What in the world is this ?

Looks like it is a type of hot foil stamper. Is there a heated jaw for a stmp block?

In the first picture, those green things are vials. There is an adjustment knob between them There is also a counter.

The green one on the left looks to be a pneumatic lubricator and the other looks like a filter. There appears to be a large pneumatic cylinder in the center.

It's a custom-made, one-off boat anchor. Only needs the chain!

Not likely to be a catalog item, rather a component off of another machine. Looks like some sort of specialized guide mechanism.

A banana bend machine.

I bet its a press for pushing hard metal components into curcuit boards.

My guess also is the pneumatic tensioner for a spool while winding.

spool unwinder

My WAG is that this is a rarely used expansion part of another machine. Combining the known building history with the obvious pneumatics and large but variable shaft size spool holder, I would expect that this is for adding a press fit part to a printed circuit board.

Contact the previous tenant and ask him , or make an ad in the paper and ask about workers used to work at that place 15 years ago, they have the informations you need.

While it does indeed look like one side of a hot stamp printer, it more closely looks like a ribbon cutter I once built for Hallmark. With that in mind, perhaps it was a parallel electronic ribbon cable cutter. That would also expalin the relatively large air cylinder that might operate the knife and the rather beefy construction of the frame. The hot stamp foil guide mechanisms I have built and rebuilt have not been that heavy duty.

I was guessing a straightener (can't see the working area clearly), but I like OldTooly's answer. How about a close-up of the business area?

Wire painter?

Last saw my wife on one of these, trying to get her weight down...

Have you seen her since, then? Still looking? Gave up?

If so, it might have been her I saw in an "As seen on TV" commercial last week. Looked like the added a belt to it, though. Must be new twist on it.

Due to the type of construction used (castings), it appears that it is not a one-off machine. It is some kind of machinery component that can be added to other machines in an assembly line. This is strictly a guess.

Mystery solved.

I found another one that was almost identical.

This one has a plate that says "Component Lead Former".

Thanks to all for the great guesses, several were uncannily on track.

I work for an test equipment manufacturer, and we have the production capability to build all our stuff on-site. Passive components like resistors, capacitors, etc. can be purchased on reels, and that machine would take those reels of parts, and bend the leads to the proper lead-to-lead spacing, for insertion in a through-hole printed circuit board, after which, the board would usually be "wave" soldered.

With the advent and rise of Surface Mount Devices (SMD's), leaded parts are getting scarce these days. I'm sure we have a few of these "lead formers" out in our "antique equipment" barn.

Tom D.

Well, it seems that we have a definitive answer. Any chance you can post a picture from your "antique equipment" barn?

Johnny 5, Jr.

It's not the temperature controller from a time machine is it?