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Long wind description incoming....Small battery in safe in the bedroom died so had to retrieve backup key from large safe.
So a few years ago the lever handle on the large safe ended up "stripped" out as in spinning on the shaft that connects to the lock mechanism.  At the time I took it all apart and found the shaft sheared in torsion, like it was made of some Chineseium pot metal.  Whatever, so I reverse engineered the old shaft and made a complete new one from real steel save for this weird triangular tooth pattern they used to positively engage and clock the rotation of the lever handle.  You can see the pattern in one of the pics of the lever.  Anyway, I wasn't up for duplicating that and decided to just roll with only friction of a SHCS tapped already in the end.  Worked fine until attempting to open the safe and retrieve a key, friction gave up, handle spinning again.  Had some time so I decided to just setscrew it with a dog tip into a hole drilled with handle clocked at the proper orientation.  Easy enough.  But too bad I wanted the setscrew to come from the bottom to not be as visible of a hack.  Slapped it in the vise with some vblocks then I realized my normal drill chuck was too fat to not interfere with the lever.  No problem, swap for a small 1/8 cap chuck I rarely get to use.  Except the tap and clearance drills for the #10-32 setscrew are larger than .125   Fine, chuck up one of my #21 drill bits and turn down the shank to .125.  Then I realized even with the small chuck sticking way out from the collet and the length of the drill bit would just barely make it thru the handle and not have the nose of the spindle hit the handle.  Somehow I managed to get a simple hole poked in and tapped but it wasn't as straightforward as it should have been.   Tapping was fun also.  no way to spin the tap handle and of course too large to grip with the little chuck for a guide.  Eyeballed it straight and turned a 1/4 at a time with a tiny adjustable wrench.  Not ideal.  At this point I was like Geeezus Fk a silly little tapped hole and Im farting around to no end.  Then to turn a dog point on a setscrew.  Used 2 nuts locked together to be able to grab in the chuck without boogering threads. That was fun as the cutting pressure pushed the assembly back into the chuck.  Lucky I caught it and reset. tightened the doody out of it and gnawed a dog on the tip.  Of course now the start of the threads were deformed and wouldn't thread into the handle.  Well in my pops old tool box were a handful of threading dies and yep, a #10-32   First time ever I got to use one of 3 die stocks collecting dust.  Ran the setscrew thru the die a few times and all good.  Assembled everything and my safe now works good as new.  I suppose the moral is why I chose to come from the bottom vs the sides or top and make my life 20x harder and how simple little projects get out of hand when you really just want to quick get something done!
Thats my story and I stand by it   

If nothing else you could use a few of those pc's to do a makeshift press brake punch/die for an arbor press?  Or plop it on the coffee table at parties, parts slightly shifted out of place as a conv starter.

Fun to duplicate? I measured this thing and was amazed at its precision! All within a few thou! I can turn all the pieces around and it still fits like a glove. All the pieces and their shapes are nicely centered. Looks like a very loooong time making project. Not sure I need that kinda fun, lol. And I have a shaper. Have yet to plug it in, another lol.

Very interesting pieces! I am thinking too that it may have been a school project of some sort, back in the day. 

When I was in high school machine shop, we had two 7" Atlas shapers, not large by any means, but interesting machines just the same and I sometimes wish I had one. But, they come at a high price especially for the machines that are in very good to excellent condition. Would I buy one given the chance?  I don't know. Most of what I might do can all be done with a mill or a broach, but on the other hand, having a shaper would be nice to have when the need arose.

Maybe the blocks you found were somebody's own project for a shaper, not school related, but just to see what could be done? Might be fun to duplicate for grins and giggles.

I wonder if that was a school project for running the shaper? Advance course in operating the shaper?

Over the weekend I found this block of steel. It was all stuck together with old grease and some surface rust, so it did look like a block of steel. Got home and was amazed at what I had found! Looks like some kind of apprentice machinist project? And the tool marks tell me it was done on a shaper. All the pieces fit perfectly and slide with no problems. Somebody did an excellent job making this thing. Anybody know what it is?

Never too late, Ken!!  We all get busy over the holidays and the last place I expect people to spend precious holiday/family time is online.  

A little late to reply.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

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