Sheltering at home today inspired me to do some tidying in my perennially messy garage. While doing so, I recalled that DougD had posted a great family history of his tools a couple of years ago. One thing led to another, and I decided to take a few pictures of some of my favorite tools, and ask, what’s interesting, unusual, or just a favorite in your toolbox? When I purchased this roll-around box in the late seventies (and brought it home in the back of my Ford Fiesta), it was probably the most expensive non-internal-combustion-powered item I’d ever bought. My friends made fun of the “Stack-On” brand, but it was probably an order of magnitude cheaper than a real Snap-on toolchest, and I still use it every day. I just checked, and in fact Stack-On is still in business and sells toolboxes and gun cabinets at big box stores nationally.
The oldest tool that I own and use regularly is one of my few, perhaps only, Snap-on tools. I found this set of pliers about ten years ago going through my Mom’s toolshed after she passed away. I’m sure she picked them up at a garage sale or thrift shop for pennies. I did a little research and these may date back to the 1930’s. The Credo screwdriver in the background is part of an inexpensive set I got about 20 years ago at Ace Hardware. Still made in USA and quite good quality.
But the tool that I’ve had the longest was made in 1972 – by me, in high school machine shop. The head was turned on a lathe and the flats were machined down on a shaper, not a milling machine. The original handle lasted until just a few years ago, but split unexpectedly and it now has a replacement American hickory handle from the local hardware store. This hammer has seen a lot of use, though I had to get my biggest sledge to knock the rotors off our New Beetle when I replaced them about ten years ago.
A year or two newer is my first set of metric wrenches, Powr-Kraft from Montgomery Ward. As I recall, the MonkeyWard tools were cheaper than Sears Craftsman, and I bought a few more tools there before I moved up to Craftsman. Here’s another Powr-Kraft tool, a 3/8 flex handle which has also seen a lot of use and held up well for almost half a century.
I’m pretty sure I also have a Powr-Kraft ratchet but it may be in the toolbag that lives in my truck, along with a set of Made in Taiwan 3/8″ drive sockets, from 6 – 19mm in a metal box, which I bought for 99 cents at Sears, around the time I got the flex handle and ratchet. Sometimes Sears had bargains.
My first mechanical experience was working on my parents’ Volvo 122S. No Internet or YouTube then, of course, but ads in Road & Track and repair manuals from the public library made it clear I needed a Uni-Syn to synch the SU carbs. Notice how these brand names … Stack-On, Powr-Kraft, Uni-Syn, and Snap-on … all used hyphens? I don’t think that’s so common now; today it would be StackOn or UniSyn.
Pretty soon I moved on the motorcycles, and within a year I had my first Japanese bike, a Honda. A lot is written about the high quality of 1970’s Honda’s, but the Phillips head (or strictly speaking, JIS) screws that held a lot of the bikes together were made of very soft steel. Essential for their removal was an impact driver, to jar the screw loose without damaging the head. Of course, cordless tools were decades away, and air tools and a compressor were out of financial reach for most of us, so a Japanese Vessel brand impact driver was a necessary acquisition. Note that the box says Impact-Driver (there’s that hyphen again) but they were also known as Attack Drivers, and are still available today. And if you can’t figure out how they work, well, I’ll just say that it involved the use of the hammer I showed above.
Pretty soon Japanese bikes, as well as the VW Scirocco I bought in 1980, adopted internal hex head (aka Allen) screws and it was time to add a set of drivers to my toolbox. Still Made in Japan; no Chinese tools yet. The best tools, at least anecdotally, were American (Snap-on, Craftsman, S&K etc) or perhaps unobtanium German; then Taiwanese or Korean. Like my Stack-On toolbox, I bought this 3/8 drive socket set at a local chain called Post Tool, which was sort of the Harbor Freight of its day. While basic tools like wrenches, ratchets and standard-sized sockets were quite affordable from the American brands, something like this hex socket set, or a long extension, or large metric sockets (larger than 19mm) got pretty expensive, and these Japanese options, often available in sets, were a good value.
But before my fleet had transitioned to higher quality hex head screws, I still had a few disasters involving corroded steel and aluminum threaded interfaces. I needed a tap and die set, so off to Sears I went. I’ve added a few individual SAE taps since then, but this Craftsman metric set still gets regular use.
I’ll wrap up with my newest tool, juxtaposed with something I’ll probably never use again but can’t quite throw away. In the foreground is the socket needed to remove the cap on my V6 Tacoma’s cartridge oil filter. Our Golf, which also uses a cartridge filter, just requires a 22mm (?) socket but Toyota in their wisdom designed something special. And yes, that’s a drain plug crush washer stuck inside it, but don’t worry, I put a new one on before replacing the drain plug at my last oil change a month ago. And the yellow thing behind it? Well, for the younger folks here, I’ll just say that motor oil used to come in cans. With flat tops and no spout, so the spout came out of your toolbox, combined with an opener. The original multi-tool.
So those are some tools from my collection. What are your favorites, classics, or maybe a tool so unusual you’ll stump some of us here at CC? No, that’s impossible; there’s always a CC’er with the answer to any question, no matter how obscure.
