Scored some more Proto/Plomb tool boards!

montanafordman · Dec 15, 2017

Some of you might remember earlier posts I have made about my inherited Plomb Toolmobile and a wrench toolboard I aquired from our family farm. (estates from both my mom's and dad's sides of the family) I have not been back to our family farm, or my grandfathers garage in quite some time and could not recall if much remained. Life has been busy the last several years so once annual hunting trips and making it back to the farm have been continually postponed. Thankfully I was able to make it back this year to do some hunting with my dad and we were able to head north to the farm (some 300 miles from where they live now).

I was happy to find more Model A parts -specifically original hardware, nuts and bolts for my Model A restoration project. I also found there were a couple more toolboards in my grandfather's garage! These toolboards had been in my great-grandfathers hardware store which burned down in the late 50's. (coincidentally my great-grandfather's store on my mom's side of the family, but the toolboards were now owned by the grandfather on my dad's side of the family - this is a very rural area and my parents grew up 6 miles apart in neighboring townships).

I assume my grandfather acquired these by assisting in the cleanup after the fire because the charring is still visible on some of the boards. The boards I just picked up were pretty soiled and stained. they were nailed in a dingy unlit and unheated garage above his workbench. I used some synthetic steel wool and 409 and the board cleaned up amazingly well. I was able to hang some of my grandfathers wrenches that he used when farming and which bear his intitals. They now enjoy a second life in my garage and they see use restoring my 1931 Ford Model A.

The tool boards had proto stickers on them that were so dirty and faded I decided to see if the plomb logo was underneath and sure enough, after carefully peeling the sticker off a beautiful plomb logo shone underneath. I would like to reproduce the proto sticker and place it above the board so both logo's can be seen.

the first photo is an uncleaned 1/2" socket and ratchet display. This one is waiting for some TLC and the fact I don't have a period correct or complete proto or plomb socket set to go with it. I'm also lacking wall space. You can see what the condition of the Proto logo was before I removed them from the other boards. The following pictures are the combination wrench board I just aquired and cleaned, and the DOE wrench set board I've had for a while. I will do some minor cleaning on it also.

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Provincial · Dec 15, 2017

Wow! Nice boards, and great heirlooms. I have some of my grandfather's tools, including an SK 1/2" drive set, and my wife has her grandfather's old wooden planes from his carpentry work.

I bought my first Model A, a 1929 Roadster Pickup, in a 50/50 partnership with my older brother when I was 14. He titled it in his name only, so I got stiffed later. I started building my 1928 Sport Coupe a few months later, and started driving it when I was 19. It was my only car through college and work until I was 25. At one point I was commuting 50 miles a day round trip to work. I still have it but haven't started it in too many years.

montanafordman · Dec 15, 2017

Nice! My Model A was my grandfathers, and I also have some 1/2" SK stuff from him including a long handled 1/2" SK ratchet that has bailed me out numerous times. I had some fun memories with my grandad and his model A and now its in my care getting a much needed restoration. I'm doing all the sheet metal and I've already gone through and rebuilt virtually all the mechanical components - brakes, rear end, transmission, suspension, steering, brakes - EVERYTHING. I logged about 2,000 miles on it after I did all the mechanical parts minus the engine, then threw a rod and had the motor rebuilt and pulled the body to straighten the frame and do the sheet metal. I'm still moving forward and hope to complete it within the next few years. I've been very active with the local model A club and they've been a great resource for parts, expertise, and motivation. Good luck with the sport coupe and I hope you get it back on the road!

DuroChrome · Dec 15, 2017

Very cool! I am working on filling up some later era Proto flying lady toolboards and seeing those is an inspiration. Love the stories behind them too.

twertsy · Dec 15, 2017

Absolutely great story on those boards, as well as the car and tools. In fact, if it werent, I'd try and shake you down on those boards. They are where they belong.

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Private Lugnutz · Dec 15, 2017

Splendid boards, history, and preservation work.

Smokeshow69 · Dec 15, 2017

Great you found some more ! I have always envied your boards and tool mobile ! I now have a plomb and p&c tool mobile and only 1 proto l.a. Tool board but I hope to find some plomb ones !

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montanafordman · Dec 15, 2017

Smokeshow- Nice boards! I like the combination of DOE and double box wrenches on that one. :thumbup:

Bigwheels · Dec 18, 2017

Those boards are fantastic i sure hope i run across something like that some day. I am going to be so much more aware going into the shops at the various estate sales thanks GJ

SuperCat · Dec 18, 2017

What a great story, full of family history, discoveries, tools, and the tool boards that held them. I particularly like the fact that you are still using those tools and boards on your projects. The picture with the combo wrenches that show your grandfather's initials is just awesome. What an inspiration! Wrench on!
:thumbup:

oldmantaylor · Dec 19, 2017

Fantastic find!

Smokeshow69 · May 4, 2018

I was able to get the board I posted above cleaned up this weekend. It had a hard life and the shellac was cracking and the outer edge paint was lifting so I sprayed it with 2 coats of shellac and degreased the hooks ! It looks a lot better now. I am looking for the missing wrenches if someone has any ?

