Spreading the Bonney affliction!

[LesserSon]

I don't think those a all that old......50 s/60s would be my guess.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

I think we might narrow it to the earlier end of your range. Early-to-mid-1950s, I think. The Bonney color scheme seems to have shifted from the earlier gray and orange to black and red by the 1951 catalog. So there's one bracket.
There was a somewhat damaged aluminun label like these on eBay a while back. (Now we know what it was from.) This wedge-serif typeface logo doesn't match well with the block-serif typeface used in advertisements or catalogs, but the Allentown address is a clue.
Earlier catalogs list the Allentown address, but the 1957 catalog logo is "Bonney Forge & Tools...Alliance, Ohio," as is the 1960. In 1963 it's international, but the Alliance plant is top of the page, "Bonney tools are made and shipped from here," whereas the Allentown plant at the bottom (following other plants), is used for "quality forgings, and forged steel fittings."
This suggests a second bracket in the late 1950s.

 

[LesserSon]

Googling Bonney history the past few months, I learned that JE Durham Jr's home is on my daily commute. (His brother's home is in Catasaqua). The same research yielded their grave sites.
It may strike some as indelicate or even morbid, but I think it is impossible to understand the company without knowledge of the men who built it up to prominance. The dates of their deaths in 1949 and 1955 seem to me to precipitate some of the changes that followed.
The local news recently reported cemetery vandalism, so I did some ground-truthing to check out the Durham family plot. The stones were undisturbed. (Unlike many other monuments, which had been dispicably toppled and lay in miserable disorder.) The family context includes a brother-in-law who served as a lieutenant in the Navy during WWI and Fred's son, who served as a lieutenant-colonel in the Army during WWII.
Is this sort of information of interest to anyone else? I find the human backstory of this company fascinating, but maybe this isn't the right venue for sharing it. Thoughts?

 

[rickhigginshtbr]

Think my eyes may be a tad younger than your's Lesser

The second board, across the top:
1723
1725
1?27
1731
1?33
1735
1?37

? being I can't make it out, but it doesnt appear to be all 17XX across the top.

The bottom looks like it goes 2804 - 2812

 

[twertsy]

Nice lot of 1919 Bonney paraphernalia / Catalog on the bay.............a bit pricey though. FYI that I do have that cat on my site.

 

[LesserSon]

Thanks, Rick. So that board is for Bonaloy DOEs and offset DBEs.
After I bitched about it, I put some more effort into looking and the photos are not really that bad.
Ventured to Perkiomenville today to see the flea and auction proceedings. Auction presents lot of junk ore to wade through for a few gems. Light sprinkles of rain put some wares under plastic, but I got these Bonney items. Two from the special tools pages of the catalogs:
The offset DOE is for Chevrolet "6" main bearings. 13-1/2" long instead of 8-1/2", which is why it is 2840 instead of Z2807.
Patent pending on the CV slip joints.
The 9/16 LD18 CVscript sparkplug socket has some scars but otherwise good shape.

 

[Sam'sAutoParts]

My Bonney finds from the flea today. 2 large John Deere loc-rite combos, one single offset DBE CV, and a streamline combo.

 

[Sam'sAutoParts]

Thanks, Rick. So that board is for Bonaloy DOEs and offset DBEs.
After I bitched about it, I put some more effort into looking and the photos are not really that bad.
Ventured to Perkiomenville today to see the flea and auction proceedings. Auction presents lot of junk ore to wade through for a few gems. Light sprinkles of rain put some wares under plastic, but I got these Bonney items. Two from the special tools pages of the catalogs:
The offset DOE is for Chevrolet "6" main bearings. 13-1/2" long instead of 8-1/2", which is why it is 2840 instead of Z2807.
Patent pending on the CV slip joints.
The 9/16 LD18 CVscript sparkplug socket has some scars but otherwise good shape.

Cool I have that same wrench, it came with some others on eBay. Yours is a lot nicer then mine though. I didn't realize it was a "special" at the time, so it just got unceremoniously hung on the Bonney DBE hook.

