Mystery Equipment - what are they?

[Dave Hughes]

Many thanks to John Nixon from the Printing Museum in Wellington, New Zealand http://www.theprintingmuseum.org.nz who stumbled across these items while having a massive tidy up.

He knows we like a mystery item challenge here on Metal Type, so does anyone know what these items are?

[Dave Hughes]

I think the red and green machine looks like a bit of a hybrid and my guess is that it was used to renovate/refurbish ink rollers.

[John Nixon]

Time for a couple of hints I think.

We all used the product from the green machine at school.

The item in the box would have been used in the Linotype room - usually by a skilled mechanic.

Cheers - John

[Mechanic]

John This is a reasonably competent mechanic that has no idea of what is in the box. It looks like it was used to cut down the height or width of something long.
As for the other I must have skipped school that day.

[Dave Hughes]

Is the first machine something to do with pencils (I'm keeping it vague deliberately!) and the second to do with restoring keyboard rollers?

[Eric Holub]

The boxed unit could be for cutting Linotype matrix teeth and distributor slots.