Dividers, compass, trammels, associated tools, (not calipers)

[four.cycle]

Pease / C.F. Pease Co., 836 No. Franklin, Chicago, IL / est. 1907 / drafting equipment and tools / patent 1421455 Jul 4 1922 & 1466712 Sep 4 1923 Charles A. Green and Henry F. Schuh /

1928 C.F. Pease catalog at Internet Archive HERE: https://archive.org/details/EverythingForBluePrintingEverythingForTheDraftingRoom/page/n25/mode/2up

 

[WisJim]

My favorite dividers, I think I got them at either an auction or garage sale at least 40 years ago. Marked "Taylor, Drury. & CO., Clev'd, O".

 

[RTM]

My favorite dividers, I think I got them at either an auction or garage sale at least 40 years ago. Marked "Taylor, Drury. & CO., Clev'd, O".

Is that a square nut on the fine adjuster, or just mangled. Love the brass / steel combo.

 

[WisJim]

It's not square, someone probably used pliers on it at one time--more than once.

 

[INSP380]

Fulton dividers. The first two are both marked Fulton 202 but obviously different lengths. They are marked Germany on the reverse side. Probably made by/for United Hardware. The next set is marked Fulton Made in USA. What makes these unique is that instead of a spring to keep adjustments smooth, it uses a special knob that has both a right-hand thread and a internal left-hand thread. Last is a Fulton USA compass.

Thanks for sharing the Fulton compass. I just received one in a box I bought but it was missing the fulcrum. Into the trash it went. Just dug it out and set it aside…. It now lives on..

Steve

 

[crguy]

I'm a fan of the Stoddards myself, but prefer them with a nice original patina rather than highly buffed.

 

[Beerhippie]

My father had a very nice set of navigational equipment for his sailing trips, including several very ornate old British (?) dividers and sextant.

Unfortunately, I'm in the (endless) process of settling his estate and none of the nav. gear is present--nor are any of his tools.

Navigational dividers would have a knob on top that stays perpendicular to the base of the legs for "stepping off" distances.

 

[d42jeep]

Here are two dividers made in Athol. The upper one is from Athol Machine Co. and the lower is from the LS Starrett Co.
More pictures of the Athol Machine Co divider.
-Don

 

[d42jeep]

I picked up these kind of rusty dividers at an estate sale on Friday. I guess that they are poorly marked Atlas Tool Co from New York, a brand I wasn’t familiar with.
-Don

 

[RoninB4]

-Have a set of trammel points unlike others. They're made of aluminum with hardened steel points with interchangeable attachments that can hold drawing leads. They're splined/keyed together and can extend to 40" if all the rods are used. Leather covered, French Fitted case lined with velvet(?). The brand name is in a language I don't know (perhaps Czech?), they came from an old Chicago furniture store on Elston Ave. in 1980 run by Eastern Europeans.

 

[Old tool guy]

Pexto No 35 8” wing dividers, polished steel. Model 165 was almost identical, but nickel plated. Mine is in very good condition, except one leg looks like it was used to pry things open a couple of times.

Also, the wing screw that secures the curved arm (is that the wing?) is almost stripped. There is enough thread engaging to keep it from falling out, but not enough to tighten. Any suggesstions on how to restore the threads?

 

[Eric Brown]

Prxto No 35 8” wing dividers, polished steel. Model 165 was almost identical, but nickel plated. Mine is in very good condition, except one leg looks like it was used to pry things open a couple of times.

Also, the wing screw that secures the curved arm (is that the wing?) is almost stripped. There is enough thread engaging to keep it from falling out, but not enough to tighten. Any suggesstions on how to restore the threads?

Short of replacing it, all my suggestions will work, for a little while. You could nickel plate it and build the treads up a little. You could try smashing the threads a little. You could try some JB weld to make the female threads smaller (if you have the right sized tap). If it's cast steel, you could have a good welder weld a new threaded section on. You could cut the existing off, then drill and tap putting a threaded rod into the hole and secure it with Lok-Tite.

 

[tombell572]

A large and small set of Brown & Sharpe trammels:

Tom B.

 

[four.cycle]

The brand name is in a language I don't know

Präcision can be German.

possibly K & E ?

 

[RoninB4]

Präcision can be German.

-I lived in Germany for a summer and also married a German woman that was trying to teach me the language. A divorce followed none too soon thereafter and I've been purging all the language lessons I was taught ever since. No offense meant to any of our Germanic members that read this.

possibly K & E ?

-Your guess is as good as mine, I bought them because they were unique in function and appearance. Never seen another set like these.

 

[four.cycle]

the "pracision" part is just "precision", I think. I was trying to suss out the LOGO, and perusing ebay listings and google searches I came up with a "K & E", but could not find an image of the logo online.

 

[RoninB4]

the "pracision" part is just "precision", I think.

-Having worked with/around Europeans for most of my working life I read it that way too. As for the language/logo that has remained a mystery to me.

I was trying to suss out the LOGO, and perusing ebay listings and google searches I came up with a "K & E", but could not find an image of the logo online.

-Haven't seen the logo or the set again and I've shown them to several different cultures, including some from the former Eastern Bloc. Haven't worked with a Czech since purchase so I guessed at that in my original post. Czechoslovakia has/had a long history of precision metal working crafts that was somewhat diminished when the Russians invaded in 1968.

