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Really rings a bell as a wheel nut and drain plug spanner combined, as was found in some car toolkits. If of aviation origin, was likely for some pair of related tasks, and that socket opening looks very odd for the day.

Damn, if the carriage wouldn't cost an arm and two legs, I'd have that wire control unit from you.

The recent upgrading and clear-out of my toolset has seen a load of older good quality AF stuff now being relegated to a grey box that I'll rarely open. With the exception of one old banger, all my transport is metric now, so the AF tools were simply taking up space in the main box. They're too...

May I add a belated, "You ****!"? Thou suckest mightily, indeed.

I'll be keeping an eye out for one, but hens' teeth around here. You never know though, and it's possible there's one rusting quietly away in a forgotten corner just waiting for me.

I recently bought a cheapy Chinese digital vernier just for quick valve shim measurement. After making sure of its accuracy and repeatability by testing it on known thicknesses, I've been using it quite happily for its intended purpose. I double-check it every so often. If it breaks, no biggie...

I know what I'm getting sometime soon... http://www.axminster.co.uk/125mm-mechanic-s-multi-purpose-bench-vice Less than a hundred UK money-pounds. :thumbup: I don't know what came first, probably this one, as the design is 70 years old, so I've been reading, but the Swindens is over a thousand...

:thumbup: Yep. You only get one pair of eyes and it can be such a nuisance having to do without one of them.

Looks identical to a S-O hammer I have, of the late 70s. The soft heads on mine are light blue and dark blue - I reckon they were colour-coded for hardness. Each head unscrews.

Local bootsale/flea market had an assortment of the usual junky cheap sheet spanners, but found some jewels in the dross for a buck or less a piece. First up, a small selection of nondescripts that took my fancy, mostly for my bike toolkit, where I'd not be bothered if they got lost or...

My jury's still out on this - my older ones were solid steel and my recent ratchets are soft grip. So far, it's been much more pleasant to pick up a rubberised handle in the cold of winter, so that's a plus. I can see the downside of difficulty of cleaning, though.

I hop through the kitchen door, and there it is. Same building.

At the moment I'm using a hobby/diy-grade MIG 150A unit, which is fine for small stuff but not designed for any heavy-duty use or anything above 5mm thickness. There's also a small stick welder which isn't up to much, but does ok. Where I am, transportation cost is a real factor, so when this...

NBC280H made by Norman Butters in the UK more than 30 years ago. I picked this up a decade ago; it's a 3phase machine, but I always had a notion I'd be able to run it on 1-phase if I dug around enough and just waited for someone else to dig the ground first. So, with this in mind I went looking...

Cracking idea, Gromit :bowdown:

Finally got the last of the 'temporarily stored' **** off the workshop floor and stowed away either upstairs or on racks by the outside door. I can actually walk across the workshop floor now without detouring around a heap of junk. Oh wait, there's another heap of junk to go in the exact same...

I have a cheapie I bought ten years ago, not used it a whole lot since, but I knew from previous times it would come in handy from time to time, and so it's proved, on each occasion. Worth the money for the odd-time use.

Biggest single socket I've actually bought for myself is an Acesa 36mm 3/4" drive impact. I bought it about 10 years ago to do a driveshaft hub nut, used it twice then and never used it since. Well worth the money, as it saved me a great deal of grief at the time. That hub nut had already...

Bingo! Way I was taught, by a grumpy auld sod, was to break a tight nut/bolt with a breaker bar and only then get a ratchet onto it. If he'd caught me using a ratchet as a breaker, my **** would have been up the road, toot-suite. Grumpy auld ******* or not, his methods were sound and I learned a...

Part 7. Not directly part of the workshop, but after the last rural power cut, when I discovered my previous, scattered power-failure kit wasn't all right at all, I decided to formalise it a bit better. The blue plugs on the right are normally hooked into mains power, but during blackouts can...