Recent content by ziggybyrne

I realise this post is a year old, but great reading from the perspective of an Australian sparky. The yellow handled cresents were the professionals choice for decades. I still have a heavily worn pair with a very nice chunk out of the cutting edge, from an accidental cut on live “twin and...

Channellock 3248 vs 348I Folks, I’d be interested to know peoples thoughts on the new vs old 8 inch lineman’s pliers. Here in Australia, the 3248’s can be had for $65aud whereas the newer model 348I’s are nearly three times the price. It looks like the new model has XLT and a flasher looking...

How interesting. I’ve never heard of this brand in Australia. Nice little grinder though. Just a thought, if you need a replacement capacitor then old fluorescent lights often have 4 mfd caps in them. I’ve used them successfully several times.

It’s a 6 SQ.” 6 “inches across the jaws, Cast “S”teel as opposed to cast iron. “Q”uick release via the handle at the front. Excellent piece of Australian manufacturing.

That’s right Australia is home for me.

Here is another little piece of Australian goodness in the form of a 7 inch 1/2 hp 240 volt bench grinder . I’m running 6 inch wheels as 7’s are not easily found. It wears it’s original hammertone green from 1962 (dated from the run capacitor underneath). It joins a couple of other GMF machines...

I realise this is an old post but I’ve recently come across this thread and can help. I have a few of these gmf grinders including a 7 inch version of the one you have.They came with a 4 micro farad capacitor so either a 3,4 or 5 micro farad would be fine. Great machines they are too.

Lovely old machines the GMF’S. I didn’t appreciated them for a long time but think very highly of them nowadays. Such a shame these great Australian companies have folded.

The shots are in pdf format and appear too large to upload? is there another way? I sourced these from clisby recently and they just emailed them to me.

Hi Tony, great to see you’re having fun with Clisby compressors too. I like how they can be picked up really cheap if you’re patient and they are just a fun little project when you’ve got a little time. Regarding the 8 cfm v-twins, I’ve found a 1.5 hp compressor duty motor works great and if you...

Yes it certainly is quieter than the cheapies. I use an old sock over the air intake to act as a Pre-filter and intake muffler-surprisingly effective!

Bench grinders from downunder-Australia Just a couple of pictures of some vintage 1/3 hp Australian made bench grinders circa 1960. The grey one was my late fathers and has been in my life as long as I can remember (I’m 48). The green one I happened across recently in an estate sale and I...

Hi folks, I just wanted to show you my little air compressor. It is made almost entirely from Australian components. The receiver was manufactured in August 1975 in Sydney. The motor is approximately 1 hp crompton parkinson from the same era. The pump itself is a Clisby 3 cfm@700 rpm. At that...

My sole koken socket is a 10mm which i've had for many years. With it i've cracked plenty of stubborn bolts/nuts. A very well made little item-the chrome is unmarked after 30+ years. I'll be keeping an eye out for them at garage sales from now on. Unfortunately they're pretty rare animal here...