Show your "Long C" Craftsman!

[d42jeep]

I have one with the V too. Why not Moore Drop Forge? They were done making Jeep auto wrenches when the war was over in late ‘45. I have several wrenches they obviously made before the =v= marking was started.
-Don

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Generally its not needed that you have to have two of them in use

I think it depends on the car/motor. Some pushrods had a slotted adjustment, so you could hold a stubby screwdriver in one hand and a wrench for the locknut in the other (Chevies, for sure) - and the feeler gauge nearby, but some had a hex adjustment, so you needed two wrenches. I've also seen some text (can't remember where right now...) suggesting they came in pairs for left and right tappets. That never made any sense to me since each pair is identical. I can say that I own four complete sets of 20's to 40's vintage tappet wrenches in leatherette rollups and they are all pairs, and, like JoCo and Unaiu, a 40's Craftsman set, no original holder like JoCo, and it came in pairs. In fact, the first set of tappet wrenches I have ever seen that did not come in pairs was the Plomb and it made me scratch my head.

 

[wrenchguy]

The pushrod saddle/seat was slotted to adjust lash with flatip while holding the bottom of the 2 slightly loosened nuts with 1 wrench. When lash was set the bottom nut was drawn tight to the rocker. Lash was checked again, as it was common when tightening that nut lash slightly closed up. When its "good" the bottom nut was held there and the upper nut with other wrench was "jammed" to the lower nut. Oh yea the engine is running during the process. I do it better than i splain it. Like lugtz mentions some engines had only 1 nut (mostly later), but old stuff i work on had 2 nuts.

 

[Outlawmws]

I think it depends on the car/motor. Some pushrods had a slotted adjustment, so you could hold a stubby screwdriver in one hand and a wrench for the locknut in the other (Chevies, for sure) - and the feeler gauge nearby, but some had a hex adjustment, so you needed two wrenches. I've also seen some text (can't remember where right now...) suggesting they came in pairs for left and right tappets. That never made any sense to me since each pair is identical. I can say that I own four complete sets of 20's to 40's vintage tappet wrenches in leatherette rollups and they are all pairs, and, like JoCo and Unaiu, a 40's Craftsman set, no original holder like JoCo, and it came in pairs. In fact, the first set of tappet wrenches I have ever seen that did not come in pairs was the Plomb and it made me scratch my head.

Well, I'm surprised but not too surprised since it was a different era for how things were made. the '42 catalog DOES show then in sets of pairs!

I know for a fact they were not packaged that way when I bought mine as I regularly made trips to Sears to buy tools on sale. (I don't think I EVER paid full price unless I HAD to have for some job, and then whoever I was working on a car for generally bought any special tolls for me as partial payment, since they were not paying me anything else...)

and the '73 catalog:

 

[Provincial]

Setting tappets on flathead engines is done with the engine stopped, and usually requires two wrenches, one to hold the tappet and the other to turn the adjusting screw. I can see where there could be a locknut involved on some installations, too.

 

[wrenchguy]

Setting tappets on flathead engines is done with the engine stopped, and usually requires two wrenches, one to hold the tappet and the other to turn the adjusting screw. I can see where there could be a locknut involved on some installations, too.

This is 100% more correct for the reason tappet wrench sets than what i posted. Somehow i member working on lash that the rockers weren't cast nor threaded. thanks 4 jog.

 

[JoCoSawdust]

I have one with the V too. Why not Moore Drop Forge? They were done making Jeep auto wrenches when the war was over in late ‘45. I have several wrenches they obviously made before the =v= marking was started.
-Don

I mis-spoke with the "not MDF" Don. I meant to say obviously not Easco, which I understand to have been marked with -v-. I'm finding that the more I think I'm learning about this stuff the more I find that I have to learn.

 

[wrenchguy]

Body work dollies shown in 1942 catalog. https://archive.org/details/SearsCraftsmanMechanicsTools1942/page/n43




posted in classifieds.

 

[wrenchguy]

Nice small drill press.



posted in classifieds

 

[JoCoSawdust]

What appears to be an unused set of turning knives. This thing is purdy.

 

[d42jeep]

Wow! Like new.
-Don

 

[JoCoSawdust]

Wow! Like new.
-Don

Yes it is Don. It always amazes me to find stuff like this. This set cost 12.45 in 1942 which is 175.72 in todays dollars. Somebody bought it, shelved it and there it sat.

 

[Outlawmws]

It was probably bought as a gift and not needed, OR in 1942 the man was off to war and possibly never came home...

 

[JoCoSawdust]

It was probably bought as a gift and not needed, OR in 1942 the man was off to war and possibly never came home...

I had thought about the gift aspect Outlaw but not the war. Good insight and probably accounts for a lot of the unused or little used tools of this era.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I showed a slightly later (late 1940's) set of turning chisels earlier in the thread. They had Heritage decals on the cherry red handles and a Long C logo on the lid of the box. They were also never used, but the outside of the case was in a shambles. It's an interesting comparison. Link here.