 

[malibu101]

LesserSon- Cool local info!

I don't have any Bonney tools, but enjoy their local history too.
I've wondered; Where was the Allentown plant was located? Any remains?
A friend of my dads' worked there in the 70's but I don't know what they were making then.

 

[LesserSon]

Yeah, I was pretty sure I didn't have one when I spotted it.
The pliers though...dunno what Bonney thought they were patenting. Maybe just that they don't close beyond 1/2"? I don't think they got it awarded. Too bad since there isn't much else to indicate manufacture date. I wonder if "Bon(CV)ney" could help date it?

 

[LesserSon]

LesserSon- Cool local info!

I don't have any Bonney tools, but enjoy their local history too.
I've wondered; Where was the Allentown plant was located? Any remains?
A friend of my dads' worked there in the 70's but I don't know what they were making then.

There was a discussion on that question a while back (posts in the low 200s). Most agree that it was on Meadow Street. But they had several buildings and I think the uses (offices, storage, forging) and which ones were active changed over time. I had been interested in the Tilghman & Meadow address because it was given in some records as the offices, but I was looking at the south side of Tilghman, and should have been looking at the empty lot on the north side.
The 1963 catalog shows an aerial view of the complex bounded by North Meadow on the west and West Cedar on the south. Sumner runs just north of it.
This post has pics: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5566635&postcount=210

 

[malibu101]

Thanks for the info!
Sorry I didn't read the whole thread to have seen the post with pics.

Gotta wonder if Bonney's Allentown plant used steel from Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem, smelted with coal from nearby coal regions? Tools which then could have been used to build Mack Trucks in Allentown?

It's a small world.

 

[LesserSon]

Anyone looking for a 1960ish W105R 7-wrench set of Streamlined Whitworth combos in vinyl roll?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/252874133741

 

[jl4c]

My Bonney finds from the flea today. 2 large John Deere loc-rite combos, one single offset DBE CV, and a streamline combo.

Those JD wrenches are beauties, Sam. The large, smooth stems remind me a little bit of WrightGrip wrenches.

 

[Sam'sAutoParts]

They are good looking wrenches. I've been passing them by for last few weeks and finely pulled the trigger Monday. I'm kinda surprised they didn't sell earlier in the season, but the vendor was originally asking double what I paid.

 

[twertsy]

Googling Bonney history the past few months, I learned that JE Durham Jr's home is on my daily commute. (His brother's home is in Catasaqua). The same research yielded their grave sites.
It may strike some as indelicate or even morbid, but I think it is impossible to understand the company without knowledge of the men who built it up to prominance. The dates of their deaths in 1949 and 1955 seem to me to precipitate some of the changes that followed.
The local news recently reported cemetery vandalism, so I did some ground-truthing to check out the Durham family plot. The stones were undisturbed. (Unlike many other monuments, which had been dispicably toppled and lay in miserable disorder.) The family context includes a brother-in-law who served as a lieutenant in the Navy during WWI and Fred's son, who served as a lieutenant-colonel in the Army during WWII.
Is this sort of information of interest to anyone else? I find the human backstory of this company fascinating, but maybe this isn't the right venue for sharing it. Thoughts?

I am, of course. Maybe you'll have better luck than I with the Durham family's predecessor? Armstead O. Bills. Pain in the **** name to search. Newspapers.com lists every paper in the world with the word bills in it. Frustrating....

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Catching up on the last three pages of this thread is going to put that Billy Joel song in my head...

"Well we're living here in Allentown
And they're closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they're killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line"

"So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real
Iron and coal
And chromium steel
And we're waiting here in Allentown"
-----------------------------------------------

malibu101

I think I may have mentioned this before, maybe not. I grew up in Palmerton.

Funny story...

A couple years ago an acquaintance over here on the shore and I ended up talking about drive-in movies, and he said he and his family sometimes drive an hour and a half to watch double features at an original drive-in still in operation in Pennsylvania.

