Thread: The purpose of this piece of machinery

This device has recently arrived at the Laidley Pioneer Village and has the brains trust stumped. Its obviously some sort of batching and/or seeding device but for what exactly?

Looking at the first photo there is a flat belt drive to the machine on the RH end, that drives the eccentric which imparts a stop-go motion to the paddle/bucket arrangement via the ratchet. Presumably whatever the machine works on is hoppered to the RH side of the paddles/buckets and is batched out of the LH side.

Love the oil filled axle boxes.

Looks like the four tabs with bolt holes 'attachment' side is towards the bench. Any shots of that side ?

A rare example of an early belt driven sandwich stacker/wrapper. Do you have the factory attachment for triangle cut sandwiches?

Early weetbix press?

It was certainly made to feed some kind of granulated material, (seed maybe?) at a controlled rate into a processor, perhaps a screen, crusher or grinder. Appears the stroke can be varied on the ratchet link to allow it to advance the feed by varying amounts.
Any residues of material, (grain, gravel etc.) caught in it? You may find a clue. All serious suggestions welcome.

Combustor.

The eccentric stroke can definitely be varied.

While the 2 long sides of the device are cast iron, the 2 crossways dividers and indeed the floor are only 1/16" sheet steel. The light construction of the internals makes me think it was for seed or maybe nuts, or at least something fairly light and probably roundish that flowed fairly well.

There is a 1/2" gap beneath the paddles/buckets to the floor, so whatever was going in the hopper side would have been larger than that otherwise it would have just flowed out under the paddles/buckets. I'm thinking macadamias, walnuts or other nuts, glass marbles, large shotgun pellets.

Unfortunately there were no tell tale traces of product. The model number 32A on the side indicates that the devices were made in some sort of production run for a niche market.

Nut cracker?

Definately some sort of portion controller - where did the person who brought it in get it?

It kind of reminds me of the wooden contraptions used to find gold. The loose dirt etc is washed away and the heavier gold sinks to the bottom. The part closer to the wheel is the hopper?

A line marking machine used for marking out ovals, circular tracks etc on grass, a white powder is dispensed as it goes, rear wheels and handle is missing................. I think !

Originally Posted by familyguy

A line marking machine used for marking out ovals, circular tracks etc on grass, a white powder is dispensed as it goes, rear wheels and handle is missing................. I think !

That is what I thought when I first saw it, but not being able to see how the wheel sits in relation to the rest I was not sure. What are the side brackets nearest the wheel end for and what are the brown lumps at the other end?

First thing I thought when I saw it was line marking machine.

i am going to say its a single row fertiliser dropper ,dont think its for seed the paddle would smash half of them and its way to wide for seed. it wont over flow because the wood baffle at the front would stop that . and i dont think its flat belt drive , i think it was driven by friction from a rubber tyre.so i think it dropped a hand fuul of fert along the rows (spuds and so on ).

johno

Agree about the seed damage though dunno bout it being a stand alone fertilizer rig. Looking at the small bolt holes where the hopper might attach I'd think they'd break out of the hopper. And mud on the tyres would soon stop work.
With out further photos to look at I'm thinking theres two material feeds coming down from above? And the colour perhaps International red?

didnt mean as a stand alone i meant as part of a planter . the drive wheel looks a bit to close to me to of been driven by a belt thats why i thought it may of been driven by friction from another wheel maybe solid rubber of the drive for the planter .probably find out we are all a mile out and its some thing completely different .

johno