Recent content by Grayspoked

RJ: Oh my. You have one of the monsters. We called these "1202s" You can see that labelling in the "Model No." box on your tool. I am not sure why we called them that, but that's what we did. No other Jo-Line (or J O ) product was numbered like that. Maybe it was a military thing. My...

NK: First, my apologies for this delayed response. Life has been busy of late! I expect that this is another of the Van Belknap specials. Those are tools that Dad's Detroit salesman (before he founded his own company, that still exists), Van Belknap, ordered up to try to convince the...

All: Oooops. I have to correct myself. I said in response to Steve above that JO changed to Jo-Line in the late 1950's. I was perusing old posts, and ran into Post 198. I said there that the name change occurred in 1962-1963. I recalled upon reading that post that I got that dating from...

Steve: The 3/8" drive supports my view that your Jotru 10A is a kissin' cousin to the 9PJ. The 9PJ came with other sizes of tangs, but few others came with the 3/8". Outlaw: This board has given me the opportunity to tell stories I have long wanted to tell, but I knew of no one who was...

Steve (NK15268): Welcome to at least this thread, and maybe to the Board! I can maybe add some background to your father's tool. Generally, I refer to the Jotrus generally, and Jotru 10s in particular, as "Van Belknap specials." I'll briefly summarize here, and then cross reference you to...

Mr. X: Coincidences are funny things. I had gone back to look at the early posts in this thread a couple of nights ago out of curiosity concerning all the places this thread has visited over the years. I can see some loose ends there that I should tie up. I saw your Post 18 when I was...

Radar: Again, my apologies for being slow with replies. I found myself sitting next to Warren Buffett's long-time, but then-retired, general counsel at a dinner in the months before I retired (this was some years ago). I went on with him at some length about how I was concerned that I would...

Mr. X: Been busy of late, so I haven't been as active here as I should have been. I hope that situation will cure itself a bit over this month. We'll see. I had heard (and had reported on a couple of times in this thread) about J O products that were used on early model B-17s. I had not...

Radar: My apologies for the delayed response. My wife demanded that I take her somewhere where she could stick her toes in warm sand. Happy wife, happy life - so I did. I am now getting back to my correspondence. Your box predates me. For reasons I will state below, I can no longer...

OK, I'm 14 years late. This wrench is what we at Jo-Line called a "1202." I no longer have the specs on these guys, but I am not at all surprised to here that yours goes up to 1600 foot pounds. I had heard that tools like these were used on ships keels and such as that. There aren't a lot of...

Confirming that your ratchet is a New Britain design. Dad used the New Britain ratchets until he "borrowed" the Facom design in the first half of the 1970's.

Fish: I recognize your tool. In fact, I may have helped manufacture and ship it. Jo-Line's model number for your tool is 2002 AI. Here's where that number comes from (other than the company catalog dated August 1977, from which I pulled this). The "200" that starts the model number refers...

Outlaw: I posted a few years ago about JOARs. You can find all that on the first page in this thread. Here's the meat of what I had to say about them back then: ****** The Joar in the catalog has some history behind it. The B-17 bomber was a revolutionary aircraft in the late 1930's...

Schurkey: Thanks for the nice note. Here's how you take apart a Facom-style ratchet. You're right, you start with an Allen wrench. Can't remember the size of the Allen wrench anymore, but that shouldn't be a problem. Taking out that screw will allow you to remove the chromed backplate...

RTM: R. Glen Woods was my grandfather (never my "grandpa," thank you very much), and quite the inventor. I never traced the patent numbers on the Jo-Line spring tubes down to their source. So long as my dad brought home his paychecks, the listed patents were good enough for me. I noted...