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Indestro #350 (1935-1936) seems to have a wrong socket

Ohio Andy

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I have a RED (not green) Indestro MFG Corp Model 350.

There is a great description here: http://alloy-artifacts.org/duro-indestro-p3.html

This set appears to have an incorrect socket that looks like an absolutely perfect match, including how it is labeled.

This contains the following sockets:

Hex: 1/4, 3/16, 11/32, 3/8, and 7/16
Square: 1/4 and 5/16.

The 5/16" square really confuses me. The web site says that this should be a hex, not a square.

Any thoughts or speculations?

Left to right the second and fifth sockets are square.

industro_mfg_corp_350.jpg
 
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Ohio Andy

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I have a RED (not green) Indestro MFG Corp Model 350.

There is a great description here: http://alloy-artifacts.org/duro-indestro-p3.html

This set appears to have an incorrect socket that looks like an absolutely perfect match, including how it is labeled.

This contains the following sockets:

Hex: 1/4, 3/16, 11/32, 3/8, and 7/16
Square: 1/4 and 5/16.

The 5/16" square really confuses me. The web site says that this should be a hex, not a square.

Any thoughts or speculations?

Left to right the second and fifth sockets are square.

industro_mfg_corp_350.jpg
Side note, I checked a few other brands of sockets (1/4") and they are all much taller than these
 

four.cycle

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NOT all of my 350's are consistent on contents, but they're all buried in boxes right at the moment.
But bottom line: What the catalog says and what is in your set could well vary due to a PO's previous additions or subtractions.
The holders were painted both red and green.
 

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  • Indestro 350 'Vest Pocket' 8-pc 1.4 hex drive SAE socket set - 1937 Indestro catalog pp 34.jpg
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  • Indestro 350 'Vest Pocket' 8-pc 1.4 hex drive SAE socket set - 1948 Indestro catalog pp 25.jpg
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  • Indestro 350 'Vest Pocket' 8-pc 1.4 hex drive SAE socket set - 1959 Indestro catalog pp 38.jpg
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Ohio Andy

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NOT all of my 350's are consistent on contents, but they're all buried in boxes right at the moment.
But bottom line: What the catalog says and what is in your set could well vary due to a PO's previous additions or subtractions.
The holders were painted both red and green.
Interesting. So there was a version with the 5/16 square.

What do you do with the 5/16-in square? I don't think I've ever needed one. Looks like some machinery maybe or a pipe. I see that they are still available for sale.

I really appreciate the fast response
 
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Ohio Andy

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If you run across a pipe plug with a 5/16” head that socket could be pretty useful.IMG_4735.jpeg
-Don
Now I have male / female from 7/16 - 5/8

Sunex Tools 8-Piece CR-MO Steel Socket Set, 1/2-Inch Drive, Pipe Plug, Male/Female, SAE: 7/16'' to 5/8'', Heavy Duty Storage Case, Meets ANSI Standards, Model 2841

Vintage restored T handle (that I cannot identify the manufacturer, one of them has an oddball part number on it but nothing else to identify who made it) in sizes 7/16 and 11/16

1000002843.jpg


And in the set a 1/4 and 5/16.
 

four.cycle

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What do you do with the 5/16-in square?
Same thing you would do with a 5/16" 8-point: remove an NPT pipe thread plug from the base flange of your Briggs & Stratton model 5S 1 hp engine on your 1955 Toro Sportlawn mower.

Those T-handles are interesting, but I don't think they're Indestro. What sort of numbers are on them, and are there any other marks that might help identify them?
 

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Ohio Andy

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Ohio Andy

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Same thing you would do with a 5/16" 8-point: remove an NPT pipe thread plug from the base flange of your Briggs & Stratton model 5S 1 hp engine on your 1955 Toro Sportlawn mower.

Those T-handles are interesting, but I don't think they're Indestro. What sort of numbers are on them, and are there any other marks that might help identify them?

Both of these came out of a box of junk with tools that I've dated mostly before 1950 and some are clearly like 1910 1920ish.

Everything was very Rusty and I have some really oddball things that I've never seen before but I hope to kind of figure out what they are.

But there was a lot of rust. Some things are really seriously rust damaged. I've removed a lot of rust. I went and bought three more gallons of evapo rust.

Both are hollow so they could go over a longer bolt to get to a nut if needed. Not that I have a reason to believe they needed that for these.

The smaller one has no visible markings that I can see. The larger one has the following numbers stamped in the side

23635

So the smaller one conceivably they could have produced this by taking a steel pipe brazing the socket on one end brazing a cap on the other, running a hole through the cap and adding the t-handle. Of course it looks professionally manufactured. It's just that's how it looks.

