[wademaster]

I'm spent. I covered eleven miles today in trails not counting wading and the usual rock crawling/hopping. Got started at daylight.
Caught fish. Lost fish. Found an old *** metal something. Any ideas what it is?
Great day but I'm exhausted. All today's traveling was done on 4 hours sleep. Can't remember ever being this tired.













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[Fish_Fiend]

Nice work my man! That looks like an OLD OLD smelting pot? Melt down lead to cast balls ammunition.

 

[RouseD]

A trip like that would probably finish me off. Great job on the catch and awesome photos.

 

[jonathan creason]

Some good-looking ground you're covering there. The coloration on those fish is beautiful, too.

 

[mikeski]

First thought was a dutch oven. With there being what looks like 4 bolt hole tabs. I'm thinking it was a pipe cap.

mikeski

 

[wademaster]

I was kind of thinking maybe some type of hub for a wheel. Probably not correct but it was the first thing that came to mind.

 

[Whitewater]

Beautiful wild bows! We caught a couple of those in the Smokies over the weekend, so much fun and so beautiful when ya pull them out of the water. It's hard to get a picture to do them justice. Always worth the hike... No bears this time? Wildlife?

 

[wademaster]

Beautiful wild bows! We caught a couple of those in the Smokies over the weekend, so much fun and so beautiful when ya pull them out of the water. It's hard to get a picture to do them justice. Always worth the hike... No bears this time? Wildlife?

Not much to speak of. Seen some deer on the way in and a pileated woodpecker. That's about it for the wildlife.

 

[dbeam]

I would guess part of a differential gear box, possibly off of an old car rear end. Although the four tabs don't look quite right it might have been altered for use as a forge.

Great fish and beautiful scenery Thanks for sharing.

Darrell

 

[Fish_Fiend]

https://www.google.com/search?q=civ...OMMmYNsXwgcgE&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg&biw=360&bih=559

 

[dbeam]

I was thinking that the four tabs may have been places to let tooling rest while the metal in the forage got hot. And that the hole in the bottom was where the air came through the coals. The thing about artifacts from that time, is that most thing were made from other things that had lost their usefulness. You may every well be dead on Gene, what ever it is it's still a neat find.

Darrell

 

[Swampin']

To me it looks like a hub for a tire or more likely some sort of hub like bracket for an old mill of some kind.

 

[Fish_Fiend]

That's why I linked the images. Those things have all shapes and sizes. And like you said it could have been something else that was repurposed. Not uncommon for guys to smelt lead and then cook biscuits from the same dutch oven back then. Lead consumption was a very real problem on the battlefield.

 

[dbeam]

http://www.historytoday.com/sheila-rowbotham/canned-food-sealed-icemens-fate

Darrell

 

[RouseD]

Darrell, I saw a program on this a few years back.

 

[dbeam]

makes me wonder how many times I can get by with biting split shot.

Darrell

 

[Sovran]

Great pics. There is nothing like spring.

The old metal thing is a pump outside housing. The center hole was the inlet at one time. Probably tossed due to the broken bolt tab and powered by a gas engine. This type of pump was often used for shine stills or gold prospecting. I will let you guess which.

 

[wademaster]

Thanks guys.