Bought this industrial looking cutter/shredder today

[Yultanman]

I dont know why but if nothing else itll make a cool showpiece

if any knows anything about it please share.
From what i can figure from pictures on each rotation the blade comes down. On the upswing it clicks the feeder gears by hitting the lever. It looks like maybe a handle on the other end if the lever to advance by hand.
Its the big gear i cant figure out. Im wondering if it maybe drives a conveyor belt or something.
I guess ill know more when its in hand

 

[Knucklehead]

I can’t make out the cutters in your photos but it shares some similarities to antique pea shellers I’ve seen with the handle on a big wheel and two rollers. I can’t pull up the photos I want as the auctions ended and the links are dead. It’s not eBay. Google antique pea shellers and some smaller photos pull up. It is cool whatever it is.
I have an old German Teck 1 shredder I have for backup. It’s pretty cool. It’s like this one:

Vintage "Teck 1" German Tobacco Cutter | Everything But The House

Bid on Vintage "Teck 1" German Tobacco Cutter online at Everything But The House. Bidding on most items starts at $1.

www.ebth.com

 

[Knucklehead]

Photos from an old thread

Teck 1 shredder

Randy I am trying for .0015 to .0025 bed to blade clearance. That is tomorrow's project. I have plenty of shims now, I am just getting a couple of pounds of tobacco into case for a trial run. It should be ready in the morning. Bob

fairtradetobacco.com

 

[Yultanman]

I also bought a teck 1 a while ago. Works fantastic

 

[Yultanman]

Hmm pea sheller. I hope its more for tobacco than peas but agreed. Its cool whatever it is.
Thanks @Knucklehead

 

[Knucklehead]

Hmm pea sheller. I hope its more for tobacco than peas but agreed. Its cool whatever it is.
Thanks @Knucklehead

I honestly have no idea. I just can’t make out any blades from the photos.

 

[deluxestogie]

itll make a cool showpiece

Yup. My immediate thought is that you have an antique silage chopper.

Bob

 

[Yultanman]

I can’t make out the cutters in your photos

This is the best picture i have of the cutting mechanism. Looks like a standard guillotine style with some oomph from thr mechanical advantage the larger wheel give

 

[Knucklehead]

View attachment 34688This is the best picture i have of the cutting mechanism. Looks like a standard guillotine style with some oomph from thr mechanical advantage the larger wheel give

Yeah, I see it now. That should rule out a pea sheller. Can‘t wait to see that in action!

 

[Davo]

Yup. My immediate thought is that you have an antique silage chopper.

Bob

Should work great to granulate perique then

 

[FmGrowit]

I thought it looked like a sugar cane squisher outer.

 

[Yultanman]

Received the machine today. I cant see it being a silage chopper unless maybe for a mink farm or something. Would take you hours to do one corn stock.

the feed space is slightly wider than a teck 1. If it is for tobacco you could definitely cut a stack of leaves with it in one pass.

Still could be for something else. No other ideas here

 

[deluxestogie]

It's a great looking piece of machinery.

Bob

 

[Yultanman]

It's a great looking piece of machinery.

Bob

Thanks Bob. I thought you nailed it with the silage cutter when i looked them up but having the machine in person i cant see that.
The feed mechanism works by a missing finger that moves the larger outside wheel each time the lever lifts with the blade. Ill have to see what i can make for that. It feeds slow testing with my finger acting as the “finger” resting on the lever. You can adjust how many clicks the feed will turn by shortening the travel of the level with a stop screw. This would allow you to adjust the shred width.
I think that leaves were pressed into a box mold maybe 20ish in a stack then fed through. Its a sharp blade and with the mechanical assist from the flywheel size it would have no problem with the stack.
I easily may be wrong because i want it to be for tobacco but i cant think of anything else you would chop in this small quantity. Its a pretty heavy for a kitchen gadget so i cant see that. I wonder if it wasnt from an old general store for shredding on demand.

 

[MarcL]

I like plug cutter from an old general store. Is the feed mechanism height adjust? What was the plug size standards? More pictures of the guts please.

 

[deluxestogie]

Given the elaborate ratchet mechanism to prevent the large, drive wheel from being forced backwards, this seems to be engineered to cut something that is difficult to cut. It comes from the day (mid 1800s) when individual mechanical shops were inventing all sorts of devices, and tended to manufacture each of them as one-off craft items. While the cogwheel gears may also have been individually hand crafted, then filed to fit them together.

Bob

EDIT: Sugar cane juice extractor.

 

[MarcL]

I like it. I remember seeing an ebay lot of 3, plug tobacco that came in individual boxes that looked like long smaller bricks (3'x2'x12' or so) that looks like it would go right in it. .. maybe a board support at the feeder end to lay it on? .. more pix!

 

[Yultanman]

I like plug cutter from an old general store. Is the feed mechanism height adjust? What was the plug size standards? More pictures of the guts please.

no adjustment of the feed height so it must feed something that has some squish to it and not hard pressed.
Here are some more pictures


i do think there was a feed plate/board of some sort. That back brace is right at the correct location.
i also wonder if maybe the feed was belt driven by the feed rollers. That would close up the gap a bit but im still thinking a lightly pressed destemmed stack of half leaves would go through perfect just by hand starting them in the rollers
I put my finger on the missing part spot in the pictures to show how the feed is ratcheted
You can also see the screwstop in the front of the rocker leaver which limits travel and hence feed clicks/shred width

 

[MarcL]

Nice. The fixed feed juncture makes me think plug cutter. One rotation, one slice.
So the move is lay the product, give it a few feeder clicks and give it a turn.

 

[Yultanman]

Nice. The fixed feed juncture makes me think plug cutter. One rotation, one slice.
So the move is lay the product, give it a few feeder clicks and give it a turn.

except the feed is definitely meant to move a few clicks per chop which is hardly anything on the feed wheels. If you were to chop a 2oz chunk if plug it would take 100 or more clicks on the outer wheel to feed enough through. It would be way easier to treat it like a plug cutter: open the blade, push chunk in past blade and then chop.....

now maybe its a combination plug cutter /shredder. That could be why its not quite either of them haha