paint each time you pull the trigger. Looks like it comes pre-loaded with a can of gray

You'll get the answer when I get it tomorrow!

[Starbuck]

I think it's a cable lasher. That's a device used by phone companies to attach their cable to the strand. The strand is stretched between poles. Then this device is pulled along the strand and it wraps a small wire around both the strand and the phone cable.

But it looks kind of funny for a cable lasher. Maybe it's just old. Here's what they look like nowadays...

[Rockntractor]

I'll be darned, if it isn't one of those!

[patriot45]

I'll be darned, if it isn't one of those!

And here i thought it was one of them!

[Rockntractor]

And here i thought it was one of them!

Ah no, no it's definitely one of those!

[SarasotaRepub]

I didn't know they still made those!!!

[Rockntractor]

I didn't know they still made those!!!

We have had those since way back when.

[ABC in Georgia]

I don't know what it is either.

But I want one. ... I want to be first on my block to have one!!!

Do they come in gold? Would look nice on my fireplace.

[Starbuck]

Awright..............lesseee.

It's not a cable lasher.

See the grove around the drum? When the drum turns, and the warning sign says it will, it will cause the upper part to shuttle back and forth. And when it moves, it going to have sort of a jack hammer motion because the groves are not a nice pretty sine wave; they're more exponential in appearance.

So. How does the drum receive its input? It doesn't look electric, and the part of the drum sticking out to the left looks like it might couple up to....something(?) And the device is attached at the point above the coupling through those two holes. You can see where the example on the bottom has been moving around a bit and has produced wear marks.

The nut shown on the top model is square. Farm implements use square nuts, and so do utility companies.

So, somehow the drum causes the rod part to shuttle back and forth at, maybe, a variable speed, but you can see where there has been a plate removed from both devices, so the shuttling mechanism is not visible when it's working.

And it looks like there is a cap at the far left underneath what I called the attachment point. The cap may pivot around the pin in it and maybe plug up the rod(?) It even looks like the cap is reinforced at the end, as if it were built to absorb pressure from something.....

But aside from assuming a jack hammering motion and unknown input I can't get much further......

Can anyone take it from here?

[patriot45]

Awright..............lesseee.

It's not a cable lasher.

See the grove around the drum? When the drum turns, and the warning sign says it will, it will cause the upper part to shuttle back and forth. And when it moves, it going to have sort of a jack hammer motion because the groves are not a nice pretty sine wave; they're more exponential in appearance.

So. How does the drum receive its input? It doesn't look electric, and the part of the drum sticking out to the left looks like it might couple up to....something(?) And the device is attached at the point above the coupling through those two holes. You can see where the example on the bottom has been moving around a bit and has produced wear marks.

The nut shown on the top model is square. Farm implements use square nuts, and so do utility companies.

So, somehow the drum causes the rod part to shuttle back and forth at, maybe, a variable speed, but you can see where there has been a plate removed from both devices, so the shuttling mechanism is not visible when it's working.

And it looks like there is a cap at the far left underneath what I called the attachment point. The cap may pivot around the pin in it and maybe plug up the rod(?) It even looks like the cap is reinforced at the end, as if it were built to absorb pressure from something.....

But aside from assuming a jack hammering motion and unknown input I can't get much further......

Can anyone take it from here?

I just checked and they won't give the answer till this evening!
It does look like there are two of them so I guess they are everywhere!