My small but growing DBE wrench collection

[Private Lugnutz]

Nice set! (All the GMTK guys just clicked to expand the photo hoping to see a 3/4" end instead of an 11/16" end on the largest one! )

 

[Username already in use]

Nice set! (All the GMTK guys just clicked to expand the photo hoping to see a 3/4" end instead of an 11/16" end on the largest one! )

I for sure clicked to check it out...
No dice...
Still a nice set though.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I just completed a long-distance trade with a Canadian GJ member who shall remain as nameless as he wants to be, and, knowing my affection for weird stuff and wartime stuff, threw in this double-whammy DBE wrench for good measure. It was quite a cool surprise.

As you can see, that end with the Joe Theismann/Alex Smith/Dak Prescott-looking offset is actually double orthogonal, bent 180*, in parallel with the edge of the shank, with the service opening (3/8" hex) facing backwards. So it must have been used to get at something sunken behind a thin obstruction, like a sheath or guard, either by reaching it over from above or underneath. It has a small through hole. Typically with these kinds of twisters, like something in an aircraft engine compartment that is hard to reach.

The other end is angled from the shank, not offset, at 45*, and it is bent in line with the flat of the shank. It also has a 3/8" hex service opening, and a through hole, with a much shallower 3/8" hex opening on the back side.

The wrench is marked with the opening sizes ("3/8"), what appears to be a part number ("5CB848") and what appears to be a logo. An "F" inside a triangle, like so: /F\.

On the flip side it's marked "USAC" (almost certainly United States Air Corp) and what may be either "AFTS" or "HFTS". Until research proves otherwise, I am going with HFTS and Helicopter Flight Training School.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Here are some better shots of the ends.

 

[Outlawmws]

That truly is a contortionists nightmare!

I agree an "H" the other "A" is full slope, not "tapered"

Interesting how the hex was added on so the nut could e captured.

 

[r_olson_06]

I just completed a long-distance trade with a Canadian GJ member who shall remain as nameless as he wants to be, and, knowing my affection for weird stuff and wartime stuff, threw in this double-whammy DBE wrench for good measure. It was quite a cool surprise.

As you can see, that end with the Joe Theismann/Alex Smith/Dak Prescott-looking offset is actually double orthogonal, bent 180*, in parallel with the edge of the shank, with the service opening (3/8" hex) facing backwards. So it must have been used to get at something sunken behind a thin obstruction, like a sheath or guard, either by reaching it over from above or underneath. It has a small through hole. Typically with these kinds of twisters, like something in an aircraft engine compartment that is hard to reach.

The other end is angled from the shank, not offset, at 45*, and it is bent in line with the flat of the shank. It also has a 3/8" hex service opening, and a through hole, with a much shallower 3/8" hex opening on the back side.

The wrench is marked with the opening sizes ("3/8"), what appears to be a part number ("5CB848") and what appears to be a logo. An "F" inside a triangle, like so: /F\.

On the flip side it's marked "USAC" (almost certainly United States Air Corp) and what may be either "AFTS" or "HFTS". Until research proves otherwise, I am going with HFTS and Helicopter Flight Training School.

That is a crazy special purpose wrench. I assume when they didn't forge it to that shape but bent it afterwards. The jigging and thought behind making that is impressive.

Looking for a Round Beam Plomb 1068 Double Box End Wrench

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Interesting how the hex was added on so the nut could be captured.

Yeah, you can see a thin line on both ends.

That is a crazy special purpose wrench. I assume when they didn't forge it to that shape but bent it afterwards. The jigging and thought behind making that is impressive.

I'm not sure what it started as originally, but the 6-point cups or "sockets" were not forged when the shank was forged, they were added, as Outlaw alluded to, and I'm not sure if that was bent or welded on like that. I haven't been able to make any headway on that part number, but I doubt it came out of the factory like that. It just looks and feels like a shop mod.

 

[Provincial]

3/8" hex is standard for #10 fasteners for aircraft. This was the smallest "bolt" size for structural applications during the WWII era. I believe it went back even to WWI, and extended past the 1950's. During that time the standards were first "AC", then "AN". There were other standards, like NAF and MS that were later developments.

