# Quess what it was used for?



## cobaltbot (Apr 10, 2007)

I actually pulled this slab of slate out of the basement of a house they imploded a couple months ago, however I just found out what it was used for.  Anybody want to venture a guess?


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## marjorie040 (Apr 10, 2007)

Something to do with a still?
 Not that folks here in South Carolina know anything about stills.....just a wild guess![8|]


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## capsoda (Apr 10, 2007)

Stove plate? Set the wood stove on it to keep the floor from getting hot enough to burn.


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## cobaltbot (Apr 10, 2007)

good guesses, but no...........


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## epgorge (Apr 10, 2007)

Round slate? Would it be the top of a pickle crock?
 Joel


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## epgorge (Apr 10, 2007)

did it go on top of something like this?
 Joel


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## cobaltbot (Apr 10, 2007)

Very good guess Joel, but no..... Around here you find lots of round slate lids for crocks, usually smaller and thinner and that's what I thought when I first found it....I thought someone was in the process of making a crock lid, hence the groved out area. That sort of made sense to me even though the circle did not close and there's that extra groove????


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## epgorge (Apr 10, 2007)

Coby,
 Could it be something to go over a floor grate?
 To stop or let heat upstairs?
 Joel


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## epgorge (Apr 10, 2007)

It appears to be a lid to something. Something which would pressure, rise and bleed (the grooves). Is it the top to a brewing crock? 
 Jpe;


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## epgorge (Apr 10, 2007)

A Chimley flue thimble?
 Joel


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## towhead (Apr 10, 2007)

Covered the cellar stairs....chalkboard....Table Top....?


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## akronmarbles (Apr 10, 2007)

Is it part of an old gravity furnace?


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## akronmarbles (Apr 10, 2007)

Second guess...meat cutting block? The groove looked like a drain.


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## HunterGatherer (Apr 10, 2007)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle armor from the 19th century obviously.

 ... I dunno, what was it, one of those round sleds or something?


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## cobaltbot (Apr 10, 2007)

akronmarbles is on the right track.....think of a household chore kind of thing.......


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## towhead (Apr 10, 2007)

Would it be the cover to one of those old-fashioned round washing machines?


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## towhead (Apr 10, 2007)

Slate?  Could it be used for ironing?


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## capsoda (Apr 10, 2007)

How about drying dishes on. The groves would channel away the excess water.


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## huffmnd (Apr 10, 2007)

Indoor well hole cover.


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## cobaltbot (Apr 10, 2007)

Think of something pioneers would have to make for themselves, the answer will come soon, and that aint no lye.


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## woody (Apr 10, 2007)

Soap.


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## epgorge (Apr 10, 2007)

for soap making!  My son says you pour water over ash and what comes out is lye?


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## towhead (Apr 10, 2007)

Ok soap....but where does the slate come into play....?


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## cc6pack (Apr 10, 2007)

Up until the 1850s, when the general store started stocking provisions, folks made most of their household supplies themselves, including lye soap. Three ingredients went into the making of lye soap: lard, lye, and lots of hard work.
 Lard was rendered and saved for soap-making from the annual hog kill that took place at the time of the first hard frost in autumn. Lye was made from the ashes left over from the wood stoves. (Most people kept a wooden bin with a side spigot just outside the house, into which they'd dump their ashes. When it came time to make lye soap, they poured water through the ashes and siphoned off the liquid lye.) The third ingredient of lye soap had to be supplied by a pair of hard working hands.
 Lye is an extremely caustic agent, so the soap makers had to be careful to have just the right concentration. Too much lye would cause the soap to burn the skin, and too little would keep the soap from hardening. An old wives' tale held that lye was at the proper strength when depositing a floating egg into the mixture revealed only its tip.
 To make lye soap, lard and lye were mixed together over an open fire, and stirred for hours with a long-handled paddle. It is said that when the paddle stuck straight up, the soap was ready. Lye soap was then poured into a metal pan and allowed to dry and harden; a process that could take from two weeks to one month. After the lye soap hardened, it was cut into smaller bars for everyday use. People used lye soap to clean everything from their faces to their laundry. Today, many people still like to buy and use original lye soap.
 Lye soap can be purchased from soap companies, which sell their product in specialty bath shops or over the Internet. Many people tout the benefits of lye soap; it is a natural product, and because soap makers have perfected the level of lye to add, it can be a very gentle soap. Current lye soap manufacturers have substituted different types of oil for lard. Fragrances are added, and sometimes natural oils such as aloe, jojoba, or coconut, which soothe the skin. Fans of lye soap also say that it can help reduce the itching caused by insect bites. Nostalgia is another reason why people like lye soap. Some enjoy homemade lye for the novelty of using the same rugged brown soap that their Great-Great-grandparents used so many years ago.