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montanafordman · May 5, 2018

looks great Smokeshow!! I still need to clean up my 1/2 drive socket/ratchet toolboard and find a place to mount it on my wall. Also - I might have a couple pebble proto wrenches you could use. I'll check tomorrow.

-Aaron

d42jeep · May 5, 2018

Smokeshow69 said:
I was able to get the board I posted above cleaned up this weekend. It had a hard life and the shellac was cracking and the outer edge paint was lifting so I sprayed it with 2 coats of shellac and degreased the hooks ! It looks a lot better now. I am looking for the missing wrenches if someone has any ?

I assume that you are looking for period correct Proto LA wrenches to match the vintage of your board? I have a few Proto LA tools and I’ll take a look later today.
-Don

DWise · May 5, 2018

Looking through all my miscellaneous wrenches I have the following Plumb, all have missing chrome.
3040
3030
3021

and the following
Proto 1214
Proto professional 1214
Proto Challenger Canada 6018
Proto LA 1220
Proto LA pliers 276

If anyone Wants or "NEEDS

" any of them let me know.

RubiconJK · May 5, 2018

Great story and heritage and its awesome that you appreciate them.

d42jeep · May 5, 2018

Smokeshow69 said:
I was able to get the board I posted above cleaned up this weekend. It had a hard life and the shellac was cracking and the outer edge paint was lifting so I sprayed it with 2 coats of shellac and degreased the hooks ! It looks a lot better now. I am looking for the missing wrenches if someone has any ?

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Here are my spare Proto LA wrenches.
-Don

Smokeshow69 · May 10, 2018

I scored a few more does from d42 and from montanafordman! Both guys are first rate guys! I will be working a few trades with them. If anyone has more proto la to fill the holes, please let me know! I was able to fill 3 more holes-before

After

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chrislehr · May 10, 2018

Man, these are so awesome. Totally envious.

Smokeshow69 · Oct 17, 2020

montanafordman said:
looks great Smokeshow!! I still need to clean up my 1/2 drive socket/ratchet toolboard and find a place to mount it on my wall. Also - I might have a couple pebble proto wrenches you could use. I'll check tomorrow.

-Aaron

I am wondering if you can do me a favor ? Can you take a photo of the side of your plomb tool board ? I am going to build 2 more plomb tool boards and want to look at the router detail on the sides of the boards... I would assume it is the same as my proto la board ? Here is what angle I am looking for. It is hard to tell but the edge has 3 slight grooves in it ....also if anyone has the missing wrenches, please let me know

ssdave · Oct 18, 2020

Smokeshow69; here's my 4 board edges. They're Plomb restickered to Proto:

Smokeshow69 · Oct 18, 2020

ssdave said:
Smokeshow69; here's my 4 board edges. They're Plomb restickered to Proto:

Thanks Dave!
Do those show any sort of ridges or are they flat ? My Proto la board has the edges slightly chamfered but maybe the edges don’t have any details routed into them?

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ssdave · Oct 18, 2020

Not as apparent in the pictures, but the front 1/2 or so is concave, and the back half is beveled or slightly rounded. Really only 2 steps to the profile. There's several different plys to the plywood, that the texture changes make it appear to be a more complex profile.

Smokeshow69 · Oct 18, 2020

ssdave said:
Not as apparent in the pictures, but the front 1/2 or so is concave, and the back half is beveled or slightly rounded. Really only 2 steps to the profile. There's several different plys to the plywood, that the texture changes make it appear to be a more complex profile.

That is what I needed! I think I was just getting the wood grain and the layers of plywood confused with actual details on the sides. I do t think I need to do any router work, just some beveling with my saw when I cut them out! Thanks for the help again Dave! Your boards are really cool. Did you find them local to you?

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ssdave · Oct 18, 2020

I found them local to me. He had 6 of them, but the adjustables one was full of holes and the 3/4" drive one was broken up and bad sticker. These are a nice assortment for garage art. I had to overpay, but at least didn't have to pay postage since they were local to me.

Smokeshow69 · Oct 18, 2020

ssdave said:
I found them local to me. He had 6 of them, but the adjustables one was full of holes and the 3/4" drive one was broken up and bad sticker. These are a nice assortment for garage art. I had to overpay, but at least didn't have to pay postage since they were local to me.

I paid $45 for my smaller 1/2 size but for these 3 Proto la boards, the plomb box and the metric does in the wrench roll I think I paid $180? Everything but the plomb box now lives at rileysan’s house. I do still own the 1/2 size board.

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Smokeshow69 · Oct 18, 2020

Smokeshow69 said:
I paid $45 for my smaller 1/2 size but for these 3 Proto la boards, the plomb box and the metric does in the wrench roll I think I paid $180? Everything but the plomb box now lives at rileysan’s house. I do still own the 1/2 size board.