No pic as I’m at the alignment shop but a Ford distributor wrench bequeathed to me by a good friend is probably most unusual and probably not many seen around these days. Still use it on my two 80s Ford 5.0s
I had/have an impact driver kit exactly as the one pictured; unfortunately, somewhere along the line I’ve misplaced the bits for it! I have a number of tools that I’ve acquired by finding them along the road, the latest being another pair of Channel Lock pliers! Then, there are the ones of which I don’t remember how I got them.:-)
Me too- I got mine in ’71 to work on my first motorcycle, one of the first tools I ever bought since I was mostly working out of my Dad’s toolbox. I recently found replacement JIS bits, both regular length and long, on ebay. Vessel also makes an amazing JIS screwdriver design- the impacta. A must have tool for japanese bikes.
One of my oldest is a Craftsman beam type inch pound torque wrench I bought in the mid ’70s when I was 7 years old. By then I was a professional small engine mechanic, making fistfuls of cash repairing all the neighbors machines as there were no shops within 20 miles. I moved on to a successful self-employed career as a marine mechanic (Mercruiser or no cruiser!) spending more than I care to remember with Snap-On along the way. Retired from that career 8 years ago at 46. Now I work part time cooking in a restaurant (my other passion) and volunteer at World of Speed.
Last year I found a couple of tool boxes at our scrape pile at work, I have a pretty good idea whose it belonged to. Anyways, I took them home to check them out and found the usual mismatched tools and hardware. One interesting thing I found was a heavy V shaped bar marked with a F in Ford script.Took me a while to figure out what it was. All these V shaped bars make up a magneto that bolted up to a flywheel.
My Dad was a shade-tree mechanic of note, and all-around handyman (it skipped a generation, sorta, in me, but not my brother!), and my late father-in-law was an Air Force mechanic. When they each went from big houses with big areas to store tools, to smaller places, my brother and I were given our pick and we each took many useful things and left some other things that we’d never use.
However, the most interesting thing in my toolbox is a plethora of Torx bits and drivers, to service my serial collection of Volvos. Also if you’ve ever said “I can’t imagine a 7mm socket being used on a car”, well, I can.
Early VW wiper arm grubscrew
Ford TFI module screws were 5.5mm.
Late 90’s Delco starter motor 3-screw solenoid were retained by inverted Torx but 4mm hex could “cheat” to fit – tiny.
I’ve got that same impact driver too. Can’t remember what recalcitrant bolt or screw instigated its purchase, but it did the trick.
I still have the odd little brake adjustment tool for my Peugeot 404s. Instead of the typical fiddly star adjusters, Peugeots had a different system, and there was just a hex (or square) female on the drum backing plate, and this little tool just fit in there perfectly and made brake adjustments so much easier.
I still have the first Estwing hammer I bought new for a construction job in 1972.
I still have a few drum brake tools, a star wheel brake adjusting lever, a brake spring hook and a wheel cylinder clamps. Also a brake cylinder hone which was just the right size to clean up the ENGINE cylinder bores on my CB350 Four Honda.
Oh yeah – bring me a set of drum brakes to replace and I have all the tools!
Does that include riveting new linings to the shoes?
Arch (IE grind lining into dust!) the shoes to match the drums?
You don’t need an impact drive often, but when you need it, you need it. Nothing else quite does the job on a stuck cross-head screw with a worn head.
They are also good for removing the two screws which hold the brake rotors on Honda cars. I hate those screws.
Hey Paul, if that’s a leather handled Estwing from the 1970’s, I’d love to see how that handles holding up. I run Estwing’s for most (I do have a Vaughn California Framer for sub floor and wall framing) of the house building I do and they usually last around 7 years until they either need fixing or replacing.
It’s not leather. It’s was the same blue “rubber” the more recent ones use. But it’s turned dark and very smooth, undoubtedly a combination of age and oil from my hand, I assume.
We have to be about the same age because your collection looks so similar to mine. My rollaway and impact socket set are both from “monkey ward’s” because Sears would not give me a charge card and Ward’s did.
Yes! I had forgotten about that! Now I remember the blue MW credit card.
Thanks for the shout out on my previous article!
I like your home made hammer. I’d forgotten about the shaper in metal shop, the high school I went to was built in the 1930s and had all 1930’s metalworking equipment, converted from belt drive to small electric motors. I took metal shop in the 1980s and it was the same stuff Dad had used in the 1950s when he took shop.
The shaper was highly worn out, but still functioned: ka-CHUNK, ka-CHUNK, ka-CHUNK
🙂
Before everyone caught wise to this junkyard gem, I used to grab the fine *West* German wrenches found in all BMW. One can never have enough wrenches, and the West German tools were pretty good. And in my toolbox to this day is a Walter-branded 17/19 open-end wrench bent in the middle at a 90-degree angle so I could remove the idiot light oil pressure sender on my Volvo 245 Diesel (D24) and replace it with a proper gauge sender.
I also made a hammer a long time ago when I worked in a small machine shop. I took a 1.5 inch piece of 1 inch copper rod and drilled and countersunk it to take a quarter inch steel rod, which I epoxied into a wood file handle. Light and non-damaging.
I still have a tool for setting the timing on a Triumph twin motorcycle, and a brake adjusting wrench for a Triumph Spitfire. Given my history with Triumphs they just might be needed again someday.
Wow! Powr-Kraft tools (they really weren’t bad) cheap Japanese impact drivers (good until I wised up and bought the allen head screw kits for my bikes). If I dig deep enough I have a clutch basket tool for a Yamaha 175 and a weird hex to fit my old Yamaha 650’s forks. I doubt I’ll ever need ’em but just cant get rid of ’em.
That’s a Suzuki clutch basket tool at the upper left of the toolbox picture.
