Britool (Made in England) thread

Grimly · Apr 1, 2015

Interesting stuff.
I started my trade with a basic set of Britool combos, rings and 1/2 drive sockets, all in a cantilever toolbox. Still got most of them, and been picking up missing items on the metric side, but I'm not too bothered about the Imperial gaps as I never use that these days.
It's also the case I had to thin out the odd spanner and socket to fit tight spots, but even with half the material missing, they never cracked - just as the RAF tech found in the pic above. That speaks volumes about the quality of the steel used, I believe.
I have, from around 1972, a push-through 1/2" reversible ratchet, of fairly coarse clicking, but that thing is indestructible.
I'll take a pic of it tomorrow and stick it up.

vintage nut · Apr 1, 2015

My britool

you can never have too many tools

vintage nut · Apr 1, 2015

I'm in canada, and those 5 items are the only britool I have ever seen in my life. Bought every piece of it I have ever seen, and will continue to

you can never have too many tools

lbgradwell · Apr 1, 2015

fanders said:
It was a pretty cool find.

Do you mean your avatar? I think I've seen it before...

lbgradwell · Apr 1, 2015

My stuff:

(the socket set in the middle bottom in the photo above are actually the Bedfords, as is the sliding T-handle)

The little socket set is actually 9/32"-drive...

Dobbin · Apr 2, 2015

Nice sets and in really good fettle. I will gather my bits together for a pic minus my first spanner set I was bought that was stolen in '82 :sad:

Grimly · Apr 2, 2015

My indestructible ratchet... The E73. It has a mere 12 clicks per turn, so 30 degrees per click, which is sometimes a bit awkward, but it's used on the types of fastener where brute force and a bit of ignorance is usually required.

fanders · Apr 2, 2015

That E73's pretty old school, love it. Must have seen quite a bit of history.

I'm glad there are a few Britool fans on this thread - it's a great old British brand that is sadly no more. I like using my (old) Britool stuff, it feels good in the hand and the steel quality seems high. I also like the link back to a period when British engineering was world class, and had real scale. The 'Black Country' of Birmingham and its surrounds was 'the workshop of the world' with many small to medium sized engineering companies, like Britool, producing high quality products. It's very different today and although there are still some of the original companies soldiering on, many have gone the way of Britool.

We're still capable of producing world-class manufactured products though, look at Jaguar Land Rover, JCB, Rolls-Royce aero engines and so on, plus all the second and third tier suppliers. But it's a shame we don't make decent spanners (OK, I know King **** are still about but I'm a Britool fan).

fanders

fanders · Apr 2, 2015

D350RDV said:
That happened long before the Stanley takeover, under Facom management. The RJ combination spanner series was discontinued when production moved overseas in 2001 and "replaced" by the RJ...A series, but I think the tooling for the 2J open spanners must have been shipped abroad as they are identical in every respect of the than the removal of the "England" stamping.

I've heard it suggested that in fact quite a bit of the "Britool England" (as opposed to "Made in England" was made overseas. It's quite possible as I've only seen it on tools made after the Facom takeover in 1991.

Anthony.

Thanks for that info Anthony, I'll look out for "Made in England" wherever possible (none of that Facom nonsense, lol). :thumbup:

vintage nut · Apr 2, 2015

Does anyone have a timeline of the britool logos? Be interesting to try and date the bit I have

you can never have too many tools

D350RDV · Apr 2, 2015

vintage nut said:
Does anyone have a timeline of the britool logos? Be interesting to try and date the bit I have

you can never have too many tools

Everything in your photos looks to be from the 1950s. The combination spanners you have were replaced by the RJ series pattern in the early 60's, and the knurling pattern changed on the ratchet handles etc at about the same time. Post 2 of this thread has an example of the later (1960s) chrome handles.

Anthony

vintage nut · Apr 2, 2015

D350RDV said:
Everything in your photos looks to be from the 1950s. The combination spanners you have were replaced by the RJ series pattern in the early 60's, and the knurling pattern changed on the ratchet handles etc at about the same time. Post 2 of this thread has an example of the later (1960s) chrome handles.

