Tool ID

[TFrench]

It's not often I can stump @toolsntat but I managed it with this one. These two "things" came in a job lot of engineering tooling, but I don't recognise what they are. They're both tapered along the full length, with a very strange profile. Anyone got any idea?

 

[marcros]

if I had to guess, broachs (broaches??). no real idea though.

 

[Ollie78]

Guessing some kind of blacksmithing tools for enlarging holes but keeping the shape. (maybe that is broaching as marcross said )

Ollie

 

[CaptainBudget]

I would go with blacksmiths tools, probably drifts for hole forming.

The thick short handle at the top (to me) lends itself well to gripping with tongues or a thick heat-resistant glove.

 

[TFrench]

All the blacksmiths drifts I've seen are heavier duty, and the rounded ends don't look like they've been hammered on - or like they could take blacksmith level pounding for very long!

 

[HamsterJam]

Are they for hole forming using a press perhaps?

 

[Limey Lurker]

They'd probably be used in a fly press.

 

[D_W]

They look like reamers to me, but that doesn't explain the indexing lip on the side.

 

[dannyr]

mmm stumped - look like broaches, but would expect broaches to have steps in sizes so they could cut progressively larger; look like reamers, but they are usually turned in a hole to enlarge it; look like they'd fit on a fly press but it would need a much longer throw and deeper bed than usual; look more like a fit on a morticing press but not mortice chisels

On a press with a long throw and a deep bed these might form a progressively larger decorative hole in some malleable material like lead, but a simple punch would do that more easily - if you already have these profiles - why would you wish to enlarge them?

They would fit in an anvil round hole so the ready-formed round hole in hot steel/wrought iron could be punched down, shaping as it goes, for a decorative hole of whatever size chosen.

Maybe they were specially made to win a 'what tool' quiz.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I'm not 100% certain of this, but I think they may be finishing reamers for taper pin holes.

The usual modern way of fitting taper pins is to drill in steps with parallel drills, then finish with a multi-flute taper reamer. Before such reamers were commonly (well, relatively commonly!) available, all sorts of dodges must have been used, some of which probably didn't leave a great finish. For a taper pin to work reliably, it does need to seat tight in a nicely finished hole, and I think the items in question were intended to be used almost as rotary scrapers to finish the pin seating. They aren't modern - probably a pre-WW1 solution. Why they have a round shank and not a square for a tap wrench I really don't know.

Standard taper pins are 1 in 48 taper, or 0.250" per foot of length, if that helps to check the taper of the tools.

 

[novocaine]

sprue forms made from random offcuts.

 

[AES]

I'm not sure, but I have one which is a lot smaller than yours but otherwise looks "similar". Mine has a transverse hole at the top (for a tommy bar) and I use it for opening out holes in thin sheet metal - a bit like a step drill but completely manual, not for machine use. Also, I see that yours don't have the tommy bar hole.

But still could be the same general idea as mine but bigger. I always call it a taper reamer but it's not really a reamer, it leaves a much rougher hole than a proper reamer does - the cutting flutes are too far apart round the circumference and the taper IMO too steep to be a "real" reamer. Mine's a bit of a bodging tool (but still useful to overcome a problem now and then).

 

[TFrench]

They are 100% not reamers or cutters - look at the end profile. They are those shapes the whole way along, just tapering.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I don't think they're cutting reamers in the modern sense, more finishing tools, more like (as Marcros suggested) giant clockmakers' broaches.

 

[cowtown_eric]

or morse taper reamers????

Eric