"Blackhawk Idea Book", ca. 1940's-50's

Not sure if this document has been revealed before, but these are the times I feel more like a historian, a librarian, or a bibliophile than a vintage tool collector...

While on the hunt for any Blackhawk Mfg. Co. accessory material (badges, etc) I could use to embellish my Blackhawk Q.D. 32-CD Wrench Set restoration project, I was fortunate enough to find and acquire an original “Blackhawk Idea Book.”

Front Cover


This 62-page booklet, printed in black and white, has no publication date printed on it. Judging by the yellowing glossy stock paper, the company logo, the text, the photographs and illustrations, the overall style, and the model numbers of the Blackhawk hydraulic punches, jacks, and wrench sets featured inside, I am estimating the vintage to be 40’s, perhaps early 50’s.

The concept behind the “Blackhawk Idea Book” is as marvelous to me as the material inside.

It’s not a catalog, per se. Strictly speaking, it’s not a brochure, either. It’s more like a public service magazine, meant to share with other mechanics, manufacturers, machinists, and engineers the endless and ingenious uses - from lifting an airplane to rescuing a dog trapped beneath a street-car – of jacks and other advanced tools.

Example


Of course it's advertising. Every single jack and tool shown in every application is made by Blackhawk. (Curiously, most of the jacks and tools seem to have been artificially airbrushed into the photograph.) Yet the civic-minded spirit of the era is unmistakable, rivaled perhaps only by the inevitable appeal to American ingenuity and individuality. For whatever your “pushing, pulling, lifting, pressing, bending, spreading, or clamping” needs may be, the “IDEA BOOK will stimulate you to create your own ideas on how Blackhawk equipment can solve special problems for you.”

Gotta love it. Blackhawk fans in particular, who may even find the condensed catalog listings and other product summaries (e.g., “How to Select the RIGHT Jack”) near the back enlightening.

Sneak Peak


Check back for additional scans as time permits.

Eventually I hope to make the whole booklet available as a PDF.

I've got one of those, too. Great stuff!

I'm totally enthralled with it right now, Bull. Technically, culturally, etc.

What do you make of the equipment being illustrated into the photos? I had to chuckle a little at that.

(If you've already posted images from it here, let me know, please, so I don't duplicate effort.)

I'm a history nerd so the pictures are all interesting to me for what they capture from lost decades.

I haven't scanned anything, so bring it on!

Bull said:

I'm a history nerd so the pictures are all interesting to me for what they capture from lost decades.

Click to expand...

Roger that, me too.

What's curious to me about airbrushing the jacks and other tools into the photographs (i.e., doctoring), however, is that it implies that something other than the tool was used. Perhaps an older tool or an older version of the tool or something other than a tool (simple brute force shims, etc). It doesn't necessarily come across as false advertising, just a little mysterious.

BTW, as a WWII military tools collector, this is commonplace and I am used to it. All the manuals were doctored. Tools were airbrushed in and out of the illustrations that accompanied technical manuals (ORDs, SNLs, etc) for toolkits that varied very little, because it was quicker, more economical, and easier than assembling toolkits and snapping new photographs. Seeing it in commercial advertising was a little funny..., but my hunch is the same rationale. Rather than a big expensifve production of setting up or finding new applications, they found stock photographs of existing applications, and inserted the illustratiuon of a Blackhawk jack etc into the photograph.

Bull said:

I haven't scanned anything, so bring it on!

Click to expand...

Thanks. Will do!

First, a correction. I think the cover may be missing. What I identified as the cover seems to be an unnumbered page 3, like a flyleaf/copyright page in a book. Now I'm curious to know what the cover on this thing might've looked like.

More... The application “ideas” in this book are organized in three main sections: Production, Maintenance, and Testing, in that order. Production has the lion’s share of pages, followed by Maintenance and Testing. The vast majority of examples in all three fields are devoted to the Porto-Power line, which came out in 1941. While there’s a hand or service jack sprinkled here and there in each section, it’s obvious that Blackhawk was really pushing the versatility of their latest technology in this booklet. It’s just as apparent that they were trying to promote the idea of coupling their hydraulic jacks with gauges, thereby turning them into instruments, emphasizing the controlled, precise measurements that could be made in instrumented configurations, again, to increase the diversity of their marketplace footprint.

Yesterday I posted a page of “Ideas” from Production.

Here are some examples from the other two main fields.

Maintenance


Testing (Note the date reference on the hand-painted sign.)


Following those main sections is a page on “Ideas for RESCUE WORK” (which includes an early ‘Jaws of Life’ pre-cursor, featuring a 2-Ton Bantam Porto-Power jack), two pages of “Ideas for WRENCHES” and two pages of “Ideas for TORQUE WRENCHES”.

Following those sections are “Keys to Using Blackhawk Equipment” pages that illustrate how to assemble certain types of jacks, gages, wrenches, extensions, hoses, and other accessories to achieve the configurations shown in the preceding “Ideas” examples .

And in the very back are the “Condensed Catalog Listing” pages I mentioned prior, posting an example from the PORTO-POWER Hydraulic Ram line.

The many Blackhawk jack restorers here on the GJ might enjoy this example more…

Very cool... it appears the Exacto knife was the original Photoshop!

'Zackly!

I cant wait to see more, I just came across one the other day...porto power jaws...pretty slick

Jeff

Oh, I got your Porto-Power for you, Jeff… Check out these illustrations…




As for “jaws”, Blackhawk called them Spreader Rams during this era, and they came in three types: SA-4 “Wedgie”, SA-6 “Wedgie”, and SA-7 “Spreddie”. Page 51, which I posted earlier, had an image of all three.

Interestingly enough, GJ Member ffemtdisp reported the following on the “Vintage Black Hawk” thread:

ffemtdisp said:

My Volunteer Fire Department has two Blackhawk porto powers, a 4 ton and a 10 ton. We use them for vehicle rescue. They aren't primary, and they don't get used often, but they are effective when needed.

Click to expand...

And here’s the picture of a “Jaws of Life” pre-cursor I referenced in my introduction above, using a ‘photoshopped’ 2-ton Bantam ram to pry a crushed roof up (Some of these pictures are unintentionally funny sixty some odd years later…)



Blackhawk encouraged some interesting diminutives for some of the tools in their catalogs, which already had entertaining names. CRTDI may enjoy the reference to “Nuggies” in this scan, for example, an affectionate nickname for their “Nuggets” tools line.

Great old llustrations. Thanks for posting these.