Great post, forgot all about the oil can spout. And you have a sticker from my favorite station in the early ’70s, KOME.
Most of my tools date from the early 1970’s as well, like the locking Craftsman pliers I’ve had since 1972. Around 40 years ago, I serviced a ’68 Beetle belonging to my former landlord, with almost 200K miles on it. Martin was frugal, fastidious, and generous, and kept this Beetle that he bought new in excellent condition. One time, I needed to adjust the clutch pedal freeplay, which is done by turning a large wingnut on the end of the clutch cable alongside the transaxle. This time the cable kept turning as I turned the wingnut, so I attached the pliers to the cable to hold the cable stationary while turning the wingnut. Inside the car, I found I had gotten the adjustment correct, and moved on to the next task, completely forgetting about the pliers. Martin came, and drove the car away. 2 months later, I couldn’t find my pliers, and started searching my memory for the last time I remember using them, and that’s when I realized that they might be hanging on for dear life on the clutch cable of Martin’s Beetle. Eventually, Martin called, asking to have his car serviced, and I readily made time for the car. As soon as his wife picked him up, with the car safely in my driveway, I peeked underneath, and was delighted to find my pliers, still hanging on. These pliers are the most well traveled tool in my collection. I smile every time is see them.
My Craftsman locking pliers story, also from the ‘70’s: I had a pair, a really useful tool because they had curved and serrated jaws, that in conjunction with the locking feature, meant they would grip anything. So one day my friend, who just left after a visit, returned and asked if he could borrow my “Vice Grips” to, uh, liberate, a cool street sign he had seen on his drive home. Well, he lost them but did replace them for me, with genuine Vice Grip brand pliers. But these have straight jaws, which are far less effective than the curved Craftsman jaws. But I still have them after 40 years, even though I usually grumble (or worse) as they slip off what I’m trying to grip.
The 40 year old stickers are a side benefit of keeping the same toolbox forever. I need to add a KPIG sticker too, since I missed the opportunity to snag a KFAT one.
I too have an oil can spout, nicely chrome plated. Haven’t used it in decades. One of my favorites is a Powr-Kraft claw hammer. A very useful set of Penn-Craft nut drivers, just used recently to repair the clothes dryer. (Yup, Penney’s used to sell tools.) I have a nice Snap-On ball peen hammer that was left in the frame of my F100 when the clutch was changed, probably 40 years ago.
More obscure is a collection of small engine tools, including the set sold by Briggs & Stratton for their engines. Also a Boden wire bending tool.
Any small engine guys remember the tool (possibly made by K-D?) for compressing the little spring on Briggs condensers?
Two years ago I bought a rolling toolbox from a friend, who was emptying out his Mom’s garage after she passed, and it was filled with all kinds of stuff in varying quality. One of my best finds was a Plomb ratchet head with a missing directional lever. I did a little digging and learned that Plomb eventually changed their name to Proto, and there are still repair kits available for wrenches made in the 1940’s. I spent $9 on the kit and spent 15 minutes repairing it; good as new.
Nice! My old 3/8″ Craftsman ratchet stopped ratcheting a while back, so I found a repair kit online and took it apart, cleaned, lubed and replaced the key parts, and it’s as good as new. So satisfying.
Yes! Satisfying is the word I meant to add in my comment but didn’t. I forgot to mention how smooth the pawl feels now compared to my newer Craftsman and Snap-On ratchets; it could also be the generous dollop of axle grease I added to the innards.
Bad news. Grease can interfere with the pawl-to-gear interface, leading to broken gear teeth. I’ve popped more than one Proto ratchet because I put white grease in there–before I figured out that I was causing the problem.
Oil is a better lube. I’ve been using the “thick” “assembly lube” from Sealed Power; but any liquid lube from 3-in-1 to 80W-90 axle lube would likely be fine.
Since I started wrenching on cars in 1969 I have acquired lots and lots of tools for them. My garage is wall to wall tools and car parts on shelves and in cabinets. I still get two cars in also since a garage is for cars not the typical stuff you see. Yet looking at your pictures brings up the one thing that pops into my mind now and then and that is where did my two old oil can spouts go? Can’t for the life of me think of how they disappeared when I am known for keeping car related stuff.
40-odd years ago I had the valve adjusting tool and a set of shims for my Fiat 128. I’d bought them from Al Cosentino at FAZA. Long story short, when I sold the car, I didn’t think the buyer would give me any extra money for them, so I hung onto them. Ca. 1979 I sold them. I was living in L.A. at the time, and there was a classified-ad paper called the Recycler. I imagine many communities had papers like this—the pre-Internet version of Craigslist. I don’t remember what became of the tool, but I advertised the shims in the Recycler, and they went pretty quickly. The buyer had a Lancia with the Fiat DOHC engine—a Beta, a Montecarlo, or some such.
I had the special spark plug wrench for the XN1 engine in my Peugeot 504’s. Given the cylinder head design, getting the wrench was a must.
My late father-in-law had a garage in San Diego back in the 60’s.
To this day, I still use his old toolbox with a small fortune of Snap-On and Craftsman tools from that area.
The tools that I no longer have, and can’t for the life of me recall why they’re missing (ie who I loaned them to) are my dwell tach and timing light. That would be my “new” inductive timing light which would be about 40 years old now, as opposed to my first one that I had to connect inline with a plug wire.
