An April Whatzit

[Jeff]

Can you guess what this is from this first photo?

[Gilman]

A roller for building really small pyramids?

[twoodward15]

It's an auger handle.  Like the one that Dick P. made in "alone in the wilderness"

[Tom]

Wildflower's Thumper?

[Jeff]

Um, No.

[Jeff]

Another clue.

[sprucebunny]

A wooden drill bit case.


A thing for packing dynamite sticks with powder ??? ;D

[dewwood]

Fly rod case.

[Tom]

I'm thinkin' it might be a misery whip handle.

[getoverit]

an apple coring tool

[Tom]

it's gotta be a case of some sort with a lid .

You didn't find some more Dead Sea Scrolls, did you?

.....or would that be Joseph Smith scrolls.....?

[Jeff]

O.K.  It is a case. Now what's inside?  This is Forest Products related...

[beenthere]

a thermometer

[Tom]

A coreing device for reading the rings of trees.  ???

[Murf]

If it's a thermomometer I sure hope it's the oral kind, it looks awrrfly large ........ 

[getoverit]

maybe a hydrometer

[Jeff]

Maybe getover it is getting close.    Need more then that...

[Ernie_Edwards]

If it's a hydrometer it could be either a sap or a syrup hydrometer, depending on the scale.

[Jeff]

Close enough! And its an oldie!

[getoverit]

;D ;D ;D

[beenthere]

Whatcha measuring?
Maybe a

saccharometer

[Ernie_Edwards]

That one's a beaut. What is the range of numbers on it?

[Jeff]

No range Ernie, just one mark. Anyone knoe more about the exact function then I would after seeing the mark?

[beenthere]

This wikipedia explanation on hydrometer might help. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrometer

Floating yours in water will let you know if the water is above or below that mark, as the water should be close to a 1.
Then you can decide possibly what the specific gravity of that mark represents. Might have to mix up some 'brew' to check it out further. 

[Murf]

Hey Boss, if that hydrometer has just one target reading, 22, and assuming it is Brix scale, it would be for something like fruit juice, not Maple syrup which hasd a Brix reading of about 66 to 68.

In fact with such a specific target it makes me think it came from a winery, 22 is the target range for grape juice that is to be made into first-class hooch.  ;D

Did it maybe come from an area known for vinyards?  :

Maybe some wine nut would trade ya' a coupla bottles of da good stuff fer it.

[Jeff]

Well, we have vinyards within a couple hours of here but this came from a local estate sale off the garage bench. There was also old maple syrup buckets and taps.

[Murf]

I've never measured it, but mebbe da sap has a sugar content of 22 Brix?  :

[beenthere]

Be learnin something new everyday. When looking up info on the Brix scale, found this about other scales as well.

http://www.sizes.com/units/hydrometer.htm

[Jeff]

Thats what I'm wondering, and Ernie mentioned that earlier about the scale weather it would be syrup or sap, maybe he knows. He also might now about the wine since he is right on top of the wine country int Michigan. I'm just speculating what it was due to the other objects in the same vicinity.

I think it is safe to say its a hydrometer though and not a non-oral thermometer. :D

[Ernie_Edwards]

I'm certainly no expert on maple syrup but I have used 2 types of hydrometers in the processing.

My first hyd. is a sap hyd. that will give you the brix or sugar content of the sap as you get it from the tree. It has a range of numbers from 0.0 to 10.2. This year my trees averaged brix readings of 2.2 which from the chart tells me that for 1 gal of syrup you need to boil off( evaporate)39.09 gal of sap. Some trees were as high as brix of 2.6 which necessitates 33.08 gal of sap/ gal. syrup. This is where being an engineer gets in the way of just having fun making syrup. Deep inside I want to chart all the trees and see how they trend, eventually not tapping the trees with a low brix, causing more boiling time. My evaporator will evaporate 20 gal per hour if you stay on top of the fire.

The second hydrometer is the syrup one. I actually have two of them, one with a range of  25.0 to 40.0 and the other with a range of 0.0 to 50.0. The second one I use to tell when the syrup in the evaporator needs to be drawn off. I try to start taking off when it just bumps above 30.0 and keep drawing off till the readings drop to 28.0.  The drawn off syrup is put in a finishing pan heated by a propane stove which allows good control of the finishing heat. While finishing I then use the other hydrometer as it has finer calibration to tell me when the syrup is at 32 brix at which point it is canned.
Murf mentioned a brix of 66 to 68. Those numbers I wonder might be a metric reading , I am not sure.

Don't know anything about making wine as I can't get past the first step of getting the grape vines to grow/produce. One more interesting thing to squeeze into this lifetime.

The hydrometer you found is real special looking, I like how the bottom is shaped, pride of workmanship. And the case is special too. Nice thing to have on the shelf at home.

[Murf]

Hey Boss, I did a little more snoopigating.   :P

I found out, as Ernie already said, that maple sap is usually around the 2% mark, Brix BTW appears to correlate directly to sugar content, ie Brix 67 means it's 67% sugar by volume, and the only thing that I can find which is about the 22% mark is fruit juice.

In fact I found a few references to 22% being the ideal target for grape juice to make wine out of, in fact several sources talked of blending different batches of juice to obtain exactly 22%.

So, it looks like you have a genuine, or would that be a genu-wine, hooch-ometer.  ;D

[DoubleD]

Murf is the winner 8)
I used to work in a wine "manufacturing" some years ago and I had the opportunity to use the hydrometer it works by the density of the liquid where it is dipped.
The more used scale is Brix because when the sugar content decrease of one Brix degree the grape juice developed one alcoholic degree. The hydrometer that I used had the scale all long the body, probably Jeff's hydrometer was used to select a better grade of grape juice (and then to produce a better wine) after the grapewine was "pressed"
I hope that you will understand something  ;D ;D ;D

[Murf]

Woooo hoooo   8)

I'm a wiener, i'm a weiner!!!!

Errr, um, wait a minute, that didn't come out right.  :

So Bossman, what'sa chances you can test dat der Hooch-ometer out an have a batch o' vino wipped up in 107 days.

Hey DoubleD, what kinda vino goes best with roasted piggy?  :

[DoubleD]

I suggest  vino Barbera  3 years old passed in barrique, but I don't know what kind of wine do you have overthere so you could choose a red strong wine to go with the piggy
Yum really good  ;D
now I am hungry....  ;D :D :D

[Murf]

Hmm, 3 years huh?

Oh well, Piggy Roast 2009 I guess it is ..........   

[DoubleD]

Murf da Boss could some vino in 107 days if some of our friend down under send him some grapevine  :D ;D ;D

P.S. if I am not wrong in Australia and New Zealand is fall  ??? ??? ???

[Jeff]

Well then, the thing doesn't really fit into my scheme of collectibles. :-\

Hey! What a minute!  I bet its a hydrometer used by loggers to make wine! Thats it! Thats what it is!

[Tim L]

Nobody look, I think my ignorance is showing ! YOU GUYS ARE FIRING WAY OVER MY HEAD !

[Jeff]

Yea yer right Tim, I don't know what snoopigating means either. :-\  ;)

[Murf]

Boss, a more likely story would be it was used by retired loggers who started a winery after they cut down the trees and planted a vineyard.  :

BTW, snoopigating is a combination of snooping and investigating, it's a little of both, kinda like when da meeeses whoopticates me when she finds me snoopigating insteader researching pond liners fer her new garden pond I got volunteered ta build........ but dats fer annuder story.  :-\

[SwampDonkey]

I think I remember seeing one that my grandmother had. I can't remember her using it. Have to ask my uncle some time. For some reason, I'm thinking they also used them for making candy.