Show off your DOE's!

[Private Lugnutz]

An industrial setting could provide a means to squeeze the end to reduce the opening.

I thought about the jaws being pinched together, but I didn't think there were any signs of that on the outer edges of the jaws. You could be right though.

 

[davethorik]

Found this monster in a box of tools. No markings I can see. I found it strange the ends of the wrench are chipped on both openings.

Size is 1-9/16" and 2-1/16"
Craftsman 3/8 RP ratchet for reference

 

[davethorik]

Found this at work. It's probably not vintage enough for this forum. However Martin DOE wrenches aren't common, and the sizes on this struck me as odd.

No. 1027C, 11/16" × 9/16"

 

[Private Lugnutz]

the sizes do look strange out of context.

I've posted this before, perhaps even on this thread somewhere, but ISN 27-C is the third wrench in a 5-wrench Jeep set or a 6-wrench GMTK set, modeled after the 5- and 6-wrench sets that Bonney made and advertised in the early 1930's as the most efficient and effective set an automotive mechanic could possibly have, because of two features: (a), the set ranged from 3/8" to 1" without repeating an opening on any end, and (b), it included openings for common nuts and bolts in both USS and SAE standards. The US Army QMC seized on those features and modeled their on-board toolkits after it in their 1938 specification (Engineering Spec 422), which was taken right through the war and beyond. In turn, Bonney made a series of DOE wrenches in those sizes with the QMC drawing number ("585") embedded in their model number.

723: 3/8" x 7/16"
25: 1/2" x 19/32"
27-C: 9/16" x 11/16"
28-S: 5/8" x 25/32"
731-A: 3/4" x 7/8"
33-C: 15/16" x 1"

I stuck those and some other interesting research tidbits into a chapter ("Factory Toolkit, Spare Parts, and Accessories for the Willys MB") I co-authored with vaunted Willys CJ historian Fred Coldwell in Volume 5 of Lloyd White's Evolution of the Willys MB series of books. (Not to shill. The books are expensive! I am working on a cheaper guide....)

 

[BFBOB]

Here's an oddity I also picked up. Check out the small hex throat opening. That has not been deformed from use. That would splay the jaws, as is often seen in older wrenches. It was milled that way.

Looks like a splayed/worn pentagon. Fire hydrants frequently use pentagonal heads on their caps and valves to reduce tampering. I say reduce because anyone really intent on messing with a fire hydrant just uses a pipe wrench.
Could it be a open-end pentagon? The smallest i've seen on fire hydrands are close to an inch - is it that big?

Looking at the gullet angle, least likely to be deformed, it looks a lot closer to the 108degree angle of a pentagon than the 120degree angle of a hexagon.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

No, it's tiny. But thanks for posting, because I didn't know that about fire hydrants and pentagonal heads.

 

[Farmer J.]

the sizes do look strange out of context.

I've posted this before, perhaps even on this thread somewhere, but ISN 27-C is the third wrench in a 5-wrench Jeep set or a 6-wrench GMTK set, modeled after the 5- and 6-wrench sets that Bonney made and advertised in the early 1930's as the most efficient and effective set an automotive mechanic could possibly have, because of two features: (a), the set ranged from 3/8" to 1" without repeating an opening on any end, and (b), it included openings for common nuts and bolts in both USS and SAE standards. The US Army QMC seized on those features and modeled their on-board toolkits after it in their 1938 specification (Engineering Spec 422), which was taken right through the war and beyond. In turn, Bonney made a series of DOE wrenches in those sizes with the QMC drawing number ("585") embedded in their model number.

723: 3/8" x 7/16"
25: 1/2" x 19/32"
27-C: 9/16" x 11/16"
28-S: 5/8" x 25/32"
731-A: 3/4" x 7/8"
33-C: 15/16" x 1"

I stuck those and some other interesting research tidbits into a chapter ("Factory Toolkit, Spare Parts, and Accessories for the Willys MB") I co-authored with vaunted Willys CJ historian Fred Coldwell in Volume 5 of Lloyd White's Evolution of the Willys MB series of books. (Not to shill. The books are expensive! I am working on a cheaper guide....)

