Plomb tool picture thread - show your stuff!

[thehorse13]

Here we go.

 

[d42jeep]

That box is in great condition.
I cleaned up my little 9522 screw extractor. It was kind of rusty.
Before pictures



Here is a much larger one # 9528.
-Don

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Nice finds Lugz!

Thanks. The 9638 is the longest bladed plastic-handled screwdriver Plomb was making at the time (late 40's). Fairly rare if the thread is any indicator. There are plenty of examples of the earlier style plastic handle (that basically mimics the shape of the wooden handle) in various tips, widths and lengths, and several examples of this later style with the pebble field in various tips, widths and lengths, but I don't see too many extra long blades. Tom (@Mintgrun) and Beemer come to mind with small troves of them. I don't see a 9638 in Tom's drawer (although he makes a reference to a long one with a slightly melted handle...) but I think Beemer may have two of them.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

that midget box is a bit different...

That's one word for it.

It sounds ridiculous to admit, but I don't know how it's supposed to close, frankly. When you lower the lid, it rests on those two notches. But it rests loosely. There is no snap. No friction pressure. Nothing keeping it closed if it is jostled or upended inside a larger toolbox. And unless I'm having an extended moment of exceptional dimwittedness, it sure looks to me like it's designed that way. Nothing is bent out of shape. Everything fits very square that way. The only way it will stay closed is by forcing those notches over the side, in which case the lid is canted. A PO, maybe the same PO who resorted to black friction tape, if I had to guess, was clearly doing that, because you can see where it scraped the brilliant Chinese red crinkle right down to bare steel. I have a few dozen midget sets and I have never encountered a case that would not intuitively snap closed. I had no intention of keeping this. No desire to fill it up. It is headed for flip city, maybe with a few orphans inside. But I hate to be flummoxed, nay, confounded, by a dang box. I even tried searching the thread to see if someone had noted this bit of notorious idiocy before. Nope. So maybe the idiot in this equation is me. Perhaps Sonny or Don or anyone else with one of this style of 4785 boxes will explain.

 

[MR.X]

That's one word for it.

It sounds ridiculous to admit, but I don't know how it's supposed to close, frankly. When you lower the lid, it rests on those two notches. But it rests loosely. There is no snap. No friction pressure. Nothing keeping it closed if it is jostled or upended inside a larger toolbox. And unless I'm having an extended moment of exceptional dimwittedness, it sure looks to me like it's designed that way. Nothing is bent out of shape. Everything fits very square that way. The only way it will stay closed is by forcing those notches over the side, in which case the lid is canted. A PO, maybe the same PO who resorted to black friction tape, if I had to guess, was clearly doing that, because you can see where it scraped the brilliant Chinese red crinkle right down to bare steel. I have a few dozen midget sets and I have never encountered a case that would not intuitively snap closed. I had no intention of keeping this. No desire to fill it up. It is headed for flip city, maybe with a few orphans inside. But I hate to be flummoxed, nay, confounded, by a dang box. I even tried searching the thread to see if someone had noted this bit of notorious idiocy before. Nope. So maybe the idiot in this equation is me. Perhaps Sonny or Don or anyone else with one of this style of 4785 boxes will explain.

"flummoxed, nay, confounded".....LOL.....hoping you could fit a "vexed" in there.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

HAHA. I would gladly go back and edit if you can un-vex me, X! Seriously. Are these supposed to not snap closed? Or is this one flawed somehow I am not seeing?

 

[d42jeep]

I’ll check mine when I get a chance. Coffee comes first!
-Don

 

[MR.X]

picked up 1/2 dozen old Plombs this weekend. Before Plomb/Plumb bobs their logo was a kind of a crucifix vampire stake apparently.

 

[Mintgrun]

I don't see a 9638 in Tom's drawer (although he makes a reference to a long one with a slightly melted handle...)

I shared this fuzzy photo in post #13,220, which shows that one. It isn't as long (or nearly as nice) as yours. It's the fourth handle down from the top and the melted part is at the blade end, facing the camera.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

...a kind of a crucifix vampire stake apparently.

Snerk. A very apt description of the logo on their failed 1925 TM application.



Apparently, their version of the Golden Rule was, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you..., unless they're vampires, in which case, stab them through the heart with a chromium vanadium 9638!"

In all seriousness, it is kinda sorta creepy, in combination, if you think about it, because the Golden Rule, which they stuck with as a motto right up through 1939, is theological in origin.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

It's the fourth handle down from the top and the melted part is at the blade end, facing the camera.

Thanks!

 

[d42jeep]

That's one word for it.

It sounds ridiculous to admit, but I don't know how it's supposed to close, frankly. When you lower the lid, it rests on those two notches. But it rests loosely. There is no snap. No friction pressure. Nothing keeping it closed if it is jostled or upended inside a larger toolbox. And unless I'm having an extended moment of exceptional dimwittedness, it sure looks to me like it's designed that way. Nothing is bent out of shape. Everything fits very square that way. The only way it will stay closed is by forcing those notches over the side, in which case the lid is canted. A PO, maybe the same PO who resorted to black friction tape, if I had to guess, was clearly doing that, because you can see where it scraped the brilliant Chinese red crinkle right down to bare steel. I have a few dozen midget sets and I have never encountered a case that would not intuitively snap closed. I had no intention of keeping this. No desire to fill it up. It is headed for flip city, maybe with a few orphans inside. But I hate to be flummoxed, nay, confounded, by a dang box. I even tried searching the thread to see if someone had noted this bit of notorious idiocy before. Nope. So maybe the idiot in this equation is me. Perhaps Sonny or Don or anyone else with one of this style of 4785 boxes will explain.

