Posted 8 years ago
missmopar05
(1 item)
Hello! I am attempting to identify this tool. There could be parts missing, like a handle. The inside is threaded and hollow, as shown on the x-ray, and the top component that's broken off has gear teeth like a ratchet. This item was found in a shipping crate full of iron and steel tools off a ship that sank in 1865 on the Pacific coast.
Looks like a filter to me. I would guess that the inside is not threaded, but that what we see is a spring to keep the removable filter from collapsing.
The spring is so tight that it wouldn't allow anything to flow through it if it was inside a hollow filter. The "ratchet" teeth on the flared part, suggest that it was some kind of tensioning device/handle which you twist to "wind up" the spring and the ratchet kept it from unwinding. (In operation there would be a shaft inside, attached to the spring, which the spring drives to turn something.)
You said "in a shipping crate full of iron and steel tools." Are you saying that it was cargo, not of the ship itself? Are you sure it's broken and not two separate parts of the same item?