Thank you, Zenoura, you have given us an interesting mystery! How and why did a Kynoch machine find its way to Paraguay?
The Kynoch company did have overseas interests in the early part of the 20th century but these were mainly connected to its explosives business. There is no mention of any sort in the two published histories of the company about any activity in South America.
These are my main thoughts:
1. I believe that there cannot have been any possibility of Kynoch being involved either directly or remotely, in the creation, construction or running of this plant in Asuncion. It was the wrong industry, the wrong type of factory and the wrong part of the world for them.
2. Was this machine manufactured by Kynoch?
Kynoch had a wider range of activities than just ammunition, even though the latter was at that time the most important. The Company had introduced new product lines in the period leading up to the Great War of 1914-1918 and also in the immediate post-war years. Neither of these periods was easy for the Company, and new activities were tried, often unsuccessfully. Over a 25 year period these new products included candles, bicycle components, bicycles, motor bicycles, gas engines, motor lamps, oil heaters, lanterns, padlocks, mincers, textile bobbins and cycle pumps from compressed paper, two-speed gears, petrol pumps, home safes, "general engineering products" and slide fasteners. By 1923 all of these activities were abandoned with the important exception of slide fasteners.
Whether any of these activities included the manufacture of equipment such as the one you have, I do not know. Many things were tried, especially in the desperate post-war period when much of the Company's business disappeared with the cancelling of war contracts and was not counteracted by an increase in other activities. But I am unaware of any activity such as the production of large items of manufacturing equipment. It is probable that it never happened.
3. Was this a Kynoch-owned machine which found its way to South America?
This is a possibility. Who was the contractor who created the Liebig factory? Did they obtain equipment which might have been previously owned by others?
The fact of this press being clearly marked as "Kynoch No.7" makes me ask myself whether it was part of the Kynoch Works equipment and was sold during some factory reorganisation or contraction - perhaps no longer required, perhaps as a way of raising money. The insignia COULD denote that this was one press out of several in a Kynoch department entitled "No. 7 Department"; or it was No. 7 out of a row of presses numbered, perhaps, 1-10. In those circumstances, if the press was not new when it arrived in South America, it could have been used by Kynoch over a long period previously and could be much older than we assume. And/or perhaps it might have arrived later in Paraguay, after the Liebig factory was built.
4. The suggestion has been made of the use of the press for printing purposes. Another possibility has to be metal pressing. Could it have been involved in any way in the manufacture of containers for Liebig products - lids, perhaps, or other components?
5. Kynoch was a large and, overall, very successful company. Unlike many British engineering companies it remains so, amazingly, and thrives. It is totally different from what it was 100 years ago (or even 30!) and is these days named IMI plc. and still based in Birmingham, although not on the original manufacturing site. (I have written a short history of it and this can be found via a link at the bottom of this post). I think it is unlikely that any approach direct to IMI will result in much additional information appearing about your query. I suspect the only source of information they too will have will be the two Company histories I mention above. Both of these are written in broad terms and much of the contemporary detail will now be lost. I think that the best, and perhaps only hope of finding further clues may be from Kynoch factory photographs in the period 1900-1925.
I, and no doubt other members of this Forum, would be very grateful to you if you could let us know anything further which you discover about the history of this old machine. I assume you have contact with those who are conducting a similar restoration exercise on another meat processing factory in Uruguay.
Chris