Having spent the first 20 years of my working life as a mechanic (age 15-35), and the last 8 as a casual contractor/luthier, I literally have tools everywhere in my house, my parents house, my cars and my parents cottage. My most used items right now are for plumbing, trim, carpentry and guitar repair. But my most treasured tools in my Snap-On workstation roll cabinet with countertop, are my grandfathers Starrett feeler gauges. his brass hammer and an old Craftsman USA slotted screwdriver. Though he was quite elderly, and stooped when I came along, my grandfather had a penchant for fixing EVERYTHING, throwing almost nothing out. As a lad, a common task was straightening nails, cleaning paintbrushes in varsol and scraping the bottom of the ancient Lawn-Boy or Briggs and Stratton lawnmowers that he had. About 15 years ago, while servicing my father’s Silverado at the GM dealer I was working at, I asked Dad what exactly his father did at Fairey Aviation, which grew to become IMP Aerospace. I had always thought that “Gug” was a general labourer there, doing maintenance on the giant hangers and then moving to a position as a night watchman as he aged. Apparently I was very, very wrong. My grandfather was a wizard with radial piston engines, especially when it came to tuning carburetors. After WWII, and Korea, the demand for persons that could tune 14, 18, 20 cylinder engines waned, and this coincided with my grandfathers aging into the cantankerous curmudgeon that joyously tortured any and all that were around him in the last 20 years of his life. My dad claims that I’m just like him, especially when it comes to frustrating the living hell out of everyone, yet still making precision adjustments to delicate equipment with nothing but a hammer and a screwdriver, and a set of feeler gauges to stir my tea.
Tool box contents.
In the beginning, and now.
In my younger days when I drove well-worn 70s era vehicles, I had many opportunities to work on cars that had been “maintained” by previous owners who apparently had tool collections like yours. On the positive side, it made me more patient, especially during my early college years when my own collection was not much more diverse. Working with the wrong tools, and also very cheap tools, makes simple jobs challenging.
If you’ve worked on German cars, you likely have a couple of theses “star” or “triple square” twelve point socket head tools.
I’ve acquired a 12 mm for the head-bolts on the Ford Cologne V-6 and 2.0 four cylinder, and a smaller one (6 or 8 mm) for the six bolts retaining Fiesta CV joints.
Fortunately, some VW head-bolts used the same design. When I did a head job on my ’72 Pinto, I found the 12 mm tool at a local import parts house.
I learned about these only last year, while helping a nephew work on his modern VW. He had a fastener that kept coming loose, and asked me if I had a driver for a triple square fastener. Though my toolboxes are well stocked and I have a decent knowledge of tools, I had not heard of such a thing, and had to look it up to verify that it was real. He got it to work with a torx bit, but it wasn’t quite the right tool for the job. I still don’t have any because I haven’t needed them, but I bought him a set to add to the beginner toolbox I assembled for him out of my duplicates.
Ha I was going to post that I’ve got a couple of the old German Triple Square for the head bolts of my Pinto 2.0 and the timing belt tensioner?.
Here’s the $400 “Lifetime Marathon Warranty” OTC 1717 floor jack that broke, was inspected by the OTC service center, was authorized for replacement under warranty…and which I still have because OTC wants to replace a Made-In-USA, two-stage floor jack with a bottom-feeder Chinese piece of crap, even-up.
A Snap-On Thermo-Vacuum Switch socket. Slot on one side, hole in the other side to allow the vacuum nipples on the TVS to project out the side while the hex-end grabs the flats to remove or install.
Second view.
On a sunny day fifty years ago I was riding my bike along the side of the road. A Southern New England Telephone truck passed me and went over a sunken manhole cover. I heard a “clink” sound and spotted a pair of needle nose pliers in my path. I imagine the crew had left them on the bumper during an earlier job. SNET’s loss was my gain. I still have and use those pliers. They are incredibly tough and well-made. Unfortunately they have no branding, just “Made in U.S.A.” I doubt the company that made them is still in business.
Back in the antique days when turning a distributor could alter the ignition timing, GM and some other manufacturers came up with a system that uses a magnetic probe held by a bracket on the timing cover and a wide “slot” in the front hub or torsional damper. You’d slide the probe of the electronic, magnetic “timing light” into the bracket so it lightly touched the damper; the “timing light” would read out the degrees of advance and the RPM. The same tool also had light-sensing (Luminosity “Lumy”) probes that could go into the glow-plug hole of a Diesel, comparing the position of the torsional damper via the magnetic probe, and the instant of light from the onset of combustion allowed you to “time” the diesel injector.
Not many folks have seen a “magnetic timing light”.
Photo didn’t post. I’ll try again.
I remember using that thing for checking timing on 5.7L an 6.2L GM diesels.
They also discovered that you had to test the fuel cetane as low cetane rating threw off the timing.
I would think we should petition Paul to do a new feature for tools. I bet I’ve got a dozen of modified tools and dozens of special tools.
1972 Norco floor jack hydraulic floor jack bought new, R&R’d many air cooled VW engines back in the day, only goes about half way up now, probably needs fluid, one snap on 10MM open and boxed wrench I found in my ’86 Jetta’s engine compartment when I bought it in ’91. A 17MM open and boxed wrench from my HS auto shop with its initials engraved on it, found it in my ’63 Beetles engine compartment a year after I graduated in ’74.