'Becky's,' I said.

'Oh, so you know it, too,' he said.

'Know it?' I said. 'I grew up there. I've known about Becky's since the 1970's when it was famous for X-rated movies.'

He didn’t believe me. I said I thought it was still in the family and he should ask the owners next time he was over there.

Haha. He did! I don't think he and his wife feel the same way about the place anymore!

 

[LesserSon]

Here's what I could glean from US Census records:
Armstead O. Bills was born May 1860 in Bordentown, Burlington County, NJ to Enoch F and Hannah S Bills, both natives of New Jersey. He appears to have been their fourth child. Enoch was a jeweler. He seems fairly prosperous, employing two household servants in 1860.
In 1880 five children were still living with Enoch and Hannah, at 362 Farnsworth Ave, Bordertown, NJ, family employing a single female servant. Armstead had two older sisters (Sophia & Emma), an older (Frank) and a younger (Samuel) brother. Like Enoch, Frank was a jeweler; Armstead worked as a grocer, as did Samuel.
In 1900 Armstead is single, a hardware manufacturer, still living with his mother, Hannah, at Farnsworth Ave. But he must have been married (sometime after June 1st) that year to Julia W (who immigrated from England in 1882, born of an Irish-born father and English mother).
On May 2, 1910, Armstead (age 49) and Julia (age 38), married 10 years, were living at 307 East Central Ave, Chester twp, Burlington Co NJ, and employing a married couple from North Carolina as servants.
In 1920, Armstead is listed as retired, living with Julia at 1350 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, Kings Co NY.
In 1930 they are living at 210 Wissahickon Avenue, Alden Park Manor Apartments Section B, Philadelphia PA.
In 1940 (he was 80 years old) both living at 13 N Baltimore Ave Mount Holly, Ventnor City, Atlantic Co NJ.

 

[twertsy]

Here's what I could glean from US Census records:
Amstead O. Bills was born May 1860 in Bordentown, Burlington County, NJ to Enoch F and Hannah S Bills, both natives of New Jersey. He appears to have been the fourth of five children, with two older sisters (Sophia & Emma), an older (Frank) and a younger (Samuel) brother. Enoch was a jeweler, Frank also a jeweler. Amsted worked as a grocer, as did Samuel. His family seems fairly prosperous, employing two household servants in 1860.
In 1880 all five children were still living with Enoch and Hannah, at 362 Farnsworth Ave, family now employing a single female servant.
In 1900 Amstead is single, a hardware manufacturer, living with his mother, Hannah. But he must have been married (sometime after June 1st) that year to Julia W (who immigrated from England in 1882, born of an Irish-born father and English mother).
On May 2, 1910, Amstead (age 49) and Julia (age 38), married 10 years, were living at 307 East Central Ave, Chester twp, Burlington Co NJ, and employing a married couple from North Carolina as servants.
In 1920, Amstead is listed as retired, living with Julia at 1350 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, Kings Co NY.
In 1930 they are living at 210 Wissahickon Avenue, Alden Park Manor Apartments Section B, Philadelphia PA.
In 1940 (he was 80 years old) both living at 13 N Baltimore Ave Mount Holly, Ventnor City, Atlantic Co NJ.

Great work, nothing about Bonney? I estimate his ownership to about 1888-1905/6. Very very little on Bonney during that time. Some ads, but that's about it.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

[LesserSon]

The records I checked are all Census, which don't record business titles. In 1910, he's still recorded as a Hardware Manufacture Employer. So he's doing something past your 1905/6 date (is that Durham buyout, maybe?). Maybe he continued to run Philadelphia Bonney while the Durhams got Allentown up and running.
According to varied sources, Joseph Edward Durham Sr was born in Dewart, PA, son of Joseph Gaston and Margaret Laird Durham, farmers. He was a retail grocer in Watsontown, PA, 1878 graduate of Lafayette College in Easton, trained in law in Milton PA, admitted to Williamsport bar in 1882. He was the manager of Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia. He married Nellie R, the daughter of physician Daniel Stranahan and Rebecca J, June 29, 1881, in Warren, PA.
Perhaps JE's business connections allowed him to set his sons up as manufacturers, as a 1906 Princeton graduation present.
I pursued a fleeting theory that the S in Hannah Bills' name was Stranahan, but I found no direct family relationship between the Bills and the Durhams.
There must be a record of sale somewhere.