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## woody (Apr 10, 2007)

I believe it is used to collect the lye when water is mixed with potash.
 Hence the grooves in the slate to collect the lye.


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## cobaltbot (Apr 10, 2007)

We have a winner!!!

 Used in making soap.

 Congrats to woody and cc6pack (great description by the way)

 I donâ€™t have the full description yet but a neighbor who has one, told me there was a wooden bucket used on the center of the slate, he had a book that described the process.  The bucket probably held the ashes and the water but maybe also the lard.  The circle and the groove collected the lye and maybe the soap. Iâ€™ll try and get the rest of the story.  Lil bit of historyâ€¦..thanks for playing!


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## RICKJJ59W (Apr 10, 2007)

*My mother washed my mouth out with lye soap....Burp!*


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## Trying not to break it (Apr 10, 2007)

hi steve, that was a great post.  a great chance to learn.  keep on finding those neat things[].   take care,   rhona      ps. did you get my p.m.


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## towhead (Apr 11, 2007)

I dont recall any Lye around the house, but was there something called LAVA?


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## capsoda (Apr 11, 2007)

I remember lye soap, octagon soap, Which by the way you can still get, and Lava too. Lye soap and Lava will both take the hide ofin ya. My great aunt Lessie used to make soap. It sure did stink.[:'(]

 My Gramps used to tell my mom that there was a little to much potash in her laundry soap.[sm=lol.gif]


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## LC (Apr 11, 2007)

My Mother always washed my mouth out with Ivory soap. I always appreciated how she would push my teeth together into the bar of soap and then twist the bar of soap. It would gag the daylights out  of me for about two days before most of it would get washed out of my mouth, When I left home, it was a good twenty years before I could even think about ever buying Ivory Soap. Makes me shake all over again just thinking about it!


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## epgorge (Apr 11, 2007)

I got the soap treatment too. 

 Here are a couple more. My real gram would make you take a teaspoon of sugar with a drop of kerosene in it to break the crupe. 

 I had a psuedo-grandmother (my friends gram) who would push three fingers worth of vicks vapor rub down your throat to break up the crupe.

 The worst was my mother coming up behind you with a wash cloth hidden behind her back and ripping your nowe off while attempting to wash your face.
 Joel


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## capsoda (Apr 11, 2007)

My mom did the Vic's salve thinge but with a table spoon.
 My great aunt Lessiewas big on caster oil and molasses.
 My great aunt Blanch and her husband my uncle Buckeye were big on turpintine and treacle or turpintine and molasses.
 And last but not least my grand mother. She used Creomolsion and Three 6's. Three 6's was in a yellow box that had 666 on it in red. Now that was some really nasty stuff. I think she was just being mean.


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## LC (Apr 11, 2007)

You Guys are cracking me up! Making me think of all the things that went on at home all over again. For the croup, my Mother would take a blanket and make a tent over top our bed. She would then boil water with a bunch of Vicks added to it and circulate the staem under the tent where we laid. I thought that was pretty cool, sorry you Guys had the severe antidotes! But as they say in the Marine Corps, better you than me!!


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## epgorge (Apr 12, 2007)

You guys are killing me here....[][][][]

 Yeah, and they wonder why I got cancer.!!!!
 Joel


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## LC (Apr 12, 2007)

I remember when I would get my Mother's temper up. She would grab a stick out of the yard and come after me with it. Well, just any other young blooded American Youth, I would run like the devil! Then at night when I got undressed, here she would come in the room with that same stick, and lay it to me anyway! I could never get it in my head that that stick would have hurt a heck of a lot less through blue jeans than it would on the bare skin....................


