Pantograph Model?
Trying to identify this item. It appears to be a pantograph but I am not sure if it is a working model, salesman’s sample, patent model, or something unrelated to those. It was in a collection of items from various letterpress shops.
All of the functions work as relate to moving parts. The heights of the needles are adjustable. The lower tray is on a swivel mechanism and can be leveled using the thumbscrew mechanisms below it. The needle mechanism moves freely on a rack gear mechanism.
The wooden base is 12” x 14” and has a metal tag marked Henry Zuhr. Some research on Zuhr lists him as a Patent and Mechanical Model maker in the early 1900s.
If anyone can provide information on this item please contact me through this site or text me at (516) 633-5107.
I’d like to know if this is strictly a model or if it can serve some type of function. I have this on consignment from a friend who is interested in selling it so please also respond if you need further info in that regard.
Thanks
Nice! Looks like some kind of scientific equipment purpose-built for a customer. From the internet, it looks like Zuhr did a lot of things in a very capable machine shop.
Not a Pantograph per se, as they tent to be motorized, this basically scratches with a sharp needle, a pattern is placed left and the substrate was scratched by following the Pattern. Often used as a First Tracing on Copperplate for Hand engraving or Hand pushing a Carte de Visite. pretty comon around the Turn of the century, 2 back, we ‘re at 2020.
Mr Zuhr my have used this pantograph to copy patterns from sketches onto metal to cut out later or to put his logo on patented parts. Since the round platform rotates it seems as if it was quite capable of being used as a hand powered rose engine of sorts. There is a nice video of a gentleman introducing several rose engines and geometric lathes from that era and giving some demonstrations of their uses on Youtube at;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJv0KpuDR1g
It certainly looks as though it has been well used for some type of copying process and there was definitely a bit of engineering that went into the central brass unit. Unfortunately folks who find and collect these things and are unaware of their usage frequently leave behind samples and templates that should be kept together with the unit that would illustrate their function. So if you find some unique looking machine, look around for anything that might go with it.
Bruce
Thanks to all the members who provided info on this topic.