I can believe that your tool was for helicopters. If you examine the first generation of helicopters, like the R-4, the construction appears to make whatever compromise in maintainability it took to make flight and controllability possible! Lightweight construction/gross weight made for small fasteners.

 

[ALLFAST]

I just picked up a Plomb DBE tonight, along with an excellent Diamond 10" Adjustable wrench (still wearing it's green/clear vinyl handle coating) and four excellent, and ancient ball pein hammers.

The Plomb is nice with no signs of abuse or wear. It looks ancient and is a large size. It's uncleaned,and has no polish that I can recognize. I need to identify it's size and possible part number. This will happen today, after I can get to my vehicle where it's safely stowed at our work facility. I'll post a picture and size,etc later. I won't clean it or anything. It came from a farm. Perhaps if someone wants it we could trade for an SK wartime DBE of a similar size

Cheers,

Shawn

 

[ALLFAST]

Provincial, That's some very interesting Aviation information ! Reminds me of reading about some stories about Evergreen Helicopter/Aviation and it's founder. Fascinating stuff.

 

[Odes]

I’m glad you like I think it is HTFS but I never could think what it stood for


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[Private Lugnutz]

I’m glad you like I think it is HTFS but I never could think what it stood for

I love it. Helicopter Flight Training School could be a stretch. But I can't come up with another logical match for that acronym. The Army trains helicopter pilots at Ft Rucker now. During WWII I have a feeling it may have been at Wright Field in Dayton. That's where the first military helicopter of any kind, the XR-4, was flown from the Sikorsky plant in Connecticut in January 1941. Operations with helicopters were very limited and didn't start until very late in the war. In between, as more were being built, I can imaging anything to do with such as a nascent technology as the helicopter being centralized right there. But I plan to do more reading when I have time.

Here is a photo from the Smithsonian archives showing Igor Sikorsky and Wilbur Wright standing in front of the XR-4 in January 1941 soon after it arrived, and to the right, a subsequent XR-4 in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum itself.

 

[b.well]

I just completed a long-distance trade with a Canadian GJ member who shall remain as nameless as he wants to be, and, knowing my affection for weird stuff and wartime stuff, threw in this double-whammy DBE wrench for good measure. It was quite a cool surprise.

As you can see, that end with the Joe Theismann/Alex Smith/Dak Prescott-looking offset is actually double orthogonal, bent 180*, in parallel with the edge of the shank, with the service opening (3/8" hex) facing backwards. So it must have been used to get at something sunken behind a thin obstruction, like a sheath or guard, either by reaching it over from above or underneath. It has a small through hole. Typically with these kinds of twisters, like something in an aircraft engine compartment that is hard to reach.

The other end is angled from the shank, not offset, at 45*, and it is bent in line with the flat of the shank. It also has a 3/8" hex service opening, and a through hole, with a much shallower 3/8" hex opening on the back side.

The wrench is marked with the opening sizes ("3/8"), what appears to be a part number ("5CB848") and what appears to be a logo. An "F" inside a triangle, like so: /F\.

On the flip side it's marked "USAC" (almost certainly United States Air Corp) and what may be either "AFTS" or "HFTS". Until research proves otherwise, I am going with HFTS and Helicopter Flight Training School.

That surely wins the frankenwrench award!

 

[BlueBomber]

Wow, more than two months with no activity on the DBE thread. I concede I've been a stranger on my own thread, and my attention on adding to my collection has waned over the last year or so.

However, my GJ Secret Santa must have found it and searched extensively, as he gifted me with four DBEs as part of his package, and two were not dupes!

Forged Select Steel deep offset, 3/4" x 25/32"
New Britain NDF-110 deep offset, 13/16" x 7/8"
Plomb WF-83 angled, 7/8" x 3/4"
Vlchek WBA-2425 deep offset, 25/32" x 7/8"

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[BlakeTheCarGuy]

Here is one of the ones I have it’s a Bonney 15/16x1 Double Box End Bonaloy.


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[BlueBomber]

Happy New Year, DBE fans!

I got a bug to surf Ebay for big DBEs over the holiday break and bit on this large-ish Wizard for the wall rack:

Wizard H2198 offset, 1-5/16" x 1-1/4"

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[RyanE]

Bonney Battery Wrenches?

Folks - thanks to this thread I think I have identified these two misfits in my wrench collection. The "6481" code seems to correspond to the battery wrenches shown by b.well and LesserSon above.

