Superslim Spanner Made In England

[Provincial]

In a large wrench buy I found a DOE wrench labelled "Superslim." The other side says "Made in England" and the sizes are marked 5/8AF and 3/4AF (meaning "across flats"), so I assume it was made for the American market. From what little shows up on the internet, there was a maker named "Williams" , perhaps "T. Williams" that produced these in either a black ("Japanned") finish or galvanized. They may have been included in tool kits provided with some automobiles made in Great Britain. It is rather vague, but the impression I get is post-WWII until the 1960's or '70's.

Anyway, it is another curiosity that shows up when collecting tools!

 

[dutchgray]

We adopted the Unified screw threads here in Britain after WW2 and pretty much got changed over from Whitworth, BSF and BA by the time we changed to Metric, so they could well have been made for our use. They are very common here, if you hunt round any decent boot sale or auto jumble you will find some, usually quite rusty as the black finish is common.
I don't think they are the best quality but short DOE wrenches don't need to be.
I think you are probably correct in thinking many are from toolkits.

 

[Provincial]

I had a college friend who worked his way through by being a motorcycle mechanic at a Triumph/BSA dealer in the late 1960's and early 1970's. He reported that he had to have tools in SAE, Metric, Whitworth, and something else. I have read that Whitworth and British Standard wrenches have the same across flats dimensions, except that the thread size is larger in BS for the same AF dimension. That would mean that there would be no British size fastener with 5/8 or 3/4 across flat measurement. Could it be that some autos were made with SAE size fastener heads for export to the US?

 

[Private Lugnutz]

If you're interested in perusing other examples, including a few I have found, and some prior discussion, Farmer J has a large collection of T. Williams Superslim and a thread dedicated to the subject and his display board, linked here.

 

[d42jeep]

I found my first example on Tuesday at a Tahoe moving sale. It’s been enlarged on the 3/8” end to almost 7/16” which doesn’t make much sense.
-Don

 

[Farmer J.]

If you're interested in perusing other examples, including a few I have found, and some prior discussion, Farmer J has a large collection of T. Williams Superslim and a thread dedicated to the subject and his display board, linked here.

Thanks Lugz, well remembered.
Nice to see a few more old 'Superslims' surfacing. Yes, please refer to previous thread and add these in there if you like.
Here's the link to Grace's Guide info:

T. Williams - Graces Guide

www.gracesguide.co.uk

More history links in post no. 9 of the thread.

I have added some more to the collection, so more than 74 different ones now! will have to update the thread some time soon.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Thanks Lugz, well remembered.

It's hard to forget a 74-piece wrench display! LOTS of good info and other GJers wrenches on that thread, too. It will be in the next Sticky Thread Index!

 

[Farmer J.]

It will be in the next Sticky Thread Index!

Thanks, I feel honoured to have started a thread that qualifies for a place in the 'Sticky Index'.

 

[bmwrd0]

I've had this set of Superslims for a while now, as they are my go-to set of Whitworth/BS wrenches that I use on my British bicycles, Raleigh and Hercules.



The clip is not original to the set but comes in quite handy. I will say, I wish that I had these when I had my BSA Lightning in the very early '90s, they sure beat the adjustable that I used then.

 

[Dave455]

Can’t add much to FarmerJ’s extensive research.

Yes, A/F stands for “Across Flats” and is the way British tools were marked to distinguish them from British Standard sizes.

Almost certainly for the domestic market. As dutchgrey correctly points out, the U.K. motor industry adopted “Unified” sizes after the war, I think in 1958, so almost any “classic” British vehicle built after then will be Unified.

But… although the U.K. adopted Unified to replace BSW and BSF, it never adopted the Unified “Numbered” series, so BA continued till ISO metric became popular.

T. Williams made spanners of varying quality. I inherited some flare nut spanners, as shown, that are very decent. I, like Provincial above, have long suspected that some of the black spanners were produced ”down to a price” to be included in vehicle tool kits. I have seen vinyl bags with two spanners, cheapish slip joint pliers, and a reversible screwdriver!

 

[Fretters]

Lovely spanners, the Superslims. A lot stronger than their appearance suggests. I have a fondness for them.

 

[Ayrhead]

I picked these up from a gentleman who was a mechanic and worked on socks machines. These are his Superslim DOE Wrenches. Not a complete set, but what he needed when he was repairing equipment. He also had 2 Superslim DBE Wrenches.

 

[kyrbz]

I have a Whitworth set I originally bought for the tool kit in my Panther M75 but maybe they're a little large for a motorcycle tool roll