What is the purpose of this pullout drawer

I just got a 1948 wood desk with a pull-out drawer on some sort of heavy spring-like contraption. I don;t want to yank on it too hard but was wondering if its designed to slid out and up or the like - with gentle pulling the drawer pulls out but not up. Maybe its to hold a typewriter?

full frontal by jeremy rutman posted Sep 13, 2021 at 2:00 PM

pull out drawer thingy by jeremy rutman posted Sep 13, 2021 at 2:00 PM

underside of center drawer by jeremy rutman posted Sep 13, 2021 at 2:00 PM

 

Greetings, Jeremy and welcome to Antiquers!

Unfortunately your pictures are set to Private and therefore cannot be seen by anyone but you. You can change that setting to Public while viewing your pictures.

You can embed the gallery photos to your post by using the "Embed Media" (camera icon) in the Reply toolbar.

 

Conceivably this is viewable

 

Unfortunately not.

 

yeesh. That prev. message was done using 'media gallery embed' (camera icon). At some point I did find a 'private ' icon on my gallery - and it was exasperatingly unclickalble. The image embed wants a url which is kind of annoying as i already went to the trouble of making a gallery. ANyway conceivably this will work: https://imgur.com/a/1csqHUd

 

Not to beat a dead horse but this is what I see when flailing about trying to change album permission

 

So I guess the drawer should lift up to the level of desk top and latch into place somehow....whooo! I put some more force on the thing and it swung out and up like a champ after who-knows how many years

 

Skip the gallery altogether and load your photos directly into your forum post, much easier

 

Those mechanisms could use some TLC after sitting idle for who knows how long.

 

What he said!.
Take photo, email it to yourself to resize as medium. Start new thread.Click upload a file. Click full size

 

I used a similar desk many decades ago when I worked as a secretary--the spring/hinge mechanism is designed to lift a very heavy typewriter (or adding machine) so the user doesn't have to exert a lot of force to pull it out and up. If you put something really heavy and stable on the shelf (that fits inside the desk), you can better see how the shelf is intended to work when pulling it out and up, and then pushing it down and back. Probably needs some oil on the hinges.

 

How soon we've forgotten! A typewriter.

Debora

 

Welcome to Antiquers, @jeremy rutman . I hope you enjoy the experience here. The photos do take just a little effort at first. I've never created a gallery, so don't know why the "Private" setting was not clickable.