So, are these Canadian Bonney made or perhaps from another manufacturer under license? I had previously assumed they were made by Gray Canada but now not so sure.

And what are they actually for? They have a strange offset.

 

[RyanE]

Gray Canada offset DBE set from 1/2" up to 7/8".

A little bit of surface rust but no signs of damage or real use. They should clean up nicely.

 

[RyanE]

Other random/misfits (bottom to top, photo is rotated)

Dubl-Hex 182, Made in Canada, 5/8" x 11/16" Bare steel, no idea on age.

Lectrolite "Trufit" Made in USA, 1/2" x 9/16"

Vlchek USA, 1/2" x 9/16"

Gray Canada fully polished 5/8" x 11/16" and a 3/4" x 13/16".

A lowly Craftsman snuck in there. I need to sort through my Craftsman DBEs next!

 

[Provincial]

Battery terminal wrenches are for the clamps that connect the battery posts to the cables.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

So, are these Canadian Bonney made or perhaps from another manufacturer under license? I had previously assumed they were made by Gray Canada but now not so sure.

They were almost certainly made by the Gray-Bonney Tool Company, Ltd. (1933-1961), probably for a retailer such as an auto parts store, hence unbranded. Look late 40's or 50's to me.

 

[RyanE]

Battery terminal wrenches are for the clamps that connect the battery posts.

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=304752[/url] were almost certainly made by the Gray-Bonney Tool Company, Ltd. (1933-1961), probably for a retailer such as an auto parts store, hence unbranded. Look late 40's or 50's to me.

Thanks Provincial and Lugnutz.

There must have been some much larger sized battery clamp bolts back in the day. Or maybe equipment/heavy use larger ones and I work mostly on autos. I think these are 9/16" x 5/8". A far cry from the puny 10mm these days

 

[bonneyman]

Love those battery wrenches!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Based on a recent Plomb thread tangent ref. NAF tools I was motivated to pull out some DBE's.

X,
When you get a chance, if these are with you and not in one of your seemingly several secret caches around the country, please transcribe the numbers. The only one I can make out for sure is the Plomb and it's not 39xxxx-** (pursuant to the Walden 9/32-drive set conversation on the Old WW" thread...), it's 310693-37, but I can see that Par-X and I think maybe the Bonney is a 39xxxx-**. Thanks.

 

[MR.X]

I don't have them with me but...
The Bonney looks to be 39427-2
The Par-V ( not X) looks like 39460-6 ...not sure about the first 6 and the 0 but pretty sure.
That Plomb 310693-37 is a 40 date code.
the Blue Point is 310693-14

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Thanks!

 

[leg17]

Older Walden-Worcester DBE wrenches. AA dates them 1930's.

The shorties include two versions of the 486.
One is 9/16 x 5/8, and the other is 5/8 x 11/16.

The longer ones seem to be somewhat harder to find.

(double posted on one of the WW threads)

 

[Provincial]

Friday I found my first Indestro Polygon DBE, it is a 3/4 x 25/32.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I found his APCO-Mossberg No. 977 13/16" twin hex single offset DBE at the flea market on Friday. Found my first one - a No. 979 15/16" back in 2019 (see post #2414 on page 121). There are nine (9) wrenches in the No. 970 set, from No. 971 (7/16") to No. 979 (15/16"). By my calculations, if I am onesy-twoseying my way into completing a complete set by finding one every other year, it will be the year 2035 when I am done, and I will be 75 years old!

* Check out BlueBomber's near-complete set in its case in post #1983 on page 100.

 

[disston]

I really like that wrench design with one off set and one straight. Beautiful wrenches.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I picked up this wrench at the flea market this morning. TAC is an acronym for Tank-Automotive Center, which was established by the Ordnance Dept in Detroit after they assumed responsibility for all tracked and wheeled vehicles in 1943 from the QMC, which operated out of Camp Holabird in Baltimore, MD. ES is an acronym for Engineering Specification. See Pic 5 for the wrench's entry in the 1945 ORD 5 SNL J-4 catalog, which cites TAC ES No. 702a as the spec.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Also picked up a couple of pretzel jobbies. Neither one is branded and I don't recognize the "80-0009" wrench (see Pics 3 & 4). That one looks like a starter-manifold wrench with an offset. I don't think the bends in the first one (Pics 1 & 2) are factory made. I have several obstruction DBE's with offset and angles and weird twists, but even the most twisty of them have some stable shank areas. This one looks like a tubular shank wrench that someone bent.

