Yes, it's a tiger attacking a man. But what else is it?

https://ridiculouslyinteresting.file...pg?w=584&h=329

28" high, 68" long

Automaton and organ; the man flails and wails.

It was featured in the first of the Sharpe books.

Well done! The political back story is quite interesting. :thumb:

What does this thing do?

Gotta be a drum thing.

Yeah, what clodfobble's brain said. More specifically, it's a skin stretcher for toms.

It is. I tried to fool you with this one, because it uses different materials on a part I thought might give it away.
Had a good internal chuckle at this. No, not what this is. We generally apply pressure to the head to bend the pitch, either with the butt of the stick or sometimes your elbow. You can slowly let off the pressure to play a series of notes with descending pitch. I guess if you had a mechanical skin stretcher it would be... a timpani?

So we got, it's a "drum thing" ... but What is it?

Look at the parts. It's an engineering puzzle. What does it do?

Looks like it would dampen a cymbal.

No, but it would do something with a cymbal.

A quick release mount?

It's got to tune them somehow

Does it put those little dents in them? Punch out the center hole?

Yes.
That is what it does.

It quickly releases, and also quickly re-attaches, the top high-hat cymbal which is normally affixed directly to a rod mechanically connected to the foot pedal. figures 1-3

This device, called a "drop clutch" replaces the wing-nut in the normal high-hat clutch with it's own wing-nut, and the lever-operated clamp that "grabs" the standard clutch. When you engage the lever, the top cymbal "drops" and when you step on the pedal, the clutch re-engages.

It temporarily converts your pedal-operated high-hat into a fixed-position high-hat. If you are operating a different pedal with your left foot (like a second bass-drum pedal), you might want this option.

What is this?

Attachment 62421