Also have old Timing light and Tach/Dwell meter from around ’76 when I bought my old ’70 C10. Lots of 6 and 12 point hex head sockets and wrenches, 36MM rear axle socket for VW’s. And the 3 speed column shift handle and tailgate hinges from the old C10. A grease gun from the early ’70’s. Have one of those hand impact removers from the early ’80’s. Chevy steering wheel puller, GM interior door handle puller, all from ’70’s as well.
Northwest Auto Wrecking in Seattle (long gone) had a VW axle tool that they would lend out for yard use only, it was a steel bar about 3 feet long with a hex machined in one end, You jumped or beat on it to get that darn nut off. The VW part of the yard was called the “Old Volks Home”
“Tubing” crowfeet. These were designed for low-torque flare nuts that held tubing to various fittings in hydraulic or pneumatic service. The crowfoot could be ratcheted around; but I never got the hang of them–they were much less handy than they seemed at first. I think they’re more suited to aviation/aerospace than automobile use.
Found this photo on the Internet. I don’t know what to say about a tool box in this condition.
Wow! Tool chests seem like they could last forever and it’s hard to picture someone needing to replace one because it wore out. Well. This guy clearly does!
Perhaps the toolbox owners cars looks the same🤔
It happens when a tool somehow wedges and you cannot open the drawer (ask me how I know.)
Normally, it only happens once, not multiple times.
Low-profile spark-plug sockets
Second view. Any way to add more than one picture per post?
On the close clearance note, Schurkey…
How about the hex shaped “button” that would snap into a socket and allow it to be turned by wrench?
I’m sorry–I don’t understand what you mean.
The hex adapter is seen just above the razor blade.
No sense wasting the film for one piece so I rounded up a few more oddities.
For tinkering this mix of a smallish ratchet and socket set is handy. Pictured are the adapters to connect a breaker-bar when necessary.
I picked up a pair of these from Dear Old Dad. It took me decades to figure out what they were used for. They have a very unusual clamping mechanism.
Second view
They’re for crimping shoelace “eyes” (basically small grommets) into fabric or leather. I’m sure they’re “military surplus” and used for “reconditioning” Army boots where the rough laces have worn-away the thin steel “eyes”.
Because I have two F100s, and also because my father was a professional mechanic who worked on vehicles of that vintage during his prime, I have bought, and also inherited, many tools that are of no use on modern vehicles. Grease guns, drum brake tools, timing lights, a dwell meter, tools for working on carburetors and points-style ignitions, come to mind when I think of the anachronistic tools in my collection.
It is nice when I have a chance to use old-school tools on a modern car. Just last month, doing a rear brake job on my neighbor’s Subaru, I used Dad’s old starwheel adjuster to tighten up the parking brakes.
Some of my favorite tools are the Snap-On ratchets that I inherited from my father. In addition to their sentimental value, they are smooth, light, and have wonderful ergonomics.
A cool tool that I will likely never use but that has lots of sentimental value for nefarious reasons, is my Dad’s old wheel weight installer/remover. When I was a teenager I would sneak it out of his toolbox at night and go out in the neighborhood hunting for wheel weights that I would melt down to make fishing weights. Dad died a few years ago, and finding it among his stuff brought back fond memories.
For those of you wondering which tool company owns which other tool companies, there’s this chart. It’s from a few years ago, so some changes have happened that aren’t represented here. You’ll have to click on this thumbnail to see a large enough photo to read. (At least, I hope it enlarges enough to be legible.)
That’s pretty cool. Thanks for posting it.
Hmm. Ryobi is made by the same company as Hoover. That explains a lot.
My Kmart branded spanners from the mid 80s, they served me well when working on my old Valiants, 7/16 missing in action.
The 3/4 open end is bent up slightly, I remember wedging it between the brick wall of the garage and the concrete floor and bending it with a length of tubing to enable a better fit on a difficult to reach bolt. I never claimed to be a good mechanic.
You used to be able to get good things from Kmart
How about a nod to some of the tool brands that RiP?
Bonney,
None Better
I have a few Bonney full-polish wrenches, and they’re lovely. They fit my hand nicely. Hate to say it, but they’re more comfortable than Snap-On. I’m not saying they’re better, but they don’t dig into my fingers. So far as I can tell, Bonney also made wrenches for MATCO, one of the “Professional” “Truck Tool” companies.
New Britain also owned several other tool companies–Husky, Blackhawk, and others–including None Better. New Britain and None Better use the same initials (NB)
I’ve got Herbrand items. I thought they were “junk tools”; but I was wrong. Never head of Herbrand when I inherited them. (My first Snap-On tools were similarly military surplus, and I’d never heard of Snap-On before. I thought they must be second rate compared to Craftsman. Man, was I wrong.)
Perhaps the tool that’s been in my life the longest–a tool owned by my parents which lived in the “junk drawer” of the kitchen when I was a little kid–is a Utica brand adjustable wrench.
I miss Diamond (Diamond Tool and Horseshoe Company) pliers and adjustable wrenches. Utica, Herbrand, and Bonney were owned by Triangle Company, which then bought out Diamond; and then Triangle sold out to Cooper, and then the whole works merged with Crescent. Little fish get eaten by big fish, which get eaten by bigger fish.
JCPenney had tools and auto-parts sales and service up to the early ’80s. I haven’t seen Penn-Craft tools in decades. They were made by a “big name” company, I think it was Wright. Wright makes good stuff.