 

[Provincial]

The 80-0009 looks very much like the Cummins diesel fuel pump wrench. Some of the mounting fasteners are impossible to reach without one!

 

[BlueBomber]

I found his APCO-Mossberg No. 977 13/16" twin hex single offset DBE at the flea market on Friday. Found my first one - a No. 979 15/16" back in 2019 (see post #2414 on page 121). There are nine (9) wrenches in the No. 970 set, from No. 971 (7/16") to No. 979 (15/16"). By my calculations, if I am onesy-twoseying my way into completing a complete set by finding one every other year, it will be the year 2035 when I am done, and I will be 75 years old!

* Check out BlueBomber's near-complete set in its case in post #1983 on page 100.

Well, since 2018, I've filled in exactly ONE of the holes in my set, so we seem to be on the same pace!

I picked up this wrench at the flea market this morning. TAC is an acronym for Tank-Automotive Center, which was established by the Ordnance Dept in Detroit after they assumed responsibility for all tracked and wheeled vehicles in 1943 from the QMC, which operated out of Camp Holabird in Baltimore, MD. ES is an acronym for Engineering Specification. See Pic 5 for the wrench's entry in the 1945 ORD 5 SNL J-4 catalog, which cites TAC ES No. 702a as the spec.

Did all WWII surplus end up around one particular flea market in New Jersey or is this just your keenly calibrated eye picking the wartime wheat from the endless piles of non-WWII chaff?

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[Private Lugnutz]

Did all WWII surplus end up around one particular flea market in New Jersey or is this just your keenly calibrated eye picking the wartime wheat from the endless piles of non-WWII chaff?

Haha. Normally I would take the self-deprecating or at least more modest approach on a question like this, but if only to accentuate the larger 'Picker's' point you are implying - the latter.

See the smorgasbords of non-WWII chaff I plucked it out of yesterday - one of the many endless such piles that I get to paw through almost every week down here as one after another old abandoned garage or service station from the 50's finally gives up the ghost of its glorious past. From what I could tell from the manuals in this particular dump of detritus, this service station spanned at least 1930's Mercury Zephyr to 1970's Volvo 240.

The amazing part isn't that I found this wrench or even that it was found, but that it was one of so many wartime tools that made their way into postwar civilian service as intentional (or unintentional!) surplus. As many of us have said again and again, the survival of 1940's vintage tools testifies to how well they were designed and built.

If small hand tools are even being used, will someone be able to say the same for today's products in 2091? I have my doubts.

 

[BlueBomber]

My goodness! If I had a flea with someone else doing the raw "gathering" so that I could do some concentrated "hunting", I might forgo picking the "wheat" directly from the estate sale fields, too. Alas, I have none that are close. Plus, I must declare that I do like the thrill of poking around in old dusty garages, basements, and attics, and finding cool things where they've been sitting ignored for years.

But that's a discussion point for the Garage Sale thread, more so than the DBE thread. Again, nice finds, Lugz!

 

[RagTopTA]

Found a strange long thin DBE today. Didn't find any info with the numbers or KAYLOCK so here it is... one search lead me to believe it may be aero space relater tools?

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I've never heard of that name and I don't recognize even the format of those numbers, but I agree, they smack of military.

 

[RagTopTA]

I've never heard of that name and I don't recognize even the format of those numbers, but I agree, they smack of military.

First I have seen as well. I have searched the numbers over and over and nothing turns up. Even under KAYLOCK you don't get any wrenches. I find it strange that its got a Registered Trade mark symbol. The USPTO site doesn't show anything in a search for KAYLOCK. I'm not the best researcher by far, but doesn't make sense there's nothing out there on this. I noticed the broached ends seem to have that different pattern that looks more like a wheel lock for a automotive wheel than the regular pattern I usually see in wrenches.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I noticed the broached ends seem to have that different pattern that looks more like a wheel lock for a automotive wheel than the regular pattern I usually see in wrenches.

Maybe that's where the name comes from.