My early square corner boxes all have the same latching method. There is a notch bent into the lid that provides friction against the box bottom keeping it closed.
Green boxes

-Don

 

[Private Lugnutz]

...a notch bent into the lid...

Well, it seems obvious now! Lol. I saw that little dimple to the left of the lifting lip in the middle, but I didn't think it was factory. Mine was worn or just not made right. I enlarged it, making it deeper with a punch, and that did the trick.

 

[Old Radar]

^^^ Well, there's your problem! You self-diagnosed that your air conditioner was faulty when really you were just low on R-12! Next time post a picture of the area giving you the trouble--not the sides of the chassis!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Snerk. In my defense, I did post photos of the front. See #13,956, Pic 2. On the other hand, the shots of Don's box in #13,959 does show the dimple, and with a significantly deeper bulge on the inside than the one on my box. So, yeah, outsmarted by a box!

 

[Old Radar]

In my defense, I did post photos of the front. See #13,956, Pic 2.

So you did! "Here's the filler port, but why waste the Freon when the dang A/C is busted?"

 

[Outlawmws]

Somebody is having A/C probs and is Imprinting...

 

[Oldtuleguy]

r12? It's 1992 again!

 

[Squez]

Picked thes up today
And also bought the lot form a member here… just seems like the post office doesn’t want me to have it yet I’ll repost when it arrives

 

[Outlawmws]

Added a Plvmb punch today:

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Added a Plvmb punch today:

Nice find. But PLVMB punches, chisels, and drifts and the like were made from hex stock. I think that might be a scratch awl.

 

[Mintgrun]

PLVMB punches, chisels, and drifts and the like were made from hex stock. I think that might be a scratch awl.

Nailed it! I found it in the 1928 catalog.

Plomb Hand-Forged Tools for the Automotive Industry : Catalog No. 8 : Plomb Tool Co. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

24 p., illus., 27.9 cm, trade catalog

archive.org

 

[Outlawmws]

Thanks guys!

But I'm pretty sure the PO used it for a punch!

 

[Mintgrun]

No doubt about that! It’d be fun to undo that damage.

I noticed that the page I shared has #36 offset screwdrivers on it, so this seems like a good time to share the ones I’ve found (separately).



I found the Plomb puller arms in a scrap bin this week. They’re just like the P&C pair I already had. I see they sold two and three jaw pullers, so maybe I'm not missing a P&C arm... just the rest of the pieces.

 

[d42jeep]

This early box arrived today and I had to bend the latch back into the correct position.
-Don

 

[Private Lugnutz]

...and I had to bend the latch back into the correct position.

What's interesting to me is how the dimples reveal what I believe to be their manual placement with a punch. I've looked at all the early 4875's on this thread that I could find and they're all in slightly different positions. Some are higher up. Some, like that one, are so close to the edge it barely made it.

 

[d42jeep]

Yeah, they are kind of all over the place. Just saw this on eBay.
-Don

 

[Old Radar]

Just goes to show that if your primary or sole job on the line is to make that little dimple, you don't become a Master Dimpler, you get bored, unfocused and sloppy.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Snerk.

I was this was far into the sentence...

Just goes to show that if your primary or sole job on the line is to...

...before I realized it was not going to be another quippy example of your extended refrigerant analogy!

 

[Outlawmws]

Looks like it was an issue both prewar and wartime when a lot of inexperienced people landed on the assembly lines. - generally they learned fast, which helped win the war. Massive production and logistics allowed us to turn the tide and win.

 

[RTM]

Found this Plomb midget box at the flea this morning. It's also the first midget box I have had with these notch closures. Something is amiss, it won't stay shut, and I think that accounts for the black tape residue racing stripe.

Finally got out to take a pix of mine. Similar internal pattern as Lugz's, similar notches and half dimple as someone else's.



Same tilted view when closed to the notches, think I have a bent hinge too.

 

[Outlawmws]

That's definitely a bent hinge, bent back side, or both - They can be straightened with some artful persuasion - I've done it several times.

 

[d42jeep]

I’ve had to straighten quite a few of mine. Here are a couple of pictures trying to show the random positions of the depressed notches on the boxes.
The notch may have gotten straightened out on this box. It doesn’t close very securely.
-Don

 

[MR.X]

Anyone else?

 

[d42jeep]

Anyone else?

 

[Oldtuleguy]

One more.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

One more.

But does it snap closed sufficiently was the question.

I don't have photos of the boxes I have found and sold, years ago, back in the Photophucket days, but I don't remember any issues. Based on a grand total of one each, I think the latching was drastically improved when they went to rounded corners and the center clasp.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

You can make it close, not ideal

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Here's another pipe wrench, a 6 incher from 48

 

[d42jeep]

A couple of Plomb tools arrived today. I didn’t have one of these little pebble DBE wrenches.
The dual marked combo came in a trade with a GJ member. I spent some time trying to improve it’s appearance.
After
-Don