What is this? 2-28

[remrogers]

I should also ask, what it is used for?

[coyote101]

Hide puller?

Pat

[FinsnFur]

Yep I'm with Pat. Looks like a leather stretching tool to me.

[Hawks Feather]

what it is used for?

While normally used for stretching leather, it is occasionally used for pulling the skin of a person's backside back in place after doing something stupid and having it ripped by the significant other.

[remrogers]

It pulls something, but it isn't leather.

[remrogers]

What do I need to do, paint you a picture???

[Hawks Feather]

What do I need to do, paint you a picture???

Of course not. My wife was an art major and I helped her us one of these in 1970. 

[coyote101]

What do I need to do, paint you a picture???

Ok, how about stretching canvas?

Pat

[Hawks Feather]

And it looks like we have a winner.   

[remrogers]

Coyote101 figured this one out. This was used to stretch canvas over stretcher bars for paintings:

[Hawks Feather]

The frames were most commonly made of wood and needed to have the corners reinforced to withstand the initial stretching of the canvas. The canvas was pretreated and then tacked from the center of one side toward an edge. Too much stretching and the canvas would pull - too little and there would be wrinkles.  Sometimes or if you had enough money there would be stretching frames made and after the canvas dried it would be transferred to a different frame to be painted.

Now you know the rest of the story.

[FinsnFur]

Jerry you savage