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## epgorge (Apr 12, 2007)

The last time I ran from my mother, I was 15. She was mad... She yelled, "you have to come back sometime". 

 I did. That night I came in while everyone else was eating. I thought it a good opportunity to slip on in, as the table was busy. I had four siblings.

 My Mother came in and said hi, walked past me, picked up a pitcher of milk, came back by and dumped the whole quart over my head. Then she quietly went back and sat down. 

 That was nothing. My father's inquiry ended with me being brought to the woodshed.


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## LC (Apr 12, 2007)

Yeah, and what the devil was (If you tell me the truth, it will not hurt as bad , or that (this is going to hurt me more than it is you crap). What was that all about?? It sure didn't hurt any less! And I do not remember my Mother yelling out in pain one time when she cracked me each time with that stick!!  In reference to my Dad, we did not have a wood shed. If he wanted to settle things with me, he would catch me running through the yard and drop kick me in the back side, took quite a few wild rides through the air in that fashion. As much as it kills me to admit it though, *I deserved most everything I got*..................


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## LC (Apr 12, 2007)

Joel, just went back and checked out your bottles. You have some dandies. I love that Foote Pickle bottle and the Clark. I never did find many of the Spring bottles. I have found two green Congress Empire Springs and an aqua Vichy Springs, and that is it.


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## bottlenutboy (Apr 12, 2007)

well im not ashamed to admit it....I did my fair share of wrong, and i got less than my fair share of whippings (i was a little more sneaky than most people) i have been whipped with almost everything under the sun....my dad is stuck in "the good ole days" and he wasnt even born then he's only 38 years old (born in 68) he always liked to use one of the larger limbs of a privet hedge bush, because when you broke the smaller limbs off of it it left these barbs on the shaft and also they were notorious for wrapping around your legs and popping your hands (he always made us pull our pants tight) so we wound up with blood blisters on the backs of our hands 

 another time i got it with a piece of "1 by" plank i wouldnt be still then so he held my head between his knees....i had a bruise so big i couldnt sit down for a couple days after that one....

 then another time he used a piece of 3/4" PVC pipe that was about 2 1/2-3 feet long....

 all in all i deserved them all.....


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## LC (Apr 12, 2007)

1968, uhmmm, bad year for me Spence. As your Dad was born into this world , I was being dragged off my front porch by my loving County Draft Board! Still have the splinters to prove it, as well as quite a few other things............ GOD BLESS AMERICA!


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## bottlenutboy (Apr 12, 2007)

yeah im not quite old enough to have to register for the draft yet...but im still hoping that when i do i dont get drafted....the military isnt for me i have the wrong mindset for that job.... i dont have to register for another 3 months or so...


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## epgorge (Apr 12, 2007)

Thanks LC
 You could own them if you want to....Both have been sent to california for a Bottleauctions.com auction. that should start next month and continue into June. 
 Check out their website ... they have nice bottles which must be screened first before auction approval. No problem bottles. Only near mint or better. I am having reservations about selling them expecially since I found the big one. I need to recoup some money as this has been a year for big purchase.

 Joel


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## LC (Apr 12, 2007)

I doubt that I could afford a bottle off there. I would think you would have no problems selling that jar yourself. Could you find any info pertaining to this jar as to its value?


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## epgorge (Apr 12, 2007)

With these bunker hill's the value is in the color. Thats the trouble. What color is it? there are about four different ambers,  3 or four different yellows. If I ask four different people I get four different opinions.

 This one in the picture above has a key mold bottom and tooled lip. Ghe graphics are *bold.*

 Joel


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## LC (Apr 12, 2007)

Simply beautiful regardless of what its color is.


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## jamus (Apr 21, 2007)

mr. obvious says: used to make soap!  ding ding ding


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## jamus (Apr 21, 2007)

oops i put in the wrong one sorry....


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## jamus (Apr 21, 2007)

I didnt see those other ansers. lol


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