Can you ID this tool? (Please?)

It looks very similar to my Squadron scribing tool.

stikpusher

It looks very similar to my Squadron scribing tool.

 

Maybe a sculpting tool?

I think it's a crochet hook.

Greg - in your second photo, the close up, it's a little hard for me to tell if you have bare metal that resembles brass or if the color I'm seeing is a reflection of some sort, but it looks as if the shaft has been bent around a bit. If this is the case, my best guess is that your mystery tool is a slightly modified dental instrument called a "gum knife". 

When I was learning to carve jeweler's wax, the instructor would require us to modify dental tools to use on the bench. Carving wax is really a combination of scraping and heating, so very sharp instruments are not all that useful. A gum knife can scrape channels into the wax for setting stones later on and ground to various widths for adding decorative touches. It all depended on what was needed at the moment.

Depending on how this one is ground, it's application for plastic depends on the modeler. Sculpting, putty application, making weld lines, applying glue - it depends in the situation and your imagination in solving problems. Whatever it is, you'll find a use for it!

Thanks to all for your replies.

KnightTemplar5150

When I was learning to carve jeweler's wax, the instructor would require us to modify dental tools to use on the bench. Carving wax is really a combination of scraping and heating, so very sharp instruments are not all that useful. A gum knife can scrape channels into the wax for setting stones later on and ground to various widths for adding decorative touches. It all depended on what was needed at the moment.

The gum knife sounds as plausible as anything else.

I think I'll take a grinder to it, and make it a scriber.

GMorrison

I think it's a crochet hook.

 

    I vote sculpting tool or leather working tool. The hook doesn't appear deep enough for a crochet hook.

GMorrison

I think it's a crochet hook.

 

That is not a crochet hook. I should know because my mom used to crochet blankets/afghans  and such.

It may be a crochet hook, but it can be used by ship modelers as a rigging tool.  Often one needs to pull the free end of a line through the makings of a knot, but the line is inside a maze of other lines.

Personally, I prefer something with a sharper notch- the crochet hooks let the line slip off too easily.  I bought a cheap plastic crochet needle and cut away part of the eye, leaving a better hook shape.

Don Stauffer

It may be a crochet hook, but it can be used by ship modelers as a rigging tool.  Often one needs to pull the free end of a line through the makings of a knot, but the line is inside a maze of other lines.

Personally, I prefer something with a sharper notch- the crochet hooks let the line slip off too easily.  I bought a cheap plastic crochet needle and cut away part of the eye, leaving a better hook shape.

That's kind of the direction I was originally leaning. The nicely-chromed and finished end is blunt enough that it seems specifically intended not to 'do damage'...but all the other photos of purpose-designed 'rigging tools' I found looked like they had a real hook, rather that just a slightly-rounded 'step.'

Ah, well, one for the ages....

gobobbie

It looks to me to a variant of a spring puller. This is a tool that was designed to pull springs in teletype devices. There is another one called a spring pusher where the end is shaped the opposite way, for placing springs in teletype. If you were a teletype repairman (submarine nec 23eh) you carried one of each in your top pocket next to black ink pen and green ink pen for the captain to sign messages. Bob Gregory Ruining one kit at a time

 

my mom was a hairdresser and had a similar tool she would use when she would highlight someone's hair. She would put a rubber cap with pre-formed holes on the person's head and using a tool, like the one in the pic, she would then pick out stands of hair through the pre-formed holes.

GMorrison

 

 

gobobbie

It looks to me to a variant of a spring puller. This is a tool that was designed to pull springs in teletype devices. There is another one called a spring pusher where the end is shaped the opposite way, for placing springs in teletype. If you were a teletype repairman (submarine nec 23eh) you carried one of each in your top pocket next to black ink pen and green ink pen for the captain to sign messages. Bob Gregory Ruining one kit at a time

 

 

 

 

Whats a teletype, LOL! Something like a fax machine?

 

 

It was the successor to the telegraphic.  It allowed any idiot to send a telegraph message.  It in turn was superceded by the radio- telegraph

73

gregbale

Received a small box of hobby tools from the widow of an old acquaintance. Included was something I'd never seen before: apparently stainless steel, six inches long...with no helpful markings or part numbers anywhere. It's shaped rather like a miniature harpoon...only the barbed-shape point is smooth and rounded, obviously never sharpened (or apparently intended to be).

The late gentleman from whom I received it wasn't a ship modeler...but my best (and only) guess is that it's some sort of rigging tool.

Anybody have a better idea?

Why not ask the person who gave it to you? maybe he/she might give you clues of what it is. Worth taking a shot at asking. 

I know that not crochet hook at all nor sort of a hair puller tool used in beauty salons.

 

 

 

It’s a dental tool.

Silver

It’s a dental tool.

 

I disagree...

By the way, it is easy to make a ship rigging hook from a crochet needle.  Take a cheap plastic one and grind away a quarter of the eye- one of the quarters nearest the point. Converts it into a nice hook.  I need to do this again, since I lost my last one during a shop cleanup.

Don Stauffer

By the way, it is easy to make a ship rigging hook from a crochet needle. Take a cheap plastic one and grind away a quarter of the eye- one of the quarters nearest the point. Converts it into a nice hook.

I did exactly the same thing with an old carpet needle. Worked great.

Got the information from a dental surgeon .

Hmmmm:

 I went through my tools . I have one too . Mine was given to me by a friend . I use it for embossing Wooden decks .  I also use it for embossing plank features on carved block hulls .

 I  also use it to score gently the paper bulkheads and decks for folds . Works way better than a regular embossing ( Round Tip ) tool . I did use a Arkansas Stone to dull the edge though     T.B.  P.S. I have another I bought years ago that I filed a groove in.   Like Don said I use it ( or used it ) for pulling rigging on sail ships . Those of course now have to be small and so I didn't think about this until you posted the photo .

I bought one of them from Squadron several years ago was advertized as a glueing tool did'nt work very good,put down to much glue.                     ACESES5

A harpoon for hunting very small whales?

Okay, that was awful. I think it's a dental instrument of some sort, pressed into service as a rigging tool. I had something much like that in my plank-on-frame building days.

Kilo66 ;

 You are so right ! Didn't I see you step out of the shrinking cell with the rope in hand after you extracted it from that miniature grey Whale ? I gues that reason is a good as any . 

 I have seen dentists use a similar tool when mounting amalgam metal fillings . They use it to sculpt the top of the molars to the proper shaps .