Concertina Tooling identification help.

[JTrower]

Thank you for letting join group. I recently inherited a workbench and lathe (SB 9" 1934) with 3 draws of tooling. This workbench belonged to my great, great, great grand father, Carl Foerster and passed down through Gustav and then Elmer to my mother. Carl immigrated to the US from Germany abt. 1882 eventually settling in Milwaukee Wis. And opening the Foerster and Sons music shop. They built and repaired all types of musical instruments. I have identified a good portion of the tooling from the bench but there are numerous items that escape my knowledge and I'm searching for someone that might be able to identify one or more items. I don't know if any of these are worth restoring or not. Any input would be great. Hope this is acceptable on this sight and category. I'll try to attach a picture of items.. 

[alex_holden]

Interesting. There's a bunch of fly press tooling. I can't identify most of it but I see some punch sets for German-style metal action levers in the middle.

[JTrower]

Alex, thank you for the reply that would be the 4 items in the middle, longer one on left? Levers used when a key was pressed to open airway? I've seen images of wood ones similar in shape. But these have a narrow slot to slip material in I think. I can't see a wood lever that thin lasting. Would a different material have been used or did these make stencils? Kind of an over kill for that, I would think. The 4 screws could open the 1/8 inch gap and tighten down on material I suppose. I'd like to know enough to actual try it out, some how. After material slipped in was it tapped down and through with a mallet or some press machine? The top edge is not damage, as one would suspect if struck with metal hammer over the years. I believe they made over 100 bandoneons, I saw a posting of one identified as 92.

[alex_holden]

2 hours ago, JTrower said:

Alex, thank you for the reply that would be the 4 items in the middle, longer one on left? Levers used when a key was pressed to open airway? I've seen images of wood ones similar in shape. But these have a narrow slot to slip material in I think. I can't see a wood lever that thin lasting. Would a different material have been used or did these make stencils? Kind of an over kill for that, I would think. The 4 screws could open the 1/8 inch gap and tighten down on material I suppose. I'd like to know enough to actual try it out, some how. After material slipped in was it tapped down and through with a mallet or some press machine? The top edge is not damage, as one would suspect if struck with metal hammer over the years. I believe they made over 100 bandoneons, I saw a posting of one identified as 92.

 

That's right, the ones I've seen were punched from aluminium, though older ones might have been brass or tinplate steel. Fly presses were a common tool in victorian workshops. You clamp the two halves of the tool into it, then swing a flywheel attached to a big screw to press them together.

 

 

There's a couple of items near the bottom of the photo that remind me of the top half of a right angle bending die.

https://www.msmw.com/store/p35/Bending_Die_and_Forcer.html

 

 

 

 

[JTrower]

Alex, thank you again. That fly press is amazing. Your info triggered a thought on two pieces and I think I assembled them correct but not sure what the application would have been. And those 3 smaller bits with round shank and different size rectangles fit into the upper part, but I don't have a corresponding bottom plate.

[alex_holden]

The spring loaded plate is a type of stripper plate - it prevents the outer part of the material lifting up when you raise the press ram after punching a hole through it. I'm not sure what part that punch would be used to make. Did they want small squares for something, or were they making square holes in a bigger piece?

[JTrower]

Not sure what they used these square and rectangle punches for. they all passed away before I was old enough to have any memory of them. They did make many kinds of instruments, and their advertising said they repaired all instruments. (I remember stacks of maybe 3 by 5 bellows board 4 or five over a foot high). Could these punches be used for cutting reeds or reed air ways?