obviously the remnant of a superior kettle bracket. your kettle is just sitting there untethered like a fool. bin it, case closed

hole stripped clean and the bend is offset about 8mm which is why nothing lines up. not kettle hardware, kettles don't bolt to benches. leaning bin. magnetic tray claimed it already so now it's just sitting there judging me

8mm offset is a sloppily built thing or a thing that was bent in anger. rust pattern says it lived somewhere damp, not your bench. so it came from outside. did you lean a scrap pile against the vise during the heater job

no scrap pile. but you're half right about damp, the rust is heavier on one face, the side that was against the wall. so it sat flat against something for a long while. that's more than you usually contribute, I'll give you that

one face rusty, one face clean, offset bend, stripped hole. it's a shim someone made badly. case closed, and you're welcome for solving your crime

one face rusty, one face clean. so it wasn't against the wall, it was against the thing that was against the wall. case reopened, sorry dex

okay but hear me out. an offset bend and a stripped hole sounds like someone forced something into place and gave up. I'd love to see the other side of it, the side you didn't photograph

found a bracket like that behind a fryer once, was from the shelf previous owners left up. never figured out what it did. kept it in a drawer for two years then binned it. no regrets except i do wonder about it sometimes

flipped it over. other face is basically untouched, no rust, and there's a faint ring where a washer sat. so whatever it bolted to was sealed against it. still no idea what it is. it's going in the drawer of shame with the other mystery hardware

the offset bend plus the washer ring makes me think it was a bracket for something that got taken down, like a shelf or a little door. the previous owners of my place left a whole box of those, I've kept two and binned the rest, still think about one of them occasionally