 

[JoCoSawdust]

That is an interesting comparison Lugz. Shorter handles and cherry stain on that set, longer handles and natural stain on the other. Price difference of 5 bucks between sets.

 

[LesserSon]

Which of these logos is older? The bottom?

 

[Outlawmws]

Probably more definitive to look at the makers mark; one is Circle F (Millers falls 49-64) , What is the other?

 

[LesserSon]

The other three sides are bare. There is no visible OEM. Since they look more like each other than either looks like this Millers Falls version, maybe they’re both Millers Falls. I think the bottom guy had his upper blades ground off by an earlier owner, maybe for clearance.

 

[JoCoSawdust]

LS, just a semi-educated guess but I'd say the bottom one (in your first picture) with the 3 section "C" is the older of the two. Looking at the 42 catalog the C's are clearly 3 section. In the 48 catalog, Heritage stuff is showing up and the C in =CRAFTSMAN= is done in 5 sections.

 

[406Rich]

Picked up a semi long c, circle H 9/16 deep well socket today to go with the rest of my circle H pieces...

 

[d42jeep]

Here is a 3/8” drive BE speeder.
-Don

 

[LesserSon]

Too bad for me today. Early this morning at the flea, I picked up a MF and a 3-line-C C’man offset screwdrivers identical to those in my picture, but the C’man was intact. I set them down, with the idea of coming back for the C’man if I had cash left after making the full circuit. When I got back, the MF was there but the C’man was gone. Ha ha.
So I consoled myself by buying this Craftsman Vanadium 10” adjustable. Obviously Danielson-made. The date code indicates November 1940.

 

[Provincial]

I found a couple of Long C items Friday. A 5/8x3/4 DBE wrench and this torque wrench.

The skinny photo of the wrench makes it look bent, but that is the camera distortion. The wrench is perfectly straight!

And the pivoting handle makes it look worse.

 

[JoCoSawdust]

Lesser Son, would you please explain the date coding on that Danielson adjustable? Are you getting the month off one side and the year off the other?

Here's another example of a Long C offset. The bottom one is like one shown upthread, the top is a bit different. Both have 3 section "C"s however they got a bit fancier on the top one. Although it only has two drivers, it doesn't look to me as though the other two have been ground off. If they were, somebody really took their time and did a very neat job without gouging out anything around it.

 

[d42jeep]

Too bad for me today. Early this morning at the flea, I picked up a MF and a 3-line-C C’man offset screwdrivers identical to those in my picture, but the C’man was intact. I set them down, with the idea of coming back for the C’man if I had cash left after making the full circuit. When I got back, the MF was there but the C’man was gone. Ha ha.
So I consoled myself by buying this Craftsman Vanadium 10” adjustable. Obviously Danielson-made. The date code indicates November 1941.

I still find it odd that Danielson changed the jaw shape for their Sears Craftsman branded contract adjustable wrenches since my Sears Dunlap stamped wrench from 1939 has the traditional Danielson square jaw shape as do other Danielson style wrenches in Plomb and Proto.
-Don

 

[LesserSon]

That’s an interesting offset driver comparison. Both have the same model number. Hmm.
I’m actually trying to educate myself on the JP Danielson date codes. So far just tricking out what AlloyArtifacts has to say about it.
The 312.1 is something else, not a date code.
Looks like the first step is to guesstimate the decade from the construction details, patent stamps, letterform. The LNN (letter-number-number) date code system started around 1939. The 12pt broached hangerhole puts a cutoff date in 1947, but the “typewriter font” letterform cutoff is 1942.
Then the last digit of the year is the right-most number, in this case “0.” Only 1940 falls between 1939 and 1942 (or even 1947).
The middle number is always 1-12, so I assume 1=January...12=December. (Debatable, I’m sure.) So 11= November.
Now the exciting, and possibly pointless part: what does the leading letter mean? In my example, “K”.
I analyzed 61 examples represented on the AA site, and my conclusion is the letters are production days per month. Probably none are Sundays. Also, AA has NO EXAMPLES of “Z”. Maybe they don’t exist, or maybe they’re just more rare. It seems to me that 25 (or 26) letters is just about enough to cover a 6-day workweek four to five times per month. How exactly they were used, I’m not sure. If “A” is the first production day in a month, the month starts on a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday and has 31 days, seems you’d need that Z and then another “letter” after that! And what to do with holidays?
But that’s assuming a Gregorian calendar. I recall there were “rational” calendars used by some businesses (Eastman Kodak) even into recent decades (1989), which might better fit the A-Y workdays pattern.
From the 61 examples I used from the AA site, J&P occurred 5 times, K 4, ABCHLOSTX 3, EGQUVWY 2, DFIMNR 1, Z 0. It’s not a very large sample size for statistical analysis, but they do seem to bunch up in something like a moire pattern, so there appear to be two cycles colliding in this sample.
I think a few thousand examples would help, but who has the time to spare? It’d be really nice if someone discovered an internal Danielson document from 1937 or 1938 that explained it all. I think it’s possible to figure this out, but not worth the effort. Certainly the benefits are less impactful than breaking Enigma.

