Show your Indestro and Duro-Chrome tools

[Old Radar]

Old Radar: well if you want to make it easier on yourself just start looking for vintage MADE IN USA and then if you want to grab any MADE IN ENGLAND and MADE IN GERMANY stuff that's up to you. so far it's worked for me and i've got several storage units to prove it.

I'm trying to use some self control so I can avoid the storage unit route... That won't stop me from going to two more estate sales tomorrow!

Getting back to my "new" torque wrench, anyone have a way to narrow the date range between 1945 & 1970?

 

[d42jeep]

Here is a ‘70 catalog you can check out.
https://archive.org/details/IndestroMfgCatalog55M1955/page/n37
-Don

 

[d42jeep]

I found these 1/4” drive Indestro sockets along with this Wizard socket at an El Cerrito estate sale this morning.
-Don

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Nice set. I Usually don't find that many loose ones together like that.

 

[d42jeep]

I have a ratchet. I guess that I could make one of these sets from around ‘70. Just need to find a box and a couple other pieces.
-Don

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I think I have a sliding tee, with tommy bar. Just have to find it. It's earlier than '70 though.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Just picked up a 1/2 ratchet to complete my di wardmaster set (on left).

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Deep offset flare nut wrench

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Deep offset flare nut wrench

Nice find. That must be the second one you have seen!

From a few months ago..

This is the first Duro-Chrome flare nut wrench I have ever seen in the wild. Honestly, I didn't even know they made them! It's a 383A (15/16" x 1-1/8")

Nice. First one I have seen.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Mine is posted in post #841, and I posted an excerpt from the catalog listing the rest of the set in post #845. Page 43.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

It's a distinctive looking wrench

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Sure is. Great find.

 

[drivesitfar]

ALL: my google fu isn't working so well tonight so thought i'd ask all of you if this set is Indestro like Google mentions or is it another brand. i'm thinking 60's or 70's, but thought i'd ask. or is it a copy from Taiwan or ?


DO TELL??

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Indestro select

 

[drivesitfar]

OTG: good quality or average and any idea on birth date?

thanks for the information cause it has me a little more interested now!!

 

[Oldtuleguy]

It's kinda 1960ish looking. Can't see speeder handle in pic.

 

[3baygarage]

More of a police lineup than a beauty pageant , some 1/2 inchers that were gathered up over the past couple years.

Old grandad slipped in there late.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

They are all guilty. Of being awesome!

 

[bmwrd0]

Picked up his old girl over the weekend:

I love older brands that the sellers don't recognize, I paid a whole buck for this.

 

[Leviton]

Picked up his old girl over the weekend:
"< snip >"
I love older brands that the sellers don't recognize, I paid a whole buck for this.

That's a beauty. Great price.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Stole that for a buck

 

[drivesitfar]

BMW: I agree so I usually don't even pick up a SNAP ON cause i can buy a bucket of the older (maybe better) tools for the price of one.

nice find!!

you didn't over pay.

 

[bmwrd0]

Yeah, it was a good deal, especially with a Proto socket attached!

 

[RubiconJK]

While at the Houston Autorama show today, I was distracted by a guy with a bunch of old tools in the swap meet area. Wound up with an un-branded 3/8" drive female ratchet with the drive plug. This one looks very similar to the 1/4" drive refrigeration set ratchets that a few of us have posted on this thread previously.

 

[81turbota]

This little Indestro 3411 was in today’s small haul

 

[d42jeep]

While at the Houston Autorama show today, I was distracted by a guy with a bunch of old tools in the swap meet area. Wound up with an un-branded 3/8" drive female ratchet with the drive plug. This one looks very similar to the 1/4" drive refrigeration set ratchets that a few of us have posted on this thread previously.

The 3/8” and 1/4” versions of this Indestro ratchet are identical except for the sizes of the drive. They came in reversible and non-reversible where you have to slide the plug from side to side. The plug is Williams. The second picture shows a non-reversing 1/4” drive version.
-Don

 

[RubiconJK]

The 3/8” and 1/4” versions of this Indestro ratchet are identical except for the sizes of the drive. They came in reversible and non-reversible where you have to slide the plug from side to side. The plug is Williams. The second picture shows a non-reversing 1/4” drive version.
-Don

Thanks Don. I noticed in one of the old catalogs that there was a 3/8 X 1/4 crossover plug available for 3/8 ratchets. That could be a handy set up.

