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paul123wxyz

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Aug 14, 2025
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I inherited a bunch of tools from my grandfather who owned an auto repair shop from 1946 to 1980, even though I worked as a mechanic myself there are tools I cannot identify, I was able to identify this though and got it working.
 

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four.cycle

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Hello there @paul123wxyz and welcome to the site! :thumbup:

this is all the farther I got on that one since our previous communication:

Watervliet / Watervliet Tool Co., PO Box 350, Albany, NY / jack, planishing hammer /

Now that we've got a patent number I've got more to work with. Thank you!

patent 2263423 Nov 18 1941 William J. Kattrein of Albany, NY assignee: Watervliet Tool Co., Albany, NY

probably more a VintageMachinery.org item than a datamp.org item

you will want to keep this link handy

and this one

I'll probably get your wrench set out tomorrow... I should go pick up my mail.

Cheers!

BK

====

@RTM - can you take a stab at what appears to be the first patent number on that forging that appears to be "2163XX5" ? I'm at a total loss there.
 

RTM

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@RTM - can you take a stab at what appears to be the first patent number on that forging that appears to be "2163XX5" ? I'm at a total loss there.
Well, couple of wildcards here. Kinda. But my mind still worked that way.😜🤪

Google patents doesn’t allow wildcards in the patent number, which was a drag. DATAMP did not have the first patent to Kattrein. So I figured I’d start with the lowest possible number, and get the date, and just look thru the list on that date, so I plunked 2163005 into USPTO.

Cripes, it’s a sheet metal patent

So, having faith in DATAMP, I put that number in, and got no hit, again.

But I did see this at the bottom of the page.

The quick search for patent numbers now allows the following:

  • '%' matches any sequence of digits
  • '_' matches any single digit
I have no idea how long that has been there, but being game, I entered 2163__5, which returned two results, one being


Which I think is probably it, as I thought I saw a 7 at the base in the scratch off

But, DATAMP had no image, so let’s go here.


I’m sold


Holler back if you disagree.

And then add this to the Vintage thread somehow.
 

four.cycle

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So... looks like 2163715 is the one I'm looking for then, right?

I don't think we need to "move" the thread... I've got an email half-cooked right now to Jeff - I think this one belongs on VM, not datamp.org, as it's more "machine" than "hand tool". I could be wrong there. Might be appropriate for both.
The company apparently also manufactured reamers in the 1920s.
Thanks for the help. BK

email cc/d to you.
 
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RTM

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So I figured I’d start with the lowest possible number, and get the date, and just look thru the list on that date, so I plunked 2163005 into USPTO.
Following up on this idea got me close. The 2163005 was not near the first on that date, top red circle, but then I hoped the word METAL would appear in the title, second circle. Then I hit the down arrow near the blue arrow ish shaped scribble, and scrolled down til I hit the 2163095 patent, shown.

1755234746531.png


Continued on, I wanted to get to 2163995, but that date ended with2163596. So I incremented my initial search by 7, and repeated the METAL search.

1755235186349.png

I’ll copy the links to add it to the patent searching thread I started. I thought it was a decent way to fill in the blanks.
 
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paul123wxyz

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Aug 14, 2025
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Thank You @RTM for that research, it's a fairly cool tool if I can master using it, the first time I tried it the oil I had put in the air inlet and the oil port all shot out the bottom onto the fender I was trying it on so I tore it down and cleaned it up, I had no idea where I was going to find a square O-Ring to fit but I found a thick round one in my O-Ring kit that fit the groove nicely and provided a slight drag on the piston and it worked well, given the interest I am uploading a couple more photos, I tried using it on my 1969 Chevelle fender that I had tig welded a patch into to flatten out the weld and some of the hammer and dolly work I had done, I had found a photo someplace on the internet of a sales or basic use brochure and tried using the recommended air pressure, I failed to take into account that fenders were thicker in the 1940's and it turned my work into a very smooth bubble, I am not sure if I stretched the metal or just flattened out the small dents left from the hammer and dolly work, it was really smooth though! :LOL:
 

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Jeff Joslin

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I've got an email half-cooked right now to Jeff - I think this one belongs on VM, not datamp.org, as it's more "machine" than "hand tool". I could be wrong there. Might be appropriate for both.

DATAMP stands for "Directory of Tool And Machinery Patents", so the patent is definitely appropriate for datamp.org. The VintageMachinery.org patent lists for a manufacturer are generated by datamp.org—there's some fancy programming in the background to make that happen.

I have forwarded this info to Joel Havens who is the datamp steward for metalworking machinery patents. Paul, I trust that it's OK to use your photos to accompany that patent 2,163,715?

Jeff
 
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paul123wxyz

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DATAMP stands for "Directory of Tool And Machinery Patents", so the patent is definitely appropriate for datamp.org. The VintageMachinery.org patent lists for a manufacturer are generated by datamp.org—there's some fancy programming in the background to make that happen.

I have forwarded this info to Joel Havens who is the datamp steward for metalworking machinery patents. Paul, I trust that it's OK to use your photos to accompany that patent 2,163,715?

Jeff
Yes, that is just fine, I took the photos at the time I was working on it so at some point I could share them with others that were interested, go ahead and use them.
 
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