Heavy Brass (New pics added)

[CrustyClad]

Found this today, it was about 6" down, I have no clue what it could be, but in the same area i was also getting large cast iron or steel fragments, I wish I would of kept some of the iron pieces too.... These pieces were all found out in the middle of a large pasture...

Thanks for the help....

 

[Breezie]

Re: Heavy Brass

It's hard to tell from the pics since it is not cleaned-up, but it looks like a clock pendulum. Are there letters on the edge as shown in the 2nd pic? If it is brass, a lemon juice should clean it. Breezie

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Re: Heavy Brass

It looks like a threaded cap (bung) for something like a barrel or tank.

Thats my guess but its hard to see with the corrosion.

 

[NOLA_Ken]

Re: Heavy Brass

Old cannonball fuse? what did the iron bits look like?

 

[CrustyClad]

Re: Heavy Brass

you know what they did have some what of a round curvature to the pieces and the pieces looked to be torn apart from each other, so a cannon ball fuse is possible....

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Re: Heavy Brass

Civil war (and earlier) projectiles and fuzes have been my "specialty area" of study, for several decades. Sorry to have to say, what you found is definitely not a cannonball fuze.

The object appears to be made of brass, or perhaps copper. Is that a correct guess, or is it some other metal?

Please do as much as you can to remove all of the raining dirt/crud, because it is obscuring details which could help ID the object. Then post more photos.

At the moment, I'd have to it "most resembles" a bung (a barrel closure plug), as BigCypressHunter suggested. But as NOLA_Ken sorta suggested, it also somewhat resembles a 20th-century artillery shell fuze (no cannonballs are known to have been used on any 20th-century battlefield). Let's see what additional details which further cleaning might reveal.

 

[CrustyClad]

Re: Heavy Brass

I was able to clean it up a bit by soaking it in some lemon juice, and i am not sure if it is copper or brass but it sure is heavy.....

 

[PChammer]

Looks like an old automotive cooling plug to me.

 

[NOLA_Ken]

I'd say, go back to where you dug it, and pick up the iron, that may help id it..... still think maybe part of an old artillery fuse, BUT I've been known to be wrong on occasion..,..... Good luck with the id though.....

 

[taz42o]

Maybe part of an old brass carburetor, the small piece that screws into it looks a lot like a metering jet.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Re: Heavy Brass

Old cannonball fuse? what did the iron bits look like?

Cannonballguy said its not from a cannonball but maybe from a laterday shell? Heres your link. http://www.civilwarartillery.com/inventors/armstrong.htm

Crustyclad what state was this found?

 

[timekiller]

Looks like some kind of lock for door to me.Sorta like this but yours is older of course.
Take Care,
Pete,

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Looks like some kind of lock for door to me.Sorta like this but yours is older of course.
Take Care,
Pete,

The locks used on glass storefront doors have similar threads.

 

[timekiller]

Looks like some kind of lock for door to me.Sorta like this but yours is older of course.
Take Care,
Pete,

The locks used on glass storefront doors have similar threads.

That's sorta what I was think BCH,& would thread from the inside of the lock so could not be removed without taking the whole lock apart.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Looks like some kind of lock for door to me.Sorta like this but yours is older of course.
Take Care,
Pete,

The locks used on glass storefront doors have similar threads.

That's sorta what I was think BCH,& would thread from the inside of the lock so could not be removed without taking the whole lock apart.

Yea I used to do commercial evictions. There is a way to remove those locks. I would thread the front piece off to install a new lock. It was held in place with tiny setscrews. The overall size and threads look similar. Im not sure its a keyhole though. Kinda large for a carburetor part. It may just be a bung plug vent.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

CrustyClad, thank you for cleaning the object more thoroughly, and making and posting additional photos.

First... I'm now certain the object is made of brass -- even though it looks copper-ish. Very strong soil-acidity can leach Zinc molecules out of the surface of brass (which an alloy of zinc and copper), resulting in the suface of the brass looking copper-ish. The test of that is to make a small scrape on the surface, and see if there's a yellow color just below the surface in the scrape.

The new photos show details which at least somewhat indicate NOLA-Ken may have been on the right track (except for the "cannonball" attribution). The newly-visible details somewhat indicate the object might be a part of a World War One/Two era US artillery shell fuze.

I've had to keep saying "somewhat" in the writing above because I'll have to do some additional research ...and because I need at least two more photos, and an answer to another question.

On the sloping outer edge of the object, I seem to see an oval-shaped hole, which may have iron inside it (or perhaps that's just concretion in the hole). CrustyClad, is there only one such hole on the sloping edge, or two such holes there? If possible, please post a photo showing a "straight-down-on-it" view of the object's upper side.

Also, please post a photo showing a "90-degree sideview" of the object. By that, I mean, set the object on the very edge of a table, then lean down and shoot a perfectly-horizontal view of the object -- not even slightly "above" the object. That will show us how much the center of the object sticks up above the rest of it.

Then, I will send all your photos to a good friend who was an officer in a US Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit, to see if he recognizes the object as a 20th-Century artillery shell fuze. (I know civil war fuzes really well, but not so much about 20th-Century ones.)

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Maybe its bronze.

 

[mindcrime1988]

While I cannot tell you exactly what it is, I can tell you that it is part of an ordnance. It is either from a grenade or bomb of some sort. I find them quite often during my metal detecting journeys here in Germany. I've enclosed a photo of one of mine and it's a spot on match!!! Obviously the ones I find were used during WWII but there's no guarantee yours is the same age.

 

[NOLA_Ken]

guess I should have said artillery shell, rather than cannonball. At least it's looking like I might have been on the right track, even if the wrong era.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

NOLA_Ken wrote:
> Guess I should have said artillery shell, rather than cannonball.
> At least it's looking like I might have been on the right track, even if the wrong era.

Yes, you were on the right track, and I publicly gave you credit. (See post #15 in this discussion.)

Now that we have solid confirmation of the object's basic ID and time-era, courtesy of Mindcrime1988, I can say congratulations to you for being the first to head in the right direction about it.