Armstrong went out-of-business a few years ago. The company that owned Armstrong also owned several other tool companies such as Allen. Lots of Craftsman and other brand-name hand tools were made by this conglomerate. But as I alluded to, tool companies get bought and sold, whored-out, re-positioned, and eventually when all the quality has been removed and there’s nothing left but the shadow of a reputation, they’re folded-up and some Chinese company takes their place.
I’ve spend days wandering around the tool-centric web site http://www.alloy-artifacts.org LOTS of tool history there.
And there’s tons of tool-related conversations at http://www.garagejournal.com but I don’t post much there anymore.
After reading all of these posts and being reminded of the various obsolete tools that I still possess, one came to mind that no one has mentioned: A Schrader valve stem tool; if it wasn’t so late I’d take and post a picture! 🙂
Moparman, do you mean a multi-tool “cross” for reconditioning stems?
Recently -in desperation- I had to build a core removal tool. Granted, it was for the more obscure size large “earthmover” stem.
A simple slot “hacksawed” into a tube did the trick.
I have 2 Schrader valve tools, neither of which I could find. I did, however, find a spoke wrench, a Mazda rotary flywheel nut, and a Uni-Syn- along with a couple of badges from cars I used it on.
Pic
I have one of those.
It doesn’t get much use, but I have used it occasionally to tighten up a leaky valve insert on an old bicycle tube.
It is in a box with my dad’s tire tools, along with a tool with a wooden handle and a knurled wheel, used for adhering patches onto inner tubes.
I’m not old enough to have used one of those oil spouts, but I remember them, and I bet there’s one somewhere under a workbench in my Mom’s basement.
Oldest tools I use would be a hammer that belonged to one grandfather which must be from the ’50s and a 1/2 inch socket set from my other grandfather. That is from the late ’30s or early ’40s.
Newest is the screw thing that compresses the caliper on rear disc brakes. Got that a few weeks ago, first time I’ve had a car with all discs.
Once upon a time, long before identity theft was a thing, the authorities used to tell you to inscribe your name and social security number onto your valuables so that if they were stolen and recovered, the police could return them to you. So I did. I used an electric etching pencil to mark all of my wrenches and sockets, pliers, hammers, and more. Familiarity breeds contempt. I used these tools for decades, never noticing what was right in front of me, and then one day while doing a brake job, it jumped out at me. About two years ago I realized that all of my information was inscribed on my tools. I spent several hours grinding all of that information off. Heads up, old timers!
Really, now who needs stinking tools when you have these…
“These” aren’t worth nearly what they were a month ago. Tools in skilled hands are invaluable.
Anyone in the maintenance world knows that simply pouring “these” at many problem won’t fix them; in fact, it can make them worse, much worse.
In-house familiarity, expertise, and the right tools will outperform money tossed by the truck load.
Those things come in handy when one needs to purchase tools.
Tools can also come in handy as a way to earn legal tender.
+1
Love the toolbox. I’m a mechanic by trade for a farm/landscaping/construction/arborist company and at any given time in my bay it could be anything. I can start a shift with an excavator and end the day with a chainsaw or zero turn with a few 3/4 ton or dump trucks thrown in around lunchtime. I’ve got a few random tools specific to service an individual manufacturers equipment, but most can be repaired with a basic mechanics tool kit. My go to portable kit is the HF 301 kit. I can’t always have a service truck for a field call, so this el cheapo kit plus a few extra wrenches and a hammer usually get the repair done going on 4 years strong. The specialty tools I’ve needed were either supplied or I purchased at a discount (those go with me when the time comes).
In the shop, yes, I have a solid Snap-On collection. I have my reasons, I won’t bore you with them. All bought over the long haul as my finances permitted. However they are stored in a US General HF 56″ roll cab. The tools make you the money, the box just needs to hold the money makers. I turn a wrench, not a box. My roll cab has been wonderful. This drives my Snappy rep crazy as he tries to sell me a $5-7K cab regularly. He is a young buck well under 30 yrs old. Don’t get me wrong, tool truck boxes are something else and I get it, but I can’t do it. I tell him I refuse to buy a tool box that costs more than my daily driver and I try like heck not pay more than $900 for a beater with a heater. The day he has a trade in roll cab 56″ or larger at >$900, he gets a sale.
I recognize the impact driver they also accept 1/2 inch drive sockets a very handy weapon mine is quite bruised on the hitting end its had quite a bit of use dismantling rusty old cars for parts I have some made in the USA Crescent brand cranked ring spanners still useable and a 2nd grade SK Wayne 1/2 inch drive socket set that was my fathers its almost as old as my pet car and a lot of the tools I have were my dads I used them on old bombs when I was a teen, Ive got several home made special tools for use on Peugeot diesel engines copied fron utube or out of workshop manuals. None of which is getting used lately, both cars of mine are reliable its a terrible state of affairs.
Love it! You have me thinking about all those tools I have used so many times since the 1970s when I first started buying them. Just a few weeks ago I got out my old punch and chisel set which I needed to punch out a pedal crank bearing housing from the frame of an exercise bike. I had to use those cold chisels to cut off many a rusted-on nut on my northern Indiana cars.
Another favorite tool is my long parts grabber – the thing that looks like a 2 foot long cable with a push button on one end and the 3-fingered claw on the other. It was invaluable for fishing a piece of walnut shell out of the spark plug recess of a Ford 4.6 that prevented a socket from seating on a spark plug. Damn squirrels.
Rachet wrench sets have a long history.
These were my grandfather’s set, nicely displayed in their original oak case.
Nice!
