Be the first to guess what the pictured item is by leaving a comment below. If you have your own whatsit, our editors can include it in a future post. Please send an email to editor@kovels.com and attach a clear picture, the size and any markings. Hopefully, we will be able to identify it for our readers!
The pictured item seems to be approx. 10 inches high.
Note: For those of you who signed up to get notified of each response (by checking the “Notify me of follow-up comments” box in the “Add Comments” section) and find it’s generating too much email, you can unsubscribe to the “Whatsitwednesday” comments by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in the “Whatsitwednesday” email you receive.
welder /blowtorch
I thought for sure this was a cigarette lighter for giants.
This is a blow torch – I have one. They used to take paint off a house – many a house burnt down because of them unfortunately.
It is a blow torch and not a bee hive smoker. The little tray was used to start the torch and also was used by plumbers to melt the lead they used in pipe work. They had many uses and most every tool shed had one or two or maybe three depending upon what they were doing. In Arizona and Oklahoma, I went along the sidewalks and other areas burning goat heads (burrs) to keep them from getting into my bike tires which made the tires flat and in Colorado I used them to melt the ice off the steps (before ice melt). Worked great. Still have one but haven’t used in long time as propane torch is much easier.
The item is a blow torch, marked “The Turner Brass Works / No. 324 / Sycamore, Ill. U.S.A.” and “Clayton Lambert, Detroit.”
I’ve seen this b-4, it’s a blowtorch……. 🙂
It’s a blowtorch. My dad use to have one.
I agree with some of the others – it is a blow torch.
To me it looks like an old bee smoker. My grandfather was a beekeeper.
I don’t know, before I saw other people’s answers, I was inclined to think it was a smoker for bee hives.
old brazing torch
Detroit Torch & Mfg. Co. Michigan Brass Blowtorch
Why is the time set 4 hours ahead of actual time? I just posted at 8:23 PM, yet it appears as 12:23 AM, tomorrow?? This Chinese Communist Party Virus even has the clocks screwed up!
It’s an antique blow torch.
How can all the answers below have come in, first one at “4-22 at 9:24 PM”? It is only 8:20 PM as I look at it and my clocks??? Great times on this website.
Old blow torch. This one was easy. I think I have one in the garage.
Yes, it’s a blowtorch. My grandfather had a plumbing/heating business, and my Mom, sister & I lived with them during WWII. I remember seeing one (or more) of these and recognized it right away. I’m pretty sure my Dad had one too (maybe one of my Grandfather’s.)
Blow torch
It’s an old blowtorch from the first half if not the first quarter of the 20th centuary. The little tray under fire tube was to heat parafin to help ignition when first started, after which is became self heating. I still use one myself sometimes as it’s an economical way of heating large surfaces.
Too easy, an old blow torch.
It looks like an older blow torch; when I was younger (in the 1940s and later) painters used this to remove old paint from the exterior of homes before they painted them.
It’s a blow torch. My grandfather had some of these and my brother and I use to play around with them when we were kids. The left side has a pump to pressurize the container and the larger handle at the upper section is to adjust the flame. I don’t remember what the fuel was but think it was kerosene or white gas.
I recall seeing this in my Grandfather’s garage. (( I am 70 so a long time ago) I think it was a garden sprayer but nor sure what it sprayed? Insecticide, weed killer?
It’s a blow torch for soldering heavy metal or heating metal for bending, heating roofing tar to seal seams, etc. It’s brass (except the wooden handle to control the flame). The pump at back pressurizes the fuel (alcohol, gasoline, etc.) I recall my father using one.
Plumbers blow torch
it’s an old blow torch