I was part way reading through this and thinking.. 'it would be great if Lugz wrote a book as a guide to all this and we had a handy access to his knowledge'

I actually cut and paste some of the posts like this and print them for personal reference, thanks for sharing . J.

 

[LesserSon]

No, it's tiny. But thanks for posting, because I didn't know that about fire hydrants and pentagonal heads.

I think that’s a user-mod for two reasons: the other end is a hex, and those older DOEs are not heat-treated in a way that makes them too difficult to deform (hence the splaying on many). If you place the head so the notch where the round meets the shank rests on the corner of an anvil, you can beat on it with a heavy ball pein or mallet, and it will close up, even without a torch. Could be done with a press in a more controlled manner, I suppose, but I don’t have one.
On the other hand, regarding size, fire hydrants are not the only pentagonals: if you have municipal water valves or gas lines at the curb, they are under a plate secured with a pentagonal bolt, which is much smaller than that on a hydrant. Now, those are recessed, so a socket (I have a Par-X - edit: nope, it’s Snap-on - one - I’ll check the size tonight) or offset box wrench would be a more logical tool. But that DOE might have been modified for a specific application where the bolt head was exposed.

 

[Provincial]

I found this wrench in a tub of mixed wrenches I bought at a recent estate sale. The E.M.F. Company built automobiles from 1909 to 1912, when it was bought out by Studebaker.

The openings appear to be 15/16" and 1".

 

[BarryWells]

my first years with dirty fingernails were in old time machine shops.Pot belly stoves and stuff. DOE were everywhere. Never a problem.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

The E.M.F. Company built automobiles from 1909 to 1912, when it was bought out by Studebaker.

That is a neat find, Jock!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I found this little ****** at the flea market this morning. It has the infamous and oft-mistaken "USMC" (for United Shoe Machinery Corporation, not United States Marine Corps!) logo forged-in on the concave shank panel and "WRHL" forged-in on the flip side. I am not sure what "WRHL" stands for, but it also has a model number ("216H") stamped in on the jaw, which is what I am going to search my catalogs resources on first.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I also found these Russian wrenches. I will be posting them on the "Old World" thread to see if anyone knows the markings.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

The marking on the bottom wrench is:

Price 40 KOP (Kopecks, which is 0.4 roubles)

 

[leg17]

I found this little ****** at the flea market this morning. It has the infamous and oft-mistaken "USMC" (for United Shoe Machinery Corporation, not United States Marine Corps!) logo forged-in on the concave shank panel and "WRHL" forged-in on the flip side. I am not sure what "WRHL" stands for, but it also has a model number ("216H") stamped in on the jaw, which is what I am going to search my catalogs resources on first.

Here's a couple of related wrenches.
I would guess the part number is internal to USMC and may be related to the particular application.

 

[davethorik]

Leg, you might like this little guy in my lot. What caught my eye was the v-gullets.

Blackhawk Armstrong Hexite no. 4039-B
Whitman & Barnes no. 220
Craftsman no. 1 tappet
S-K no. 8816 metric flare

 

[Provincial]

I found these at Sunday's old car swap meet.

Near the top is a Mossberg No. 235 DOE. It has M-in-diamond markings on each side of the ID number.

In the middle of the pack is a Bonney 2729 5/8x3/4 DOE obstruction wrench. It is marked for the SAE and Cap screw sizes, rather than the opening sizes.

On the left is a S-type DOE with milled openings that leave a rounded gullet in the back. I seem to remember a discussion on this? The openings are 5/8 and 3/4.

I quess the CamLoc tubing wrench qualifies as DOE!

 

[Downwindtracker 2]

An amusing DOE story. At a hardware store closing I picked up a set of DOE wrenches, Challenger Canada at a steep discount. The owner said they were lifetime warranted, but he had no idea where. I knew they were Proto Canada, my favourite wrenches.. This was the late '80s , surprising how you an remember when you bought tools.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Even though the odds are not good, and you often end up walking away with nothing, it still pays to paw through bins like this one!

As first reported on the Garage Sale thread, I picked this Barcalo-Buffalo 723 out of that mess at the flea market today.