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I did see there are 2 I.R. Era tool boards on eBay right now for $72 each includes shipping. I really looked at them and they looked decent. If a guy wanted you could probably remove the logos and put on the older flying lady logos to make them look old- they are a 1/2 drive and 3/4 drive boards so some good ones

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c1504 · Oct 18, 2020

These have been for sale locally for a while. $200 for all seems pretty good but they are a little rough. Think there’s any way to remove the blue paint from the metric/bs one without destroying it?

Smokeshow69 · Oct 18, 2020

c1504 said:
These have been for sale locally for a while. $200 for all seems pretty good but they are a little rough. Think there’s any way to remove the blue paint from the metric/bs one without destroying it?

Possibly or maybe you could repaint? Use the paint as a negotiating point? Those are 60’s Indy 500. Try to get them for $140?

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Smokeshow69 · Oct 18, 2020

ssdave said:
I found them local to me. He had 6 of them, but the adjustables one was full of holes and the 3/4" drive one was broken up and bad sticker. These are a nice assortment for garage art. I had to overpay, but at least didn't have to pay postage since they were local to me.

Dave- thanks to your pictures I was able to get some of the boards cut out today. I even chamfered the edges like the original and will paint them green before putting the screws into them. I am making the boards 2’ wide and 4’ tall... the originals are 2’x2’ but I wanted them to be taller.

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Smokeshow69 · Oct 20, 2020

I took my only original Proto la tool board to Home Depot tonight and asked them to match the green on the edges. I have the first coat of green on and will put on another before I put on the clear satin spar varnish on the faces of them.

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Smokeshow69 · Oct 20, 2020

Here is the first board painted with the green. The match isn’t perfect but is pretty close. I think that as the paint ages and gets darker, it will get closer

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Smokeshow69 · Oct 21, 2020

Got my reproduction stickers in the mail today! The big ones are sized to be the same size as the tool board logos

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Smokeshow69 · Nov 1, 2020

I got my adjustable/ pipe wrench board done! It is 2’ x4’ so you can see how big it is with the modern impact driver sitting on the ground! The adjustable portion runs from 6” to 20” and the pipe wrenches run from 6” to 24”. That is the big pipe wrench pictured! It is dual marked as well. I had to cut an outlet port in this so as to not block the outlet but the others will be fine with no hole needed! Some of the holes in the small wrenches had such small holes I had to use nails for hangers

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Smokeshow69 · Nov 9, 2020

Here is the adjustable board with a few new additions to fill a few spaces

I also finished laying out my transitional/ dual marked wrench board! That one may take a while to fill due to the short production run on these wrenches during the lawsuit

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Smokeshow69 · Nov 21, 2020

I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the brand new, natural wood appearance of my boards. I had originally just covered the cabinet grade ply wood with clear but it was too new looking and I wanted something closer to the original. I ended up using some of the water based deck stain I made for my original tool boards at my old house. It isn’t an exact match with my original but it is much closer! I will post more photos once I get all 6 of them coated. It only requires a light sanding with 220 and then it painted in with a brush. I will also age the boards a bit as well to make them more convincing.

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Smokeshow69 · Dec 3, 2020

I got my pliers board done for the moment either the 5 that I do have. Once I get more I will put more screws in when I have the actual pliers in hand to use as a template

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Smokeshow69 · May 27, 2021

c1504 said:
These have been for sale locally for a while. $200 for all seems pretty good but they are a little rough. Think there’s any way to remove the blue paint from the metric/bs one without destroying it?

Hey C1504...are these still local to you or were these the ones in the store we got ? Looking back on this, this is an amazing deal! Especially with the uncommon metric/whitworth board!

c1504 · May 30, 2021

Smokeshow69 said:
Hey C1504...are these still local to you or were these the ones in the store we got ? Looking back on this, this is an amazing deal! Especially with the uncommon metric/whitworth board!

They were on fb marketplace and they were listed for a pretty long time, but I haven't seen them in four or five months. I probably should have grabbed them but at the time because of how new they were I didn't want to take the time to make the necessary repairs. To add to the fact that they were priced really good they were only ten minutes from my house. What is kind of interesting is that I have seen probably 20 proto boards around here and not a single board from any other company

Smokeshow69 · May 30, 2021

c1504 said:
They were on fb marketplace and they were listed for a pretty long time, but I haven't seen them in four or five months. I probably should have grabbed them but at the time because of how new they were I didn't want to take the time to make the necessary repairs. To add to the fact that they were priced really good they were only ten minutes from my house. What is kind of interesting is that I have seen probably 20 proto boards around here and not a single board from any other company

Other companies issued similar boards but not like these...most of the other point of sale boards where either bigger or smaller or not as well built I would guess ?? Regardless, this deal was a heck of a deal. Some of the boards are missing some of the hangers but you could fabricate those. **If these ever pop up again, would you let me know please ?** .... I just sourced 2 more boards....I will post them once I actually get them but they are Proto LA...

Scored some more Proto/Plomb tool boards!

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