c. 1930's & 40's Wright Aeronautical Corp Machinist's Paraphernalia

I ran into a wooden machinists' chest at the flea market today. Nothing outrageously unusual about that. This one was in pretty bad shape. Missing the drop front, missing drawers, and generally falling apart. Someone had pulled all the calipers out before me. Usual suspects: Starrett, B&S, Lufkin and Union. It was full of gages, or pieces of gages, pen vises, and tooling, and a whole mess of practical work aids and employee personal paraphernalia, such as shift change orders, hand receipts, tool room passes, a gate pass, ID, etc.

THAT was the interesting part. Everything was marked Wright Aeronautical Corporation, all bearing the same employee name, including 1947, 1948, and 1949 Wright Aeronautical Corporation AGREEMENT handbooks and Factory Rules. (If you don't already know it, Wright-Martin became Wright Aeronautical, and then merged with Curtiss in 1929 to form Curtiss-Wright, but the plant in Paterson, NJ where all the engines were made was always called Wright Aeronautical.) This was a box belonging to a machinist who worked at Wright, in the late 30's and 40's, at a time when it was the biggest engine plant in the world. See Pics 1 and 2 for context.

It was fascinating stuff to read. I was stuck in a time capsule. And I knew I was spending way too much time leafing through it all (and I could feel the prices going up, up, up by every minute...). And I was right.

I didn't really want any of the tooling or tools or the personal paraphernalia (as I said on the Garage Sale thread where I first reported this find - it's cool to see it, from a historical perspective, but a little too creepy to keep when it's so personal), but I grabbed all the manuals and the pocket guides and the aids. Unfortunately, the vendor wanted an arm and a leg and a left nut just for that. So I had to put some things back. In hindsight I wish I had taken a few things I ended up leaving behind.

Anyway, I ended up keeping a 1947 union book, three machinists' "aids" dated 1935 (Lufkin), 1939 (Starrett), and unknown (UNBRAKO), and a folding loupe. See Pics 3 through 7.

Here's the handbook and the loupe.

Private Lugnutz said:

Here's the handbook and the loupe.

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Personal yes, but creepy I don’t believe so. In a way it’s honoring the person their career and recognizing their worth and contribution thru what they’ve left behind in their toolboxes.
However you may be a medium and had a informal seance of sorts.

I'm the same way about WWII stuff. Some guys love the personalized items, and some guys don't. I have plenty of items that happen to have names scrawled or etched on them, and it does dignify them, I agree. (Sometimes, the names can even help further identify and date collectibles.) But there's a difference between that and what borders, for me, on overdoing it in a weirdly cultish way, especially with someone who is ultimately a stranger. But yes, I understand there is also a sense of preservation.

That's a piece of history

Neat stuff. Those tap size / et cetera calculator and slide rule things use to be everywhere, all the manufacturers gave them out for free but they're from a bygone era. I used to pick them up at trade shows and from vendors (still have a shoe box full of them) but that whole market dried up after about 1985.

Stuart in MN said:

they're from a bygone era.

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'Zackly. And the reason - not so much the re-sale market, for my interest.

BTW, we are still on the Vintage Board, right?

I have had a habit of pulling mechanical shop guides and machinists' loupes (even U.S. ARMY stereo topo goggles re-purposed as machinists' loupes!) - as well as some selective personal paraphernalia - out of old machinists' chests!

And don't make me pull out my box of small completely obsolete mechanics knick-knacks!

And speaking of old loupes - I would love to figure out who made the old wire-framed one in the canvas bag.

The marking reads, "PAT. @ 6.1-15"... where that little symbol is a large stylized "C" with a smaller (A) inside it.

Wow... that is some COOL stuff....

Amazing the grandkids didn't toss it....or whatever... Far better it fell into the hands of someone who appreciates it.

That's a very early American Optical Co. logo.

This may be the patent:

http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=01141225&SectionNum=2&IDKey=403839C47958&HomeUrl=http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/patimg.htm

Thanks, notlob! That's gotta be it. I'm so excited that it turned out to be such a notable, famous company.

I have several Wright Aeronautical tools made by Bonney, which I post on the Bonney thread, but I'm not sure who made this special 3/8-inch drive piece, and we don't really have a central Wright Aero thread, so I'm posting this here. I think it's a screwdriver attachment, but I'm not even sure about that. The roll stamping is hard to read, but it's marked WRIGHT AERO. CORP. No. 801794. I have two different wartime references with Wright 8xxxx tools listed, but it's not in either one.

I’d be guessing, but interesting finds.

Private Lugnutz said:

I'm the same way about WWII stuff. Some guys love the personalized items, and some guys don't. I have plenty of items that happen to have names scrawled or etched on them, and it does dignify them, I agree. (Sometimes, the names can even help further identify and date collectibles.) But there's a difference between that and what borders, for me, on overdoing it in a weirdly cultish way, especially with someone who is ultimately a stranger. But yes, I understand there is also a sense of preservation.

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Agree, getting a look into a man's tool box is pretty personal.

A few years back, I made a great score of a three-stack full of well-used Blue Point and Snap-on. By the time I had sorted the tools and cleaned the boxes, I pretty much could say with certainty R.B. (Mac) MacDonald had been a union maintenance man in the silver/zinc/lead mines in north Idaho in the late 1940s - 1960s. He appreciated good tools, but worked in a nasty environment.



R.I.P, Mac.

jack vines

On the topic of personal touches in old aviation toolboxes, here's the sticker on the side of the one I just picked up! I blacked out the SS # but it's there in case I ever need to create a fake identity...