 

[malibu101]

malibu101

I think I may have mentioned this before, maybe not. I grew up in Palmerton.

Funny story...

A couple years ago an acquaintance over here on the shore and I ended up talking about drive-in movies, and he said he and his family sometimes drive an hour and a half to watch double features at an original drive-in still in operation in Pennsylvania.

'Becky's,' I said.

'Oh, so you know it, too,' he said.

'Know it?' I said. 'I grew up there. I've known about Becky's since the 1970's when it was famous for X-rated movies.'

He didn’t believe me. I said I thought it was still in the family and he should ask the owners next time he was over there.

Haha. He did! I don't think he and his wife feel the same way about the place anymore!

I'm sorry to go off topic, but, I live about 1 mile from Becky's.
It is still "in the family"- http://www.beckysdi.com/history

Shankweilers Drive-In in Schnecksville (about 10 miles from Becky's) is the 2nd drive-in movie to open in America and is still in operation.- http://www.shankweilers.com/

I guess I live in drive-in heaven.
Now, back to the Bonney discussion. Sorry for the derail. Please excuse me.

 

[LesserSon]

From a 1911 Princeton publication...note Fred and Ned both prepared at Bordentown
Maybe they met Armstead Bills' family while attending?
<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=iUoPAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA65&ots=bfDdq91txt&dq=1906%20bills%20durham%20bonney&pg=PA64&ci=159%2C650%2C709%2C558&source=bookclip"><img src="https://books.google.com/books/content?id=iUoPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA64&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U3oXlWZDjM-JGVCxneuNXviARVE-A&ci=159%2C650%2C709%2C558&edge=0"/></a>

 

[LesserSon]

Not at all, malibu101! I've been to Shankweilers many times in the past two decades, mostly with a van load of children. Not to Becky's though.

 

[LesserSon]

<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=iUoPAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA65&ots=bfDdq91txt&dq=1906%20bills%20durham%20bonney&pg=PA65&ci=92%2C152%2C692%2C1050&source=bookclip"><img src="https://books.google.com/books/content?id=iUoPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA65&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2ZYGE-m4rkjtQ_pQLJNbjpLFXA8g&ci=92%2C152%2C692%2C1050&edge=0"/></a>

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I can't believe that website doesn't say anything about the X-rated movies! We used to try to sneak in through the back woods when we were kids!

 

[LesserSon]

I keep running into "coincidences" in this research. My parents both grew up in Watsontown. All four of my grandparents are buried there.

 

[malibu101]

I can't believe that website doesn't say anything about the X-rated movies! We used to try to sneak in through the back woods when we were kids!

Probably not something a business wants to be associated with in this politically correct day and age, but yeah they were X-rated for many years.
I remember that in the 70's they were known far and wide for it. (I was not quite of age yet).
By the mid 80's they were no longer X-rated.
But remember, that was before VHS and the internet.

 

[Username already in use]

Found my second ever Loc-Rite at the flea this weekend. A touch of box rot, but nothing too bad. The working ends are still in great shape.

#2809 sizes are 15/16" and 7/8"

 

[Sam'sAutoParts]

Nice! I have yet to find any loc-rite DBEs in the wild. I do see them on eBay regularly but usually out of my price range for a single wrench.

 

[LesserSon]

Meandering through a community yard sale today, picked up this 1945(AW) Bonaloy 1167 (7/8) combo wrench. So I thought I'd compare it to the TuHex 167 I already posted. Overall, a very close match, but the weights...the Bonaloy is 12oz, and the TuHex is 11oz. You'd need to collect a lot of data to show this is an actual difference between models.

