This fellow?
I needed to get a couple of 3/8" ratchets to make one relatively solid user, and was looking at the remaining carcass when the thought occurred to me that I could cobble together a stubby ratchet ( which I do use a fair bit) out of the remains. I cut off the knurled handle, ground two flats on either side, cut a notch out of the space just under the directional lever, slid the handle up and drilled it for two pins, then welded it. For the amount of stress a stubby ratchet is subjected to, you'd be hard-pressed to break it, and the ratchet was pretty trashed anyways ( a former owner tried to shrink the worn-out hole that supported the back end of the anvil by peening it with a center punch). It's no prize, but it works, and looks a bit like a user modification that might have been done some time ago.
I wrote a big, long, sappy post about the toolbox and roller on owwm.org. Here it is for anyone interested, edited a hair for brevity,
When I was a boy, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. My mother worked three jobs to keep a roof over our heads, so she wasn't home until late evening, and my siblings were quite a bit older and had their own lives, so when my favorite after school shows (Batman/ Six Million Dollar Man/ Captain Scarlet; I watched a lot of reruns)were over, I'd head to my grandparents house, more often than not.
My Grandfather was my hero and best friend when I was a child, which is often the case with small boys. He was a cutoff machine operator at the Timken company for forty years, and an avid fisherman, gardener ( he grew tomatoes the size of your head), and woodworker. He was forever making something, be it a martin house, corner shelf or the dollhouse, a three story monster that barely fit on a dining room table, that my mother got for her eleventh birthday. He subscribed to Popular mechanics,Mechanics Illustrated, and every other other publication of that sort known to humankind- There were stacks of them in the sunroom of their house, from the mid '30's up to the late '70's , and I read them every chance I got.
His workshop was in the basement, on the other side from the model railroad ( another of his hobbies). My grandfather would buy tools and hardware as needed ( the ceiling was a cloud cover of hundreds of instant coffee and baby food jars, nailed to the joists by the lid and filled with an enormous array of nails, screws and washers), but larger machines were the result of my grandmother's scrimping and saving, and she invariably got him a stationary machine or tool set every Christmas. A drill press here, a table saw there- over the years she got him one of everything Craftsman ever made.
In the corner, by the workbench, he had a tool box. It was a Craftsman, of course, a towering (to an eight year old) gray cabinet, with three drawers in the top and three more in the bottom, and a sliding door that had a pocket in it for the shiny handle that opened it. It smelled like three-in-one oil and garden hoses, and was crammed with wrenches, screwdrivers and the like. He must have had it a long time by then, because it was a shabby looking affair, with myriad dents, failing paint and drawers that shrieked when you opened them to look at the neat pliers for the millionth time while you waited for grandma to make you tomato soup and a toasted cheese sandwich ( although that may have just been me). I can recall wondering why the top was squared off, but the bottom had curved edges in the front- they may have been from different sets, as I imagine they were likely acquired on two separate Christmas days.
Sears and Roebuck probably had a picture of my grandparents hanging up in the office. To my knowledge, my grandfather never owned a non- C'man tool in his life, from egg-beater drill to wood lathe. It would be nice to have a photo of the shop, but I could go through the VM listing for Craftsman and pick them out from memory. The tools spanned decades, from the muddy blue machines of the '40's to the dark gray of the late '70's.
Unfortunately, he wound up having a stroke ( to be fair, the man smoked Kools like they were going out of style and ate, well, like a guy from the MidWest; I wasn't aware that salads came in flavors other than potato and ham until I was ten or so), and that ,coupled with diabetes, made him a frail, blind old man almost overnight. His chief pleasures became the works of Benny Goodman and westerns, and he would sit and listen to movie after movie. I can honestly say that Once upon a time in the West is my favorite; I can also say that I've seen Hondo at least sixty times, which is about fifty-three times more than recommended.
I was twelve years old when he died. My grandmother was devastated, and couldn't bear to be reminded by what he left behind. She sold absolutely everything in that shop. I wasn't able to save anything of it, other than the hardware- I suppose no one looked up during the estate sale. I don't miss the machines so much- the stuff in my shop would run rings around the ones he had- but I've always missed that tool box.
I've been looking for a replacement box for years, and about five years or so ago, I found an intact top chest and most of a second ( which became a mid box, since it had no top lid anymore) at a local flea market. I bent them back to shape, dollied out the worst of the dents and even found a similar gray wrinkle paint, and they sat perched on a Beach roller ever since.
I've looked high and low for the bottom box . I've taken out ads, joined Craftsman collector groups , and shaken the bushes for an example, but had zero luck until I made that shop post. One day later, another member, Steve (bc17018), messaged me saying he thought he had the match to that box. If I wanted it, he said, I could have it.
I looked at the photos in the email, and was immediately in third grade again.
Amy and I met Steve the next day at his home, a picture perfect residence and shop in a farming community not far from us, where we were greeted at the door by Steve and two of the most lovable young shepherd pups you ever saw( to me, nothing says Welcome like a dog greeting you) .Due to the ongoing Coronavirus, we didn't stay long, so I missed out on seeing his shop; hopefully, another opportunity will arise. There, sitting in the middle of the doorway of an equipment shed so clean you could eat off the floor, sat part of my childhood.
In talking, he mentioned that he had found the box listed for sale by the grandson of the PO. This man had no interest in the box, which neither of us could relate to. Steve surmised the grandfather was a GM mechanic, due to the number of Corvette and other '60's service bulletins found in the box. It was full of mid century professional brand hand tools, which was what caught his eye, and even though he didn't have any need for the box, he wanted it to find a home. Needless to say, mission accomplished.
The box was in surprisingly good condition, given the age, amount of use and rather light construction . It had the usual damaged rails, a number of cracks, and nations of dents, but nothing was missing save the lock, which I'm replacing anyways.The worst issue was the saw cuts in the top, which had two sections bent down, probably to house a larger top box, but ten minutes with a pair of monkey wrenches brought everything back in line. I've already cleaned , stripped and repaired the cabinet itself, replacing the mismatched hardware and ground down wheels on the casters, painted the bottom inside and out with POR-15 and given it three coats of wrinkle paint; the rails were in such poor condition that I cannibalized the ones from the old bottom box. I've brazed the worst of the cracks,took care of the worst of the oil canning from distorted panels,riveted the front cover hinge back on correctly, modified my grease gun bracket to fit the holes already present in the side, and put the box back to rights mechanically. It will take a few more days to finish since I ran out of gas for brazing and used up all my paint, so at the moment it's a work in progress, but I can now do something I haven't done in almost thirty years- open a old, twin handled gray drawer and take out a wrench.
Steve, I'm in your debt. I look at this old toolbox, and I remember a soft spoken old man with infinite patience and a crooked grin who saw the potential in everything. I miss that man very much, and this box has brought back a lot of good memories.
It may not be my grandfather's toolbox, but it was someone's grandfather's toolbox, and that's close enough, I think.
-James Huston