 

[d42jeep]

This little Indestro 3411 was in today’s small haul

Here are your ignition pliers in a 1938 catalog.
-Don

 

[d42jeep]

I found some interesting tools at an antique store today. I always grab D-I sockets when I see them and when I looked at the sliding Tee it had some Navy markings but not NAF. When I looked closer at the sockets they had the same markings stamped on each one. The other tools were too rusty to see markings but I’ll know more tomorrow when they come out of the evaporust.
-Don

 

[d42jeep]

I cleaned up the tools I found yesterday and all of them have the hand stamped Navy markings on them except the u-joint. Seeing them all together made me realize that they were all from a fairly popular wartime Duro/Indestro set. The last shot is a description of the 41-W-2997 medium duty set from the Navy catalog.
-Don

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Nice find, Don! Just goes to show, you just never what's still out there until you get out there and look! (If I'm following correctly from the GS thread, these came out of an antique store you decided to stop at on your way home from a Marin County estate sale that was a bust. Right?)

 

[bmwrd0]

Indeed Lugz, as my old man used to say:
If you don't look, you don't find.

 

[d42jeep]

Nice find, Don! Just goes to show, you just never what's still out there until you get out there and look! (If I'm following correctly from the GS thread, these came out of an antique store you decided to stop at on your way home from a Marin County estate sale that was a bust. Right?)

Thanks, Lugz. Actually just a little north of Marin in Sonoma County. I replaced my non Navy marked tools with yesterday’s finds in this set. I’ll keep that set with the Navy box. I guess I should check a few more Antique stores.
-Don

 

[Private Lugnutz]

4.c,

So, here is that valve lapper I was telling you about over on my Mossberg thread, the one I pulled out of the large flea market lot of fixed socket era wrenches. The size is what immediately caught my eye! I have a handful of these type valve lappers and they are all on 1/2-inch drive speeders. I was astonished by the size. So I went back and checked the 1935 catalog. Originally, I had just looked at the figure and assumed it was a standard size handle, but the No. 626 came only 10" OAL! The No. 637 is 15" OAL. This one appears to be a hybrid of the No. 636 handle with a non-socket version of the No. 642 adjustable (sliding) type lapper attachment pinned directly to the end of the handle.

 

[outofbounds]

Retrieved last week from a carpenter's box full of sockets.....along with similar vintage Wizard, some nice Armstrong 1/2" drive Deep sockets, and some almost new Williams sockets also 1/2 drive . My curiosity is the Indestro Super sockets appear to have more a nickel plating rather than chrome, and the D-I socket almost looks black oxide. is it possible that these might date back as far as "war era"?

 

[four.cycle]

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Concur with 4.c. Most "-D-I-" is wartime, although I have some I believe to be transitional postwar. Super came out after the war.

 

[four.cycle]

Unless I'm mistaken, d42jeep, twertsy, and myself have come across "D-I" stuff that was definitely made prior to 1942 (plated) and there seems to have been a wee bit of "spillover" of "D-I" plain steel finish product into the post-war years when the supplies of some alloys were still being tightly controlled by the federal government.

If there was one piece of that lot I got to pick, it would be that snazzy extension with the flare at the drive end.

 

[d42jeep]

My theory is that Duro/Indestro had a sudden surplus of D-I sockets at the end of the war, so they put the plain steel sockets through the chrome plating process to make them more desirable to the tool starved public after the war was over. I have these very few chrome plated D-I sockets. Probably 99% of the D-I sockets I’ve found have a wartime cad, black oxide or plain steel finish.
-Don

 

[four.cycle]

"My theory is that Duro/Indestro had a sudden surplus of D-I sockets at the end of the war"

You must be psychic.

I had typed that same thing in that post above and then pulled it out thinking "Nawww... that's just wild speculation on my part", but if that were NOT the case, why do both you and I (and I believe twertsy as well) all own snazzy chrome "D-I" sockets?

When you do a production run of an 11/16" or 21/32" socket, you're going to crank out several thousand units, not onesie-twosies. Inevitably you're going to end up with a surplus of some oddball sizes.

Occam's Razor stuff again.

As I recall, mine are 1/4" drive. Go figure.