 

[Mikeske]

I am one of those that worked in the aviation industry for the last 43 until I retired last month and I started out and got a loan and bought a full set of Bonney tools. Well after 43 years in the industry my full set had gone down to a small set and ten years ago the company I worked for started to provide all the tools we needed. So the Bonney set went home with the matching tool box. There is not much left of the set and for some strange reason I had both SAE and metric.

 

[Mikeske]

Some more pictures

 

[bonneyman]

Found my second ever Loc-Rite at the flea this weekend. A touch of box rot, but nothing too bad. The working ends are still in great shape.

#2809 sizes are 15/16" and 7/8"

Nice grab! I don't have a 2809.

 

[bonneyman]

Found a deep metric 6 point in 3/8" drive the other day in a bin of junk. Almost missed it. And I didn't already have it, so, for 50 cents I thought it was worth it.

Thick wall on the broached end. Might make it unable to insert in tight spots but will definitely prove useful.

 

[bonneyman]

I am one of those that worked in the aviation industry for the last 43 until I retired last month and I started out and got a loan and bought a full set of Bonney tools. Well after 43 years in the industry my full set had gone down to a small set and ten years ago the company I worked for started to provide all the tools we needed. So the Bonney set went home with the matching tool box. There is not much left of the set and for some strange reason I had both SAE and metric.

Oh man I would have loved to have seen that full set.

 

[Mikeske]

Oh man I would have loved to have seen that full set.

I remember that I had a lot more but between work and five finger mechanics and my son what was left was what I showed in the pictures. What I can not figure out is why I have 2 1/2" drive rackets and I do remember bring home the 3/8" and 1/4 drives. I am still organizing my garages and home and maybe I left them some place and just can not remember where I left them.

 

[Mikeske]

So Bonneyman PMed me about sharing stories from the front lines of aviation mechanics from the mid 1970's to now in using Bonney tools.

The one thing in aviation when I got my Airframe and Powerplant certificate the premier brand for the A. & P. mechanic was Bonney, the tools were all balanced for us in the aviation industry. The 1/4" drives were and still are the primary tools still used today and they had the smoothest and easiest action in use, even today Snap-on has taken the market once occupied by Bonney. Snap on even today is no where as smooth a tool as the old Bonney's are. The sockets I had lasted so long that I did not have to replace any of them for over 25 years and they just did the job. The 3/8" drives the secondary drives and they were all as durable as the 1/4" drives. 1/2" drives were primary used on the landing gear and APU's. Surprising is the fact that 1/4" tools are used a lot on jet engines except where they attach to the wing.

Some of the angles you see on Bonney wrenches are there as they are designed to fit in tight spots that are common for aircraft. I was called in once to take a bolt out that other less experience mechanic spent three hours trying to take out. I grabbed the racket and socket and wrench and had the bolt out in fifteen minutes. He was using a wrench that had a improper angle and would not reach the nut.

I have literally seen a 4 foot long Bonney 3/4" breaker bar with a cheater pipe on it to break loose bolts on the landing gear and not break and it was used for over 20 years, I know as I was on the end of the cheater pipe.

I actually bought my Bonney set around 1980 before I left active duty Air Force and went in the Air Force Reserve, since I retired from the Reserve this month I started to collect my reserve retirement after reaching the age of 60.

I started to use them daily in around 1984 when I worked for a airline that is no longer in business. In 1988 I accepted a job at Boeing in Everett, Washington hence the number of old stickers that I have on my Bonney box. The box from all appearances has seen better days but it provided me a living to support my family and that one time purchase in 1980 for $950.00 .

There are so many memories of the 43 years of working in aviation but most revolve around all the great folks I have known and of the trips all over the world in the Air Force and Boeing to get aircraft back in the air. I do remember one trip to Singapore I was on for a team that was selling the new 777 in 1994 or 1995. We had to reconfigure the interior on a plane and this was demonstration to airline how fast it could be done. The engineers said it take 44 hours for a team of 14 mechanics on 2 shifts. There was 8 on the first team and 6 on the second shift team. When Boeing sent over the toolboxes were we to use we open them and they were chock full of nothing but really old Bonney tools from the 1950's and 1960's. The airline representatives kind of look at us, we shrugged our shoulders and went to work. In 19 hours we had reconfigured the interior. of the demonstration 777.