The “sheet metal” tools are occasionally around where old tools are found, a stray here and there, but I don’t recall seeing a still intact set. Gramps and y’all sure took good care of it.
Of course the ratchet is reversed by flipping it over. I was going to post a similar flat ratchet, it too has a through-hole at the business end.
Fancy using oak for a tool chest!
The tool I have owned the longest is the set of metric socket wrenches my father passed on to me when I went off to university to maintain my 1972 Toyota truck. I remember doing tune-ups with my dad using it in the late 1960s – I assume it is not much older than that as it comes in a plastic case. It’s a no-name brand, but has held up to lots of wrenching and car restorations over the years, and makes me think of my father whenever I take it out.
However, the single tool that brings back the most memories is a 10mm deep socket. I bought a 1975 VW Rabbit when I was a senior at university, and the carburetor was terribly unreliable, and the deep socket made it much quicker to take apart. It was such a common failure mode, I got to the point where I could disassemble, diagnose, and reassemble the carb by the side of the road in around 30 minutes. As a poor student, I could only afford one socket, not a set, so every time I see it in my tool chest, it reminds me of how lucky I am am to have the life I have now.
The most unusual tool in my collection is a set of Whitworth wrenches, which date back to when I owned a 1967 Land Rover 109 station wagon. That was a weird vehicle due to legacy tooling – depending on the subsystem, you could be using Whitworth, English, or metric tools to remove fasteners.
My most unusual tool? It would have to be a serrated steak knife. Cuts most everything, puts those razor knives and pocketknives to shame.
Here are most of the tools I keep in the toolbox in my 2011 Ford Ranger, MOSTLY clockwise from the CRAFTSMAN Tool Bag: CAT Multi-tool Pliers w/ Phillips screwdriver, flat-head screwdriver, 3-piece wrench-&-pliers set, adjustable lug nut wrench (for multiple vehicle wheels), dual-edge crowbar (found at an antique store), PERFORMANCE TOOL Magnetic Tray (VERY handy for holding loose lug nuts, screws, nails, bolts, etc.), CRAFTSMAN 12-ft Tape Measure & Electronic Tire Pressure Gauge (above & far left respectively), wire strippers, EXXON Carpenter’s Square w/ drill bit gauge (found in the shed I keep the Nissan Trailer under), FISKARS Titanium-Blade Scissors, COCA-COLA Ruler, and MICHELIN 12-Volt Tire Inflator (bought recently at Sam’s Club; NICE to have when you don’t have a 120-Volt outlet to plug in an air compressor). It’s good to have the length of a flat truck hood to display everything on. 🙂
The aforementioned toolbox (branded NORTHERN TOOL on the outside but BETTER BUILT on the inside) with a hammer hanging off the edge of it (forgot to display it with the other tools; came from the antique store also). My original toolbox came from TRACTOR SUPPLY, but was transferred to the Nissan Trailer when it no longer fit the Ranger after the camper shell was added to it. I also store my trailer hitches & booster cables in there so they’re not just lying around in the bed.
My toolbox has some unusual stickers, most notably a 1989 Scania truck sticker from when they were trying to enter the US market and a TWA sticker advertising the then new DC-9 Super 80. In the box I have a ball peen hammer that was my father’s and possibly my grandfather’s, a spark plug wrench from a a 1966 Mercedes I still use on my BMW motorcycle, some early water cooled VW service tools, a home made BMW airhead clutch disassembly tool, and an electronic tachometer for Stihl chain saws (works on any single or twin cylinder engine).
I have a lot of old tools that I picked up here and there over the years, all worn and mismatched. My wrenches have names such as Lakeside, Buhl, Dunlap, Vlchek, Life-Time, Williams and Barcalo. Sure, also some Craftsman ones in there that I actually bought new back in the 1980s, but also at least one wrench marked Ford in Model-T era script. Here’s a typical sample:
test
Tried to edit this but it wouldn’t let me. Every toolbox needs a bottle opener.
Most everyone has seen Torx (“Star”) fasteners. Before Torx was a “thing”, GM used a similar six-lobed wrenching surface on door strikers and perhaps seat-belt bolts. The GM design is NOT compatible with Torx even though they look kinda-sorta similar. GM is more angular, while Torx is all concave and convex curves. The ONLY place I know of to get the GM-specific tool is Snap-On; although I suppose Kent-Moore must have them too.
I do have some special tools I’ve acquired since of course, but the best Christmas present my dear departed Father gave me 40 1/2 years ago was a metric Craftsman toolkit with metal tool box. Even then wasn’t sure if SAE would have been more useful choice, but since I’ve owned nothing but foreign cars since, it proved to be a good one.
I’ve since supplemented it with some SAE to take care of my household chores.
The Craftsman tookit also had an ignition service kit with feeler gauges, points file, distributor wrench, of course at the time my car still had a carburator and points. It even had a hacksaw with a bunch of blades….there were a lot of them originally, but I’ve used most of them throughout the years (thankfully mostly on non-car projects).
Though I don’t use all the tools consistently, the kit has allowed me to work on things I’d never have thought to try previously.
