And this is ...
 

Gentlemen,
While i browse the web and find the name of this device in both Portuguese and English, just have a look to it and guess what this is for.


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You could certainly use this item as a nutcracker but I'm sure that this device is made for another purpose :confused:
corrado26

a thingamy holder, the weighted arm is unhooked from the storage bar and placed on whatever needs holding while you work on it doing whatever you do to thingamies. is that a drain channel i see around the circular impression in the wood? is the V=notch deliberate or a broken bit? something small need pressing & draining: aha! an ancient walnut squeezer for making walnut oil one nut at a time...;).

A suggestive guess, assuming the nuts are premium size ;).
This is a sturdy thing altogether. The 'machine' weighs 10,2 Kg and the bench 11,3 Kg. with a height of 84 cms (bench only).

It's a setup used to make gold leaf.

Small pieces of pure gold are interleaved with chamois or some other leather and stacked up. This stack is hammered until the gold is so thin it becomes somewhat translucent, and thin enough to float in the air in a gentle breeze.

I bow to your knowledge. This is what the seller told me when i fell in love with this apparatus... and acquired it. The romantic text goes well with it. I still don't know if there is a an actual name for this tool ... in either language. The seller is a carpenter by profession; i will ask him if he can identify the wood. Its age is not modern at all: 19th century ... if not prior.

I should have said your guess was not in vain, Wayne; i have learnt a new word :cool: .

thingamies or thingies for short are a form of doohickey or doodad. all come under the generic heading of whatchamacallits. sometimes alternatively spelled as thingummy. had a friend that had a real nice doohicky rabbernacker. very useful it was too. we never figured out useful for what tho or what you were doing if you were rabbernacking.

I thank you, Fernando.

Your "gizmo" is similar to a spring hammer used in silversmithing to stretch and thin silver sheet. When you're faced with hours of hammering to achieve a mundane but necessary task, the spring allows you to develop a rhythm and concentrate on nuancing the blows rather than wearing yourself out.

A nice find!

Thank you for further commenting on this type of 'geringonças'. The seller also had a device for stretching gold wire, but it was incomplete and not so appealing as this one. His atempt on the wood used would be oak or cork oak.
I am trying to know further details trough the local owner of a gold museu; things like how the gold beating operation is called over here, the name of the machine, possible age and so; so far no resuilt.

Possibly a dumaflache; personally, I question the spelling, and prefer doomaflatchie. but what do I know?