If it was not the fact I was stationed in the Philippines at the end of the Vietnam war I would not meet my wife there. She a cute little Filipina and we been married since 1979. I remember the day as we had a C-5 that had a fuel leak and I had gone inside the wing to effect the repair. I then had to take a shower afterwards. It took me a hour to get rid of the fuel smell and every inch of my body was red from scrubbing so hard, secondary is the fact I actually am allergic to the fuel used in aircraft, it leaves me feeling like I am being burned any place it hits me.

 

[bonneyman]

Awesome story, bud.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[LesserSon]

Yes, more stories, please!
Today I was making my way through my favorite flea market, and picked up a tool for something that does NOT leave the ground. Here it is after a little cleaning. I also picked up two small PWA-marked wrenches, but no pics at present.

 

[Mikeske]

Yes, more stories, please!
Today I was making my way through my favorite flea market, and picked up a tool for something that does NOT leave the ground. Here it is after a little cleaning. I also picked up two small PWA-marked wrenches, but no pics at present.

A lot of the stories concerned do not say much of working with the tools, but of the people I have worked with for 29 years at Boeing and 13 years of Active duty Air Force and 12 in the Reserve.

One of the more humorous stories was we had a smaller female who could fit in a stow bin on the 777 airplane. I get called in to "adjust this bin" and I open it up and about fell over when I opened it the female screams my name, my reaction slam the bin shut. After a moment I recover and then reopened the bin help the female out of the bin and was laughing so hard tears were steaming out of my eyes.

Another time a customer of a new plane comes over hands me a bundle of rags and ask me to go to the back galley of the plane. In the far back corner of the galley was a trash bin. We removed the trash container. On the top of the trash holder was a spring loaded flip door that you push down. The customer instructed me jam the rag up through the door when it was flipped open. Next thing I know the customer brings in our general supervisor and he is raising Kane about the scratch inside the door. My general supervisor push down the flip door and out of the trash compartment rises rapidly a handful rags. My general supervisor jumps back, screams like a girl and falls over laughing.

So working as a line mechanic, foreman, supervisor and my final years as a Team Leader I have a lot of fond memories. One of the last jokes played on me was my team took a for sale sign for $200.00 and put it on my daily beater of a car. This car is 19 years old and had endured 9 years of me driving to and from work of a hundred miles round trip. The car I bought when it was ten years old with around 50K miles now has over 300,000 miles and I only fixed what broke and I was only broke down twice where I required a tow.

Another memory was I was preflighting a C-141B cargo plane at Norton AFB, California and I checked the flaps by just grabbing them and making sure they reacted properly, right hand wing was fine go to the left hand flap and it was moving in a funny arc. I think a second and do it again, the crew chief comes up to me and I grab the airplane book and red X the plane. What had happen is the L brackets that support the flaps had 6 of the 7 brackets broken. The only support the flap was one bracket. In a matter of five minutes a Lt. Col. comes over and tells me to remove the red X, Since I was at the time a E-6 I look at him and tell him point blank I will not remove it. I take him to the left tell him grab it and look up to the back side of the wing. The red X stood and I had the plane three hours later in the hanger to defuel it and I was inside the wing pounding out the fasteners of the brackets to do replacement.

 

[StillTooManyHobbies]

Awesome stories. I agree about the people stories being the most important thing. As I approach my retirement later this summer, I am remembering the people the most.

We did the same thing on the car to a co-worker here about 20 years ago.. He had a beater 196x Chevy pickup that you could see pavement through the floor, and we put a "Danger do not use" sign on the windshield. He laughed, but within a week he had a brand new two tone brown Dodge 150.