The larger one looks like they started with a longer pipe. The pipe looks like it's tapered but it's not. It's 5/8 the whole way. Has the socket on the bottom then it looks like they drilled a hole for the t handle. And then it looks like they plugged the top with a small piece of steel rod that has a small hole drilled in it.

Oh goodness and I just realized that the larger 11/16 is a hex, not a four point. I had not looked at it in about 2 weeks.

I picked up a lot of stuff...

Every bit of it was just covered in rust. I will probably paint the jacks starting today. I've been trying to use the original colors if I can figure out what that would be. Fur example, matching the color on the Bergman metal shears was tricky. The closest I could find was patriotic blue. The P&C 1312 snips it looked like came in multiple colors but there was still sufficient paint on them that I could guess. Or at least get close, but neither had much pain at all. The threat I used for that was a clear at wine.

1000002849.jpg

Put on those t handle nut drivers. I looked through some old catalogs and I could see things that were close but nothing really matched, especially on the 11/16 hex. It is so distinctive.
 

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four.cycle

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A 5-digit part number pretty much eliminates every American "hand tool" manufacturer up to about 1980 or so. Up to that point most all of them used a 3-or-4 digit part numbering system or an alpha-numeric part numbering system (e.g., New Britain NM-64 spinner.)
Caterpillar used an alpha-numeric system (e.g., 2H2873 "ell wrench")

Who does that leave?

The smaller unit is interesting. Not sure where 7/16" square fits into the automotive world. I have to wonder if was made to service some sort of machinery? Definitely not a home-made job - too nicely finished for that sort of thing.

The shears turned out fabulous. I don't have any Bergman documents in color - they're all black-and-white, but that ultramarine blue does look spot on.
 
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Ohio Andy

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I have a favor to ask of you:
1000002851.jpg
P1183 on the middle one. The bottom looks something like p28. And the top says 1AA.

If I turn them over, that center one has what looks like a plus sign engraved on the back. I can't tell if a previous owner did it or if it's factory. Also, it looks like someone has beaten the pliers which caused a little edge to form so that if it was a tight fit you couldn't push it on. You'd have to drop it on over the top because there's a lip covering the open end

1000002853.jpg

The unit on the left has what looks like a little dimple or ****** kind of in the center. I'm not sure what to make of that. 1AA wrench.

And thanks for the identifications on the others. Later today I'm going to go ahead and label those in my notes. That's very helpful. It blows my mind how you just kind of know that
 

Oldtuleguy

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I have a RED (not green) Indestro MFG Corp Model 350.

There is a great description here: http://alloy-artifacts.org/duro-indestro-p3.html

This set appears to have an incorrect socket that looks like an absolutely perfect match, including how it is labeled.

This contains the following sockets:

Hex: 1/4, 3/16, 11/32, 3/8, and 7/16
Square: 1/4 and 5/16.

The 5/16" square really confuses me. The web site says that this should be a hex, not a square.

Any thoughts or speculations?

Left to right the second and fifth sockets are square.

industro_mfg_corp_350.jpg

Here's a a duro and an indestro, same arrangement
 

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four.cycle

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It blows my mind how you just kind of know that
There has been quite a learning curve. The Eberhard was an interesting puzzle, but I finally solved it with the help of one of the stewards at datamp.org. That unit with all the holes in it is some sort of "implement wrench", but it's difficult to say who - those are not my specialty. You can pore through old auction listings on "wrenching news" pages until your eyeballs bleed and you still might not find what you're looking for. Download my list, open the file in Windows Notepad, click the "File" tab at top left, click "search" and enter "implement wrench" and you'll get an idea of how many different makers of those things there were in the late 19th Century - and I don't even have half of them listed in there!
I have identified several by looking at the photos from those auctions, though... as crazily time-consuming as that is.
===
Okay after some poking around with that method and a couple different search strings on Google:

Brown / Brown Manly Plow Co., Malta, OH / implement wrenches / wrench marked "1AA" / https://www.garagejournal.com/forum...-to-have-a-wrong-socket.539120/#post-10898106

see ebay https://www.ebay.com/itm/226166915314

<EDIT 02:18 PDT see post #20 >
 
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four.cycle

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gah! maltese cross was used on .... Dayton Light Company? (Delco?)
I still have have a dozen windows open on Brown Manly - I got sidetracked here.
that one in the ebay ad has the Eberhard "E in a circle" logo on the opposite side.
implement wrench ebay e in a circle (ebay 226166915314 01).jpg
^ That's Eberhard:
Eberhard Mfg. Co. Cleveland OH LOGO.jpg

< edit 02:18 PDT see post #20 >
 

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four.cycle

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^ Thanks. That one got by me. I had the image, but it landed in a different folder and I guess the "Maltese Cross" on their letterhead and envelope just didn't click.
None of the images I found on the web of that particular wrench had a Maltese Cross on them - only "1AA" or "E in a circle" or blank.

list updated accordingly
 

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Ohio Andy

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Well I just spent the last few hours pouring through this stuff and my head hurts!

