Know your workshop tools.

[staffordjas]

I do like screwdrivers with wooden handles.

A bit of a sort-out yesterday revealed that I probably have enough now, I think.

View attachment 13417

There are some interesting things there - the 'Perfect'-pattern ones towards the left, the solid steel items with just small wooden plates forming the handle, were common in motor vehicle toolkits before the war - they can be struck firmly with a hammer, whilst being turned.

The 'double-handled' one is something I've never seen elsewhere - you can apply pressure with one hand and torque with the other.

An original Surform and a couple of scrapers rest on an old photographic guillotine, then there's a few chisels.

The chisel with the 'thing' on the end is used for raising a small sliver of wood from a surface, so that a nail or small screw can be used, then the sliver is glued back above it, for a 'secret' fixing.

I inherited some from my parents shed , but most have chunks of wood missing where he must have used a hammer on them.

I found them useful when he'd lock me out at night when I came back late...I'd climb on the bin & use the screwdriver to lever the kitchen window open to climb in ( pre- double glazing days)
Got a wooden hammer with a chunk missing as well, the other one got broke completely when the scrap metal man was removing the stairlift for me. He broke his own , then ours...( but did him a favour with all the free metal, and for me as the stairlift people wanted £200 to remove it!).

My dad got all his screwdrivers etc like that as he cycled from Stafford to his school where he taught in Great Wyrley each day. People fixing broken down cars on the side of the road used to drive off & forget them.

 

[Noah]

Must say I have a lot of old tools lying around. Some are leather working stuff which could come from a grandfather or possibly further back, he was also the source of the upholstery tools. Some are stamped GER which are either great grandfather of great uncle. Ancient woodworking tools, no idea.

 

[Gramaisc]

I have a few folding rules, but this one is a real quality item.

Protractor, calibrated hinge, right-angle strut, spirit level and multiple scales, it was, presumably, intended for the gentleman artisan, rather than an actual worker.

It may be rather older than I thought - the business seems to have stopped trading under that name after they were taken over in 1856.

 

[Gramaisc]

I've had one of these Wolfcraft drill press/stands for a while and noticed today that the 'spare' cordless drill appeared to have the necessary 43mm collar, often not found on cordless drills. A test fitting revealed that it would fit, but "amusingly", the chuck was 43.5mm in diameter and was just fouled by the clamp.

However, a bit of measuring suggested that I only needed to chamfer a very small bit off the back of the chuck body, and this proved to be the case. I did this by fitting a battery and using the drill as a lathe, in effect.

So, I can now drill perpendicular holes reliably, without having to resort to a mains drill or dragging items to the 'real' drill press - this is, of course not always convenient, or even possible, with things like walls, etc...

The vee-blocks make the cross-drilling of round objects a lot more reliable, too.

The body can stay in there, as I rarely use it anyway.

 

[Alee]

@Gramaisc heres my non weapon

 

[Gramaisc]

I unearthed this during the bench demolition.

I got it at the Common boot sale about twenty years ago.

It's not really a workshop tool, as such, but it's not worth starting another thread, I think.

It will have been made, in Germany, in the first quarter of the last century and it is of remarkable mechanical quality. The handle rotates the shaft with the disc on at forty times the speed of the input.

The two things at the end, one flat and one spherical, can be attached in four positions, at right angles, as required - you can see the two 'empty' positions.

It has quite a specific basic function, but the claims for its efficacy would cause the ASA to intervene today, I suspect.

 

[littleme]

I unearthed this during the bench demolition.

I got it at the Common boot sale about twenty years ago.

It's not really a workshop tool, as such, but it's not worth starting another thread, I think.

View attachment 13514

It will have been made, in Germany, in the first quarter of the last century and it is of remarkable mechanical quality. The handle rotates the shaft with the disc on at forty times the speed of the input.

The two things at the end, one flat and one spherical, can be attached in four positions, at right angles, as required - you can see the two 'empty' positions.

It has quite a specific basic function, but the claims for its efficacy would cause the ASA to intervene today, I suspect.

It's very shiny, whatever it is.... (Brain says it looks like some horrible gynacological instrument).

 

[proactive]

It's very shiny, whatever it is.... (Brain says it looks like some horrible gynacological instrument).

 

[Gramaisc]

I had cause to use these last night, to smooth the rough edge of a replacement tabletop in the pub

They are Cintride hand sanders. Plastic holders for thin steel sheets with tungsten carbide grit brazed to them - 'everlasting sandpaper'. Very effective and long-lasting - I bought them around 1980 in the Handyman on Gaol Road.

I had two holders with a coarse and a fine sheet, that may have been all that was available, but they have been in regular use since then. The addition of the C and F in black felt-pen did considerably reduce the tendency to pick up the other one all the time.

Although they are long out-of-production, a swift Google found a potential source of the last few in a very obscure location a long way away - it may be possible to despatch an agent there at some point.

It's possible that my 'fine' sheet is very fine now, after forty years of use, so a new sheet might be worth having.


This is the tabletop in question - a hand-painted label facsimile on a ply wood disc. The edges of the plywood had fluffed up and hardened as the paint cured, leading to some rather rough patches, but it's all a lot smoother now.

The photo doesn't really do justice to the sheer skill and artistry of the perpetrator.

 

[EasMid]

The photo doesn't really do justice to the sheer skill and artistry of the perpetrator.

Oh but it does you know.