What is this tool?

Geo-TH,In

Well-known Member
Friend gave me this tool. I have no idea what it's for.
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I don't want to spoil it so early . but it's initials are P.P. and is used with a forklift ...
 
I'm going to guess railroad rail lifter. Could also be a pallet puller as suggested, but those usually have pads with small spikes on the jaw to grip the pallet.
AaronSEIA
 
I have two of them in the barn, I don't think they are pallet puller, first off I have used many pallet pullers and they had a bit different jaws, and second when I tried to use one to pull a pallet in a pinch it didn't work well.
 
Could also be a stump puller--I've got one my grandfather had that looks very similar. Works good on the 3-point with small sapling-sized stumps, such as when clearing hedgerows or brush.
 
Came close.....lift rail for railroad track. Holds onto the "crown" of the rail. Most rail today is 140 or to you and I that is 140 pounds per 3 feet of length. Now go pick up an 18 0r 20 foot piece of it. !! You need two of these with a long spreader to lift correctly. Played track gang one summer when I was WAY younger. They can be used for other things too. I have real "ice" tongs that work great to pick up small chunks of logs when you are splitting. Don't slip out of your hands and you get extra purchase on the wood. Pipe wrenches make good hammers too. You get the drift.
 
Not a pallet puller. With a grab end like that you will split or destroy the center 2x4. I think as stated for rails
 
A pic. of newer style clamp. Yours are pretty old. Nice tools though. These newer ones have safety latches and are adjustable for small to full size rail. A chunk of rail makes a very nice little anvil!
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jeffcat,
It may have been a RR tool, then someone ground off the blunt ends and converted it into something else, like a stump puller?

I recently purchased a brush grabber, which works well on trees that are an inch or two in diameter, but not on smaller ones.

I may give this a try pulling out Asian honeysuckle, but I have my doubts it will be any better than use backhoe to dig them out.
 
I have no idea what it was made for but, if it was a rail lifting tool would it not have a heavier chain and more clearance between the jaws?
 
Just remember, way back rail was much lighter. Civil war time heavy rail was 80 lbs. per 3 feet. Many items were hand forged and not always heavy enough to be safe by todays standards. Maybe this was for small diameter pipe? Just looks like what we used many years ago for rail and a little burrows crane. See how many mistery questions have popped up.
 
Thanks for your input. May be just something that hangs on barn wall and someone in the future will ask, "What that?"
 
Dick , I'm with you , that is light duty chain. But the other guys are right about the gripping pads on the jaws , I'm not so sure of its use now either.
 
Interesting side note to jeffcat's posts--never having heard of a "burrows crane" I did a bit of Googling and I'm fairly certain he's referring to a Burro crane, which I HAD heard of, just not for a long time, which got me looking. Video below was narrated by the company owner, whom I think you'll agree should be an authority on the subject. There's quite a few shots of rail lifters, which were one of the crane accessories the company also made, but none like yours. Bit over half an hour and not the greatest picture or sound quality owing to its age and the fact a lot of the footage was just amateur home-movie stuff from long ago, but VERY interesting. Watch them moving 1700 feet of welded rail into position like a long piece of spaghetti! There's also enough things to give a safety inspector the shivers (one guy demonstrating the crane's short tail swing by standing between the swinging crane and a train moving by on the next track is a good example) but that was how you ran a railroad in those days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftDUUkI_q48
 

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