Search results

Here's a Walco 10-inch from 1936, picked up at a local ReStore and thoroughly cleaned of rust, grime, and spattered paint. (There are a few surviving flecks of Walworth red in the handle recesses.) It's the first Walco I've ever handled, and it provokes a question that I'll guess others here...

Well, issuing tool kits with a 6" in them would certainly call for producing them in large quantities. (That said, I have no idea whatsoever as to Ridge's production numbers across the various models and sizes.) I wonder if Ridge met some market resistance to the new RIDGID design, perhaps from...

Found this at the weekend's Garfield Farm tool meet near St. Charles, Illinois. I got it because it's by Ridge Tool Co. and it has a Stillson pattern, not Ridgid's "streamlined" design. (Upon seeing it, my wife said, "What a cute little wrench!") As for date, the forging says A1-3, which makes...

I have a punch like the one d42jeep showed (above) but with a 5/16 end and it tapers, plus a B-10 farrier's nipper. No photos at the moment, but I'll post them here soon.

I have commonly seen exposed screws on vises, but they have been all small (2" jaws or smaller), light in construction, and attached to a bench with a single undermounted screw — that is, what I would call a hobby vise. And the vise in question here is definitely not that! A puzzle.

Partly off-topic but not wholly — What was the reasoning for leaving the lead screw exposed like this? Seems to me that. covered with grease or oil, it would collect and hang onto all the wood and metal bits falling from above as the woodworker or machinist did a job. And there some of it...

Leviton: Thanks for the info — in the photo it looks like it might go larger. Barracuda: If you mean the 1/2-24 tpi threaded end — I dunno! From the looking I've done online, no chucks currently available (keyed or keyless) fit that threading. It's possible that a 1/2-24 threading was used to...

Makes me wonder if there was some anonymous workshop out there making these things. I'm not a machinist, but I suspect these wouldn't be hard to make if one intended to use an existing chuck. Does the chuck on yours accept up to 1/2 inch drill shafts?

Yes, unscrewing the shaft opens the jaws, so the brass chuck is a straightforward one as if from an eggbeater drill. I checked my two biggest eggbeaters (a Millers Falls #2 and a Stanley #624), but their chucks don't fit onto the 1/2-24 shaft — too small. My two homemade Frankenchucks (max...

I recently ran across a Fray 8-inch sweep brace in a Restore Habitat shop. In the Fray's chuck was what I call a Frankenchuck: a shaft with a square tang on the back and a threaded front end that fits into an ordinary wood drill chuck, letting the user mount and use ordinary wood drills in a...