Thanks for all the information. I am still trying to pull some of it, like the links to archive.org, which is not responding well at the moment.
 

RTM

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^ Thanks. That one got by me. I had the image, but it landed in a different folder and I guess the "Maltese Cross" on their letterhead and envelope just didn't click.
None of the images I found on the web of that particular wrench had a Maltese Cross on them - only "1AA" or "E in a circle" or blank.

list updated accordingly
What you saw as an E in a circle, I saw as a circular blob, so was passing no opinion. Too tired to go to the big screen, so the iPad has to do.
 
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Ohio Andy

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What you saw as an E in a circle, I saw as a circular blob, so was passing no opinion. Too tired to go to the big screen, so the iPad has to do.
The cross is not on the 1aa wrench....

The cross is on the p1183 international harvester ranch that has a 7/8 and a 3/4-in open and then a 5/8 square.

The 1A wrench is the brown manly plow company 6 and 1/2 in Long ranch with a 3/4-in open end and a 9/16 in square.
 

four.cycle

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^ Okay... thanks for that. I looked at every "1AA" and every "Brown Manly" listing on ebay the other night and never saw any Maltese Crosses on any of them.
Thanks for clarifying.
 
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Ohio Andy

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^ Okay... thanks for that. I looked at every "1AA" and every "Brown Manly" listing on ebay the other night and never saw any Maltese Crosses on any of them.
Thanks for clarifying.
You've done an amazing job identifying a lot of things for me. It's amazing.

I didn't even know what that cross was called by the way.
 
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Ohio Andy

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^ Okay... thanks for that. I looked at every "1AA" and every "Brown Manly" listing on ebay the other night and never saw any Maltese Crosses on any of them.
Thanks for clarifying.
And what I didn't say it was that the real reason I bought that box was just so I could practice rehabbing tools because they were all very rusty. Now I just need to figure out what to do with them.
 

four.cycle

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^ Well... do NOT put them on a wire wheel or "brush" them - they are most likely cad plated, and it's a toxic compound - you do not want to breathe the dust.
Believe it or not, there is a market for them. They regularly sell on ebay in the neighborhood of $20 bucks, which is just crazy.

The "Maltese Cross" had its heyday in this country in 1965. Didn't matter what it was, if you put a Maltese Cross on it you could sell it.
We were selling "Maltese Cross" t-shirts and skateboards my old many bought from Coast Auto Supply out of Portland.
Walfrin-LaCal (Florida) made "Maltese Cross" water-transfer decals (along with the "Wild Woodpecker" decals.)

Other than Delco (Dayton Electric Light Co.), I don't know of any other tool makers who used it.
 

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Ohio Andy

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^ Well... do NOT put them on a wire wheel or "brush" them - they are most likely cad plated, and it's a toxic compound - you do not want to breathe the dust.


Oops... I did use an n95, but that's it.


Believe it or not, there is a market for them. They regularly sell on ebay in the neighborhood of $20 bucks, which is just crazy.

The "Maltese Cross" had its heyday in this country in 1965. Didn't matter what it was, if you put a Maltese Cross on it you could sell it.

So the year I was born....


We were selling "Maltese Cross" t-shirts and skateboards my old many bought from Coast Auto Supply out of Portland.
Walfrin-LaCal (Florida) made "Maltese Cross" water-transfer decals (along with the "Wild Woodpecker" decals.)

Other than Delco (Dayton Electric Light Co.), I don't know of any other tool makers who used it.
I wonder if the manufacturer did that or if some owner did it. Now I need to go back and check my notes....
 
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Ohio Andy

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on your "T-handles" - see 1935 Armstrong catalog pp 138
Armstrong at International Tool Catalog Library
very similar. not identical.
six point. four point.
For the record, I have tried numerous times to view this catalog... I think it is this one:


But it never shows me anything. It just spins and never loads :-(

Found lots of other things there that do load, however.
 

four.cycle

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again, not exactly the same as yours, but similar. available in four-point (square) or six-point.
 

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four.cycle

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^ So... apparently they were a THING, and they were a production item way back. Why they fell out of favor we'll never know.
And like everything else that goes full circle, they are one of the more preferred tools in the motorcycle repair business now.
 
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