Ceramic Pipe Things

[DiggerBug]

Found these this week while hunting. I found the cleaned one first and thought it might be an old clay tobacco pipe stem but the hole was too big. Found the others a couple of days later.
Maybe they were used for some kind of electrical insulators?







Thanks for looking and HH!

 

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[mojjax]

I forgot what there are called , but they use to wire houses with them in the ''olden'' days . I think they drilled holes in the wall studs and ran wires through those tubes . I think it's called ''ball and tube wiring "

 

[RELICDUDE07]

wire insulators/ i have found alot of them in old homes inside the wood beams to keep the heat from the wire at a safe temp ..

 

[Tubecity]

Good guess, I didn't know by looking at the pictures until I read the first reply.
I think you're right & I believe they called it 'knob & tube'.

 

[DiggerBug]

That's so ironic. It seems that almost all the houses in the dig area burned.
Guess they didn't work too well.

Thanks ya'll and Happy Hunting/Holidays

 

[mojjax]

That's so ironic. It seems that almost all the houses in the dig area burned.
Guess they didn't work too well.

Thanks ya'll and Happy Hunting/Holidays

Here's a link I found - looks like quite a cluster-phu#k . They stopped it around the 40's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knob_and_tube_wiring

 

[PBK]

Here's another site with some good information on "wall tube" insulators:

http://r-infinity.com/Wall Tubes/

 

[999slvrfx]

They were used in telephone work also, Where the phone wire went through the siding
to protect the wire. The older phone wire had a cloth and rubber coating and was easy
to damage. Made the wire easier to replace if needed.

 

[DiggerBug]

Wow ya'll, thanks for the links! That's so cool!