This is a hard-to-find Jeep wrench, the smallest in the 5-wrench set in the on-board tool kit, highly prized by Ford GPW owners, especially because it is one of three verified Ford suppliers (the others being BHM and Duro).

I have found a bunch of legit wartime Jeep 723's in the wild over the years, including Barcalo, Fairmount, Vlchek, BHM, and others, but this is the first one I have found in a few years so I was excited.

 

[Tylermorris]

British made King **** 5/8 A/F 9/16 A/F

 

[LesserSon]

Several DOEs came home today from the flea. Mostly Bonney, mostly tappet. A pair of Vlchek 92 tappets, a Lakeside with interesting sizes, reminding me of Bridgeport’s earliest fractional/metric DOEs. Crompton & Knowles looks a lot like Bonney 2520/30 brake wrenches.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Crompton & Knowles looks a lot like Bonney 2520/30 brake wrenches.

Loom wrenches had very similar 22-1/2* angles. Crompton & Knowles may have sourced wrenches from Bonney. They did have a plant outside Philly. There are two other Crompton & Knowles Loom Works wrenches on the thread, one that I found, with 22-1/2* angles and severely narrow openings, which can be seen here, and a later, more conventional wrench that Outlaw found, which can be seen here.

 

[LesserSon]

Interesting: yours is stamped “1” and mine is stamped “7”. I wonder if the sizes 2-6 are incremental steps between or just arbitrary.
And Outlaw’s is “11A”. I wonder why.

 

[misterbill]

Can anyone identify the manufacturer for this lobster-claw #23 (3/8 x 13/32) DOE? I picked it up today and, as far as I can tell, it has no markings other than the size and "Made in U.S.A." with (potentially) "Drop Forged" above it.

Bill

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Looks like a BHM.

 

[d42jeep]

I found this Wards Master Quality DOE wrench at the Tahoe flea recently. Does anybody know if BHM supplied it to Wards? It does look like one of theirs.
-Don

 

[misterbill]

Found this little 721-sized MAC 3/8" x 5/16" at the bottom of the well of lost wrenches yesterday.

Bill

 

[twertsy]

I found this Wards Master Quality DOE wrench at the Tahoe flea recently. Does anybody know if BHM supplied it to Wards? It does look like one of theirs.
-Don

Based on that style, I'd have to say yes.

 

[F124C]

3 x toolkit DOE wrenches
1st 2 are Fiat 8x10mm in older and later finishes
3rd is a Renault 11x13mm

I like toolkit wrenches, when new, many regarded them as cheap and disposable, now they go for surprising amounts to car collectors trying to complete an original toolkit. Wish I'd kept more of them...

AL.

 

[F124C]

Hazet V-10, (Germany) 8x13mm

Dowidat No.12 (Germany) 9x11mm

Dowidat No.12 (Germany) 12x14mm

AL.

 

[F124C]

KING **** British Made, 12x14mm

AL.

 

[F124C]

Gedore No.6, Made in Germany, set of 7 DOE's 6-19mm

AL.

 

[jimmyin3D]

Gedore No.6, Made in Germany, set of 7 DOE's 6-19mm



AL.

Nice! Here are mine Hazet 450N 6x7-34x36

 

[misterbill]

Here's a trio of DOEs I picked up today.

Controlled Steel (JP Danielson) 723-sized 3/8 x 7/16 with a 1944 date code.
Husky 1/4 x 5/16
Wright P4

Bill

 

[LesserSon]

I know I’ve seen this discussed somewhere, but I don’t seem to be able to think of the right keywords to search it down.
It’s 11/16”x1-1/16” across flats, 10-1/2” long, marked “M6” and demarcated in inches along the shank - to check fluid levels, I guess.
Anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[Private Lugnutz]

- to check fluid levels, I guess.

I believe it's a farm wrench used to measure some kind of spacing on a plough or thresher or similar piece of equipment.

 

[leg17]

For setting/checking plow depth.
Possibly Massey Harris.

 

[humber2]

Fits all accessories you can attach to a Ferguson or Ford 9N tractor.

 

[LesserSon]

Thanks, guys!

 

[Tylermorris]

Some of my DOE’S