My Dad really wasn’t a car guy, but he was technical (a chemist by training) and maybe more useful was the bits of information I picked up hanging around him and other people. Sometimes he couldn’t do a job himself and hired it out to be done, for instance when he had a set of fold-down stairs to the attic put in….and I was to be his assistant while the work was being done, so I learned something about framing an opening which of course was useful later on (even when I was putting in doors in a house for Habitat for Humanity or replacing a leaky back door to his home). Mostly an interest in how things are done, even if they aren’t quite in your normal field of practice, can lead you to ideas later on that you might not otherwise have thought of. One of my ex-co-workers impressed me greatly with his resourcefulness…his refrigerator had a bad starter and he couldn’t get parts until the next day…he characterized the operation of the starter and figured an incandescent bulb would approximate it, and clipped in a bulb so his refrigerator would work until he could get the replacement part (maybe if he was single, his refrigerator would continue to operate with the bulb in place without having to buy the starter, to this day?). The great part of the toolkit was his mind….he wasn’t normally a refrigerator repair person for his day job.
When I got a ’63 Beetle as my first car, realized the tools in Dad’s shed (standard) didn’t fit my VW (metric). Wow, the fun of owning a car!!
Dad drove me to Sears and for $50, you has a choice of a tool box full of standard or metric sockets and wrenches, plus some screw drivers and pliers. With the metric set plus other items like brake repair tools, kept the ’63 & ’69 Beetles and ’75 Toyota Corolla rolling thru high school and college. I still have the original metric set (minus a socket or two). The best source of the old US made Craftsman tools are garage sales and flea markets.
One thing I learned from this is go ahead and pay the $10 or $15 for the proper tool for the appropriate job. I learned this the hard way when an improvised tool slipped and left a gash on the back of my hand. School of hard knocks!!
Here is the pride of my toolbox. When I say I need my Crescent wrench, I really mean it!
I have my Dads, I have no idea how old it is, I have known it as long as I’ve been alive.
On the other side side it says CeeTeeCo.
I’l call it the Granddaddy of my toolbox,
I had the exact same impact drive and the carb sync tool. All purchased for a 3 cyl Kawasaki 500. The impact driver got a lot of use and at some point it disappeared. The carb sync tool was a waste of money for me. It flutter so bad on the Kawasaki I couldn’t tell anything. I just used my fingers to set the carbs and cancelled cylinders to check load balance. Also used it on my Moto Guzzi, similar results. The Guzzi techs scared me with talk about the Del Orto carbs being notoriously difficult to get tuned properly. After my bike sat there two weeks waiting for them to go thru the carbs I went back and got the bike and went thru them myself. Moral of the story, most techs assume you are an idiot.
I’m sure I have numerous interesting tools (many of which aren’t with me where I am now), but my old toolbox itself probably has a more interesting story than anything that was in it. It was at the house where I grew up as long as I can remember, usually on the basement floor along with other clutter. Most of the tools in it were well-worn Craftsman screwdrivers, wrenches, and pliers, but also some old-timey wood screwdrivers, wrenches, and hammers, some of which looked to date from before the 20th century. Only occasionally did my dad trot out the toolbox to a work area elsewhere in the house or driveway, and when he did occasionally he’d mention his grandfather (a plumber and woodworker) made it himself. A few years ago I gave that some thought – it was made by my great grandfather, and my nephew and nieces’ great great grandfather, making it by far my oldest family heirloom.
The significance of that didn’t hit me until I thought back to another family-heirloom story an old girlfriend once related, and which stuck with me. Her mother (or maybe her grandmother, don’t remember) had an old set of fine china, apparently rare and expensive when new, that had been in her family and handed down for several generations. By the time her mom got it, it was considered too valuable to risk breaking stuff by actually serving dinner on it, so the collection mostly sat in the dining room cabinets, behind doors in protective covers. When her mom got old and tried to pass on the fancy dinnerware to her daughter, she declined it. Her mom was horrified. These were treasured family heirlooms that belonged to her grandmother! But my gf had no use and no space for another set of dishes that were too old-fashioned looking for her tastes and couldn’t be used in the microwave. It’s not like she had any treasured memories of her family and friends eating from this dinnerware on fancy occasions or holidays. And that’s why I came to love the old handmade toolbox: my dad never treated it like a valuable, treasured family heirloom. No, it was just an old but functional toolbox, and when he was done using a screwdriver he’d just chuck it in there from waist height without a thought, thus explaining its current
dilapidated conditionpatina. I learned from the juxtaposition of these two stories that sometimes, counterintuitively, the best way to get your kids to appreciate something is not to treat it as anything holy or special that must be preserved, but rather just let them take in the seeming mundanity of it being part of your life.I have a similar toolbox that belonged to my grandfather. His doesn’t have the nice curvature on the handle that yours has. It’s wonderful what they used to make out of wood once. Nowadays it’d be moulded plastic.
I saved the first, small toolbox I got as a gift from my folks when I was 16, for many years, using it for odd sized drill bits and sockets, or bent saw blades I might use on a demo job with lots of nails. When it was still quite new I used at a rainy SCCA race in Portland in 1978, where it filled with water and starting growing that PNW patina. I passed it on to my daughter a few years ago (in Portland, fittingly) and I actually used it a few months ago to do a small repair at her house on our last visit. The 40 year old stickers are holding up well and the patina is just on the surface.
I’ve owned a wrinkle band ring compressor for over 40 years and it by far beats the standard type ring compressor. I’ve used it on at least 50 engines. It is superior in that it can’t slip into the cylinder, adjust it for the first piston and it is set for the remainder, and you can see where the rings are in relation to the block. (Stock photo) I read some current reviews on Amazon and the current Chinese made one may not be as robust as mine, but it still received a 71/15/6/3/5% (5 to 1 star rating).