Gripped by Grinders

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Flea markets are his favorite haunts for grinders (and related parts).

'I hate to spend all day chasing one at an auction,' Dave said.

He doesn't do much work on the pieces in his collection. 'I have sandblasted some of them, and I put stone paint on a couple, just to make them look more antique,' he said. 'But the majority of them I've just left natural. So many people like them just as they are, and you do want to protect the original label, if it's still there.'

Some (mostly English-made) have porcelain interiors, 'I think to preserve against rust,' he said.

Dave's collection also includes potato chippers, butcher's tools, cream separators, electric grinders and tobacco grinders. And then there are his 'air compressors.'

Somewhere along the line, Dave grew interested in the hand air pump. Last summer he mounted three dozen of them on risers, looking like a leafless forest, and took them to a show. He put up a sign identifying the collection as an 'air compressor display.'

'People got a real kick out of them,' he said. 'It was a lot of fun.'

Since then, he's picked up another dozen.

'They're pretty interesting,' he said. 'There's no names on a lot of them, but some of them are named. One was designed to clamp in place on a car's running board. And there's one unusual one that had two tubes so you could pump up and down with it. Normally you only pump on the down stroke, but this gives some pressure on the upstroke, so you pump instead of wasting a stroke. One guy had one with three tubes; I don't know how that worked.'

For more information: Dave Paulus, 9343 Pearson Road, West Milton, OH 45383; (937)698-6422.

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