Here is a strange doodad I found at a local flea market. It resembles a rolling pin. It measures 7" long from tip to tip. The porcelain section is about 2" in diameter, and 2 1/2" long. The metal protrusions appear to be copper, hollow inside with what appear to be springs (visible through little slots in the sides). Both of the copper protrusions have writing engraved in the surface... lots of numbers, including three different patent numbers, plus the phrase: CAT# SFS-4 Copperweld. I'll post some other pics. Any ideas what it is?

ANSWER: According to Douglas Moody (and others)... Those copper ends are one half of a standard "automatic" splice. Automatic splices are used almost universally to splice overhead conductors. You just push the conductor in each end and those spring loaded jaws capture it, and the current flows through the splice body. There is also an automatic dead end assembly that works the same way, essentially one half of an automatic splice with a way to attach the other end to an insulator. I have not seen your example, but maybe it's a "Line Break" automatic splice.

Here is one in use: [id=126326499]

This info recently added by Bart Magoffin: The nice thing about this "Line Break" is that it can be added to an existing line without splicing in an extra length of wire. If a standard guy insulator was used, extra line wire length would be needed to loop through the guy.