 

[four.cycle]

indeed. The Czechs made some pretty nice firearms, as I understand it.
I'm still puzzled by the logo.
"K & E" does seem like a possibility...

I could well be completely off the mark, of course.
did you check Wolfgang's site?
https://www.holzwerken.de/sitemap.phtml - Wolfgang's directory of German tool makers (primarily focused on woodworking tools)

 

[RoninB4]

indeed. The Czechs made some pretty nice firearms, as I understand it.

-Yes they did, machinery and instruments too.

I'm still puzzled by the logo.
"K & E" does seem like a possibility...

-It does, it's a rather stylized font so it could be read several way.

did you check Wolfgang's site?

-Briefly just now but didn't find any logos there and a lot of the text was in German so I had limited reading. I did discover that there were/are several makers of tools in the little town (Wuppertal) I was on assignment while working for Eklind Tool. I didn't know at the time I was there and would have liked to have visited. Thanks for the link.

 

[cannuck]

One of the most indispensable tools in my shop is a pair of very simple trammel points that clamp onto a 1" square tube. Can't even remember where I got them but they had been in constant use for over 40 years. They normally stand behind the main drill press right at the shop man door on a 7' aluminum beam but I have so much of that material around they end up on shorter and longer beams quite often. Since I added a 50" roll trammel use for patterns on the increase.

 

[RTM]

Präcision can be German.

possibly K & E ?

I was trying to decipher the logo above the word, that will be your company. CHK maybe?



E O Richter used Präcision also, their logo has a backwards E busted up to the R, with a smaller O

 

[RTM]

Briefly just now but didn't find any logos there and a lot of the text was in German so I had limited reading.

If you are using Chrome as your browser, it will offer th translate for you. It’s kinda stilted, as it’s using Google Translate, but it’s easier than copying and pasting into Translate.

 

[four.cycle]

several makers of tools in the little town (Wuppertal)

Wuppertal was a major manufacturing center. Over a dozen entries in my list for "Wuppertal"

@RTM - yeah... Richter was the first one I ran into searching for "Präcision", and I was having difficulty getting search results for brands other than Richter.

CHK maybe?

Looking at it again, that looks more plausible, yes.

 

[RoninB4]

Wuppertal was a major manufacturing center. Over a dozen entries in my list for "Wuppertal"

-Was on assignment for the hex key ball driver project and would have wanted to visit a few makers during my idle hours there. It was destroyed during the war to cripple the Ruhr but was rebuilt. Rode the suspended tram (Schwebebahn), found the Nazis party was still operating, and had a lot of mixed emotions every time I went back there.

 

[GaryM909]

I have been packing these trammels around for over 45 years and the dividers for about 40 years. They were used when I got them so I have no idea how old they are.

 

[RTM]

been packing these trammels around for over 45 years

Back when General Tool used to be a quality brand. Love the micro adjustable feature.

 

[rustyzman]

-Was on assignment for the hex key ball driver project and would have wanted to visit a few makers during my idle hours there. It was destroyed during the war to cripple the Ruhr but was rebuilt. Rode the suspended tram (Schwebebahn), found the Nazis party was still operating, and had a lot of mixed emotions every time I went back there.

Were those Wera hex keys you were working on by chance?

 

[RoninB4]

Were those Wera hex keys you were working on by chance?

-Was on assignment working for Eklind on their ball driver project.

 

[rustyzman]

-Was on assignment working for Eklind on their ball driver project.

Ah. I was wondering if that project you worked on was a polygon milling process. The Wera hex plus ones look like they could be.

 

[RoninB4]

Ah. I was wondering if that project you worked on was a polygon milling process. The Wera hex plus ones look like they could be.

-Perhaps it's just a matter of nomenclature but I wouldn't call the process Eklind used as polygon milling. It wasn't an indexing head with an end mill, it was more like a lathe with live tooling. The hex stock was fed by magazine into the rotating headstock and a single bit insert, also rotating, moved in the Z/X axis (X/Y for a mill) creating the profile. The machine itself was/is called a profilator and the rotating head with the cutting insert has a critical timing to the headstock rotation in order for the perceived "flat" to be cut. Bondhus used the indexing head with the opposing broach process. The profilator method was much faster, cheaper per piece, the ball profile could be altered by programming code, and change-over was far more simple compared to the broach method that Johnny Bondhus had a patent on.

-During the testing phase in Germany, where the machine was built, several other tool companies came sniffing around to find out if this new process worked or not. This was flatly against the contract terms Eklind had with the machine developer/designer to allow Eklind a 6 month in the market lead time but I suspect the German designer leaked the info to others, lining up future sales in observed incidents and conversations I overheard. It bothered me a bit at the time but after witnessing that the Nazis were still actively supported in Germany (secretly) it wasn't too far a stretch to discover industrial espionage was also within acceptable behavior. Other toolmaking companies began using this same process and Wera is likely one of them. It's possible that there is yet another process for making ball-end hex drivers but I can't imagine one being as fast/efficient at it. I can usually tell by inspecting under magnification. All this occurred when I was living in Chicago, perhaps not far from where you're sitting now.

 

[d42jeep]

Bemis & Call wing dividers found at a recent sale. They came out of the evaporust today. More info about them on the garage sale thread.
-Don