 

[LesserSon]

I still find it odd that Danielson changed the jaw shape for their Sears Craftsman branded contract adjustable wrenches since my Sears Dunlap stamped wrench from 1939 has the traditional Danielson square jaw shape as do other Danielson style wrenches in Plomb and Proto.
-Don

Yes. Maybe they had the machinery to do both. Acquisitions and mergers? Utica, too, seems to have waffled a bit on this design style over time. Surely a manufacturer wouldn’t just throw away the equipment when they changed their main production pattern. Possibly shut off the heat and closed the doors, but could make use if excess demand made firing them up again worth the expense.
And then there’s sub-contract production.

 

[JoCoSawdust]

Thanks LS. I'm going to have to sit down and re-read that tonight when I'm not about to keel over from heat stroke.

 

[LesserSon]

We got a blast of air from Canada today. 10° cooler than yesterday!
Damn, I forgot to vote. Have to head back out.

 

[d42jeep]

Yes. Maybe they had the machinery to do both. Acquisitions and mergers? Utica, too, seems to have waffled a bit on this design style over time. Surely a manufacturer wouldn’t just throw away the equipment when they changed their main production pattern. Possibly shut off the heat and closed the doors, but could make use if excess demand made firing them up again worth the expense.
And then there’s sub-contract production.

Yeah, if it wasn't for the date coding and the typewriter font, I would say that this wartime Diamond was a closer match.
-Don

 

[Outlawmws]

312.1 could also be be 312th day of 1941 which would also put it into Nov 41...

 

[JoCoSawdust]

Picked up an oxy/acetylene set off the Bay. Date stamped 1951. While the gauges and torch wear Heritage logo, the accessories all wear Long C. No doubt left over stock till they depleted the Long C.

 

[Gear Wolf]

I have to admit, I'm jealous of you JoCo! That is a good find!

Thank you for sharing!

 

[LesserSon]

312.1 could also be be 312th day of 1941 which would also put it into Nov 41...

AA site shows an 8” Danielson-made Craftsman-Vanadium adjustable with S-7-0 on one side and 312.1 on the other. So it’s not a date and it’s not a size. AA suggests it was some type of manufacturers code (I guess because it’s only seen on contract production for Craftsman).

Amazingly (considering how many of their tools come up in discussions) I only see one thread on this forum with a general title JP Danielson. Everything else is Plomb/Proto/Penens/P&C. I realize the early history of this company is murky, but seems we could make that thread a repository for pre-“P-empire” Danielson lore. (And also end this highjack of the Underline thread).

PS - I just realized my first post on this mistakenly stated Nov1941. I’ve corrected it to Nov1940. Sorry. NOW I understand why JoCoSawdust was asking about deriving the date from both sides! Don’s post is the only response that quoted my error.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

We've had this conversation before somewhere. I know I've said this before to Rubicon. This is pure speculation, of course, but perhaps Sears, Roebuck didn't want to buck the industry trend (for adjustable wrenches with hex gullets) on their flagship line (Craftsman), and didn't mind bucking it for their economy line (DUNLAP), which was also much cheaper and easier for Danielson to produce for them with existing dies, then simply stamping them different for Sears/DUNLAP. I have a couple of each. See Pics 1, 2, & 3.

As for the Diamalloy being a closer match for the Craftsman adjustable if not for the characteristic Danielson markings, I don't know. Besides the square throat, I have noticed that Danielson adjustables also have a visibly and measurably much thicker frame than Diamalloys. See Pics 4 & 5. Edit: a comparison of 30s era Diamond and Danielson may yield a different finding, though. I'll do that later.

 

[Outlawmws]

312 for Danialson could tie in, as AFAIK 312 has not been designated for another company.

 

[Provincial]

Lesser Son, would you please explain the date coding on that Danielson adjustable? Are you getting the month off one side and the year off the other?

Here's another example of a Long C offset. The bottom one is like one shown upthread, the top is a bit different. Both have 3 section "C"s however they got a bit fancier on the top one. Although it only has two drivers, it doesn't look to me as though the other two have been ground off. If they were, somebody really took their time and did a very neat job without gouging out anything around it.

I looked at my offset tonight. It appears to me that it was made in three parts, the handle, and two bits. The bits were riveted to the handle, shown by the dome head formed opposite the bit.

 

[JoCoSawdust]

That's my thoughts as well Provincial. Definitely not a grind off.

 

[d42jeep]

As for the Diamalloy being a closer match for the Craftsman adjustable if not for the characteristic Danielson markings, I don't know. Besides the square throat, I have noticed that Danielson adjustables also have a visibly and measurably much thicker frame than Diamalloys. See Pics 4 & 5. Edit: a comparison of 30s era Diamond and Danielson may yield a different finding, though. I'll do that later.

Here are three wartime 10” adjustable wrenches. One is a carbon steel Diamond, the second is a Diamalloy and the third is a 1944 Danielson. Here are some side by side pictures. In the last picture the thicker carbon steel wrench is on the bottom but I’m hard pressed to tell which is which of the other two.
-Don