Name that jig - SOLVED!

track gauge for someone who lays their own track?

It certainly smells like a track-laying aid - until you get to a curve, then it's useless. So, I wonder. Perhaps used for cutting styrene or wood with X-acto knives in different widths? Maybe someone needed to scratch-build/modify a bunch of passenger cars...

Love stuff like this; a conversation piece, indeed. Hang it on the wall in a shadow box and tell everyone it's a family heirloom.

Great "purchase".

I don't think it has anything to do with track laying. Can you post more pics please, some close ups showing the clamping detail. Might help someone recognize it.

Perhaps a keel holder (backbone) for building sailing ship models?

Bill in FtL

Here's a closeup.

Seems that it is designed to clamp something between the runners. SOME THING!

Bob

It's a torture device for curious forum denizens! 

 I like to build stuff like that to guide my router when I making cabinets and such. However it wouldn't be quite like that?

I would guess that a thin piece of something would slide under and you would just use it as a marking device. So I could see it used for track laying of straights anyways. You'll never know because each carpenter has to engineer something on the fly for a particular job. Unfortunately, it never got labeled for the rest of us!

Could it be used for cutting x number of trestle bents of the same length in one pass, or, you guys that cut your own ties do you use a jig for that?

Thanks guys.  All creative ideas.  In time I may discover a use . . .

RRDOC posted:

At a train show this past weekend I was looking at this jig.  Neither I nor the guy running the table knew what it was for, so he said, "Just take it."

It is 24" long, the lower wood "runner" is fixed and the other is moveable and can lock down with the wing nuts.  The gap between the runners can be 0 to 7/8"

So anyone know what this is for?  Guesses are welcome.

BTW - 3 people stopped me at the train show and asked what it is.  With the 3rd guy, I answered "A conversation starter."

Bob

Seeing this reminds me of the time I walked into the maintenance shop. I had a small odd looking bracket with a threaded bolt hole in it. I put it on the  welders work bench with a note " put this back on asap". I stood back and watched the welder going crazy asking every body in the shop, what's it off of .

RRDOC posted:

Here's a closeup.

Seems that it is designed to clamp something between the runners. SOME THING!

Bob

Thanks for the close up! I'm still leaning away from anything model railroad related. I agree it is a clamp for something, with a range of 0" to about 1". I see why the cross members are raised up off the base, to allow the head of the carriage bolt to move freely. A clamp like this would be able to hold pieces that were tapered, for gluing. Think ships or planes.

Mystery Solved! Go to Model Expo's website, the device is a keel clamp known as a "Fair-a-Frame". It holds the keel of a sailing ship while the frames are being installed, and after that, also while the planks are being put on.

<http://modelexpo-online.com/fa...t-bulkhead-alignment>

I once worked for Model Expo, and it took me a while to find it, since I couldn't remember the correct name.

Bill in FtL

Thanks, Bill.   You nailed it!  Looks like it is missing the topside components.

If any shipbuilders are out there, it is yours (York Pickup).

Bob

"If any shipbuilders are out there, it is yours (York Pickup)."

You could always become a shipbuilder. After all, most of those models only have to sit, not work and take physical abuse like the things in one hobby I could name.

Yar.