Found Object
Hmm… So what is this hunka metal? The pigs dug it up in the field. Ideas?
Outdoors: 31°F/10°F 6″ Snow
Tiny Cottage: 67°F/65°F
Daily Spark: There is a saying, “You make your own luck.” Remember that it cuts both ways, some people also make their own bad luck.
Walter Jeffries Tinker, Tailor… A bit eclectic & a tad eccentric, polymath, quantum mechanic & Farmer. Also lucky at cards.
No idea, but I like the metal-detecting pigs! I’m always bringing home old “junk” I find out in the fields. Maybe soooome day I’ll find a real Civil War relic!
Piece of old rail road rail?
I mostly find broken glass bottles (pretty old, usually smooth edges by now) and beer cans. Our pastures used to be a watermelon patch until 1960 or so.
Looks like a grouser bar off a bulldozer or excavator track
That’s a really good guess as the man we bought our land from had a bulldozer which I’ve found other parts of out in the fields. Or I should say the pigs found the parts.
I don’t know what a grouser bar is . . . but glad you found it! In my northern Missouri “dig” (lol; tongue in cheek) I find pieces of pottery, glass and stonewear. I find metal beer pop tabs. Remember those? I also find railroad spikes and metal farm implement parts. Even horse harness things.
Its a rail road clip of some type. I find these everywhere on the tracks behind my house
Interesting possibility, considering I found it up on the mountain. So perhaps it was picked up by someone and carried for use in something here.
Did the village that used to be on your land have a blacksmith? If so, that piece of metal is big enough it might have been collected for use as recyclable bar stock. It could be literally anything.
It does, however, appear to have evidence of a weld on it. It there is a weld, it’s probably too new to have been recycled bar stock for a smith.
Is it bent, or flat? I’m having a hard time telling for sure.
How big is it, really? I don’t recognize those plants. If I had to guess, I’s say it was around a foot and a half long. It appears to be pretty darn thick for a grouser bar, unless the prior landowner had a mighty big dozer. Also, there aren’t any holes for bolting a grouser bar in place. It’s possible that it might have been welded in place? If that’s the case there should be welds.
My last guess would be that it *might* be the guide bar for a really old single cylinder steam engine. The shaft from the cylinder and the shaft from the wheel come together at a block. The block slides back and forth in the groove of the iron bar.
Here’s what I mean: http://www.aubreysantiques.com/steamengine1oct30-2013.jpg