Anthony

Thanks! I was guessing late 60s or maybe early 70s from looking at them. Probably the farthest off I have been on dating a tool in a long time lol
I am definitely going to keep my eye out for more britool, very nice stuff!

you can never have too many tools

Fraggles · Apr 10, 2015

Britool Made in England Brake adjusting spanners.

216 : 1/4" and 5/16"
222 : 11/32" and 3/8"
222: 3/8" and 5/16"

fanders · Apr 12, 2015

Here are a couple of 6J short-pattern open jaw metric Britool spanners. The 10/11mm one was given to me recently by my father-in-law who is downsizing:

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You can see how much shorter the 6J pattern is to the standard 2J pattern. The 6J is quite dinky:

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fanders · Apr 12, 2015

And next, a bit of a mystery - does anyone know about the strange 14mm Britool combination spanner in the pictures below? It has a BRITOOL logo with the letters reducing in size away from the T of BRITOOL, and has CM14 ENGLAND on the back, but doesn't look like any other Britool spanner I've seen before.

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D350RDV · Apr 14, 2015

Ahh, the near mythical C-series wrenches!

I've got a set of AF ones from 3/8" to 3/4", and a part set of metrics (if anyone has 16,17,18,19mm they'd like to sell?)

The logo puts them in the late 1960s to mid 1970's. I am told they were an effort by Britool to make something shinier than Snap On.

Apparently the best RJ series forgings were selected from the production line before being stamped with this logo and hand polished to a mirror finish whereas standard RJ series spanners have a satin chrome finish on the shank. Because they were hand done they were very expensive and few were sold. They certainly do not turn up very often on Ebay, so the rarity part is true.

Having compered the two I don't think they are the same forgings as the RJ combination spanners. The style is very similar to the RJ, but the lengths are slightly different. EDIT changed my mind on that, see later post.

Some of the 2RB ring spanners have a mirror finish and this logo on as well, so it was obviously intended to be a new range for some reason - perhaps a false start at the later Automotive range which had a full polish finish and also used part numbers starting with a C.

Anthony

fanders · Apr 14, 2015

Thanks, great info!

I think we need to see some pictures of the C-series wrench sets

fanders

D350RDV · Apr 14, 2015

Here you go:

Having looked closely at them again today, I think that they actually are the same forging as the 1970's RJ series with the recessed panel.

The sockets also used this logo for a while:

Anthony

TJM2 · Apr 14, 2015

I developed a fascination with Britool when I learned they were the supplier of tools for Spitfire mechanics in WW2. I'm a history fan, especially military history, and I thought this was really cool. I spent a long time searching for a particular socket kit they put out in years past (Britool 748267) and have never found it, or a suitable replacement that has the same selection in a similarly sized package. One of these days maybe...

fanders · Apr 14, 2015

Nice C-series spanners there Anthony, shiney! Something to keep a look out for...

altersaddle · Apr 14, 2015

I've had a 6J pattern whitworth double-open-end spanner:

It's a 6J5260. Chrome is chipped, so not super valuable. Sold it on eBay.

I've also got a single 19mm 12-point 1/2" drive socket. EBM19. Haven't got a photo of it.

I'll definitely keep an eye out for more Britool...

D350RDV · Apr 18, 2015

Whitworth and AF injector pipe nut spanners:

Grimly · Apr 23, 2015

Nearly completed my original set of Britool Metric O/Es - still got a couple to go. The 16/17 is a Jenbro cleaned up and the 10/11 is an odd one out.

D350RDV · Apr 25, 2015

The 16/17mm is quite interesting because I've never seen a metric Jenbro before.

It does raise the question as to when the Jenbro brand was dropped - I've read somewhere it was early during WW2. I can't remember the source sadly, but if that is true then you have quite a rare spanner there.

Anthony

Ratchet. · Apr 26, 2015

Some pics of the solitary Ex MOD 27mm impact socket I have, would love to find some more of these, one of the the nicest made impact sockets I have :thumbup:

fanders · Jun 30, 2015

I've managed to get hold of a 1949 Britool catalogue, cover below. I have it scanned in, do people want me to post all 35 scanned pages? I can do one scanned page per post to make it easy to scroll through. Cheers, fanders

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