What sort of olde machinery is this?

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#2601765 11-Nov-2020 13:38

Sidestep:
Health and Safety Inspector?

Yeah, to make sure the horse was orright. Wouldn't want to risk injury to a valuable horse.

Bung

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#2601767 11-Nov-2020 13:39

That doesn't look like a new wagon or winch and for the time the guy in the suit isn't particularly well dressed. By the '50s the carpenters dad worked with might have lost the tie but still headed to the pub in jacket and hat. The denim rot hadn't set in then :).

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#2601814 11-Nov-2020 13:44

It is a weather ray. One of many ancient technologies that we have lost or forgotten.

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cyril7

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#2601828 11-Nov-2020 14:03

Yeah telegraph pole erector gets my vote, when it's not lifting long carrots.

Cyril

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#2601830 11-Nov-2020 14:07

1024kb:
It is a weather ray. One of many ancient technologies that we have lost or forgotten.

Naah, can't be a weather ray, if you look at the alignment of the sliding paff gongbudger it's all wrong. The absence of a Yarp snoother would also argue against it being a weather ray, unless it's one of the newer ones with reciprocating wirewove gorbles.

Stu

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#2601834 11-Nov-2020 14:20

You're all off. It's obviously a lightning collector with prototype integrated flux capacitor for a time machine. This is backed up by the fact that you can clearly see that the chap in the suit has a mobile phone in his pocket.

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Fred99

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#2601886 11-Nov-2020 15:17

A couple of old photos/diagrams:

Insulators:

The cable slides past the insulator, secured to it with tie wires.

I think they're tensioning cables while they're being tied to insulators on poles. If they were tied off to the poles and couldn't slide then there's be a lot of leverage on the poles near the end, so you'd probably do a run tensioning and tying wires to many poles at one time, the gantry means you're pulling the wire in a straighter line, the winch probably gives better control of tension / more purchase than relying on a horse, as per the first photo.

Of course this could be 100% wrong.

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Fred99

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#2601901 11-Nov-2020 15:34

Final suggestion, post the photo in a popular forum with the claim that it is something it probably isn't - like saying "This is the first electric power lines in the Southern Hemisphere being tensioned while attaching to poles in Reefton, circa 1888"

People on forums are far more likely to respond if they've got proof you're wrong, than they are to congratulate you by affirming when you're right. This quirk of human nature is an undeniable fact.

Stu

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#2601915 11-Nov-2020 15:55

Fred99:

A couple of old photos/diagrams:

Insulators:

The cable slides past the insulator, secured to it with tie wires.

I think they're tensioning cables while they're being tied to insulators on poles. If they were tied off to the poles and couldn't slide then there's be a lot of leverage on the poles near the end, so you'd probably do a run tensioning and tying wires to many poles at one time, the gantry means you're pulling the wire in a straighter line, the winch probably gives better control of tension / more purchase than relying on a horse, as per the first photo.

Of course this could be 100% wrong.

Whilst you could perform tensioning with the device in the OP (it's just a winchy thing and even if that's not what it's for, it'd still do the job!), the image shows the device pulling in the wrong direction to tension lines on the line of poles in the background. For tensioning you pull in a straight line (as in the image you posted), otherwise you'd still pull against the insulator that's closest to the tensioner, either damaging the insulator mount, cross arm, or the wire, at least.

It's been a while, but we used a come-along with clamps like these in the '80s/'90s. From memory (and that's fading) it was attached to the last pole in the run, and clamped to the messenger wire on the side of the cable (or directly on to each wire for the older single strand unsheathed used for party lines etc). Anything other than close to a straight line meant applying tension at different points and binding the messenger to the insulator, and working your way to the end of the line.

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#2601925 11-Nov-2020 16:06

Fred99:
People on forums are far more likely to respond if they've got proof you're wrong, than they are to congratulate you by affirming when you're right. This quirk of human nature is an undeniable fact.

Formalised in the dictum "The way to get information on the Internet isn't to post a question but to post the wrong answer".

MikeAqua

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#2601927 11-Nov-2020 16:09

My issue with the pole lifting/line tensioning theory is the pole or line being pulled is a long way out in that paddock. I'm basing that on the height above the paddock of the A frame. the angle of the cable and the stays which are presumably parallel to the direction of the load. So if it is a power line, it's running 90 degree to the poles visible in the picture.

Mike

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#2601931 11-Nov-2020 16:14

Could it be the guy winching the Waikato closer to Auckland? That could be how the Bombay hills were formed.

Fred99

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#2601942 11-Nov-2020 16:35

MikeAqua:

My issue with the pole lifting/line tensioning theory is the pole or line being pulled is a long way out in that paddock. I'm basing that on the height above the paddock of the A frame. the angle of the cable and the stays which are presumably parallel to the direction of the load. So if it is a power line, it's running 90 degree to the poles visible in the picture.

Like this?

rogercruse

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#2601971 11-Nov-2020 17:22

An early instance of 5G Antenna installation perhaps?

neb

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#2602258 11-Nov-2020 20:55

I showed it to my neighbour who grew up on a farm in the 1940s and he suggested that the high angle would be to pull something over soft ground. If you look at the row of rocks along the edge of the field it looks like they've just been piled there haphazardly rather than being a wall, so removed from the field and dumped at the edge. If you attached a rope to a heavy load and pulled horizontally it'd bury itself in the ground but by pulling upwards it'd slide over the ground to where you want it to go, in this case the edge of the field.

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