The Lugzsonian - A Virtual Tour

[Stillgottimefor1]

My only A.W. Is this sign off an old crane.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Thanks for posting that, SGT41! (Gorgeous fan, too!)

 

[Private Lugnutz]

The Acquisitions Dept dumped a crusty E.C. Stearns No. 4 (11-1/2" capacity) quick-set clamp on the Curator's In-Table yesterday.



The Curator has it in fairly presentable condition now.



These were patented (237,431) by Alva M. Colt on February 8, 1881. The operation is as intuitive as it looks. The dynamic jaw slides back and forth. It is spring-loaded so it doesn't slide at the will of gravity. It is prevented from removal by a stop on the end. That eccentric lever provides just enough force to snug up the ball-jointed flat foot on the end of that little plunger onto a work piece, and it releases in the other direction.

As you may recall, we have another Colt Patent quick set clamp in the Lugzsonian collection, a No. 1 (4-1/2" capacity). It is not marked E.C. Stearns or with any other maker, but they make a nice pairing. The Curator suspects that the No. 1 is older.

 

[Shiftless]

Nice find there Lugz!
Makes my matching set of 5 inch Hargraves look not only dinky but almost contemporary. Oh the horrors

 

[four.cycle]

interesting mechanism on that clamp.
almost too simple.

 

[harley jim]

My only A.W. Is this sign off an old crane.

My Dad and Uncle worked for Austin-Western back in the day

 

[Stillgottimefor1]

My Dad and Uncle worked for Austin-Western back in the day

The machine is still here in town where I worked for a year. A tool and machinery rental and repair place. That machine is out back where they put it when (I’m guessing) there was too much stuff wrong with it to be practical to repair. Has a slant six engine. The machine had a nice sign on each side of the boom. I climbed up there one day to get them, and it took over an hour to get the rivets drilled out of just one sign!. You can blame me for bad tools and lack of cleverness, but those were hard steel rivets! The boom is up pretty high. Someone on the forum asked if I would give them the other one. (Was it you?). I didn’t answer because it was very hard to get the first one! I will get a picture of the machine sometime, but it is in this forum . I was thinking of getting the other one, but if I do I wouldn’t sell it for less than 500 because of the words Austin and Western being in one sign, ( Austin Texas is near here) everybody here considers themselves “western “ and it is porcelain on steel, which makes it great on its own. I personally like the history of the company , another of those wonderful old companies that made America what it is today. My hat is off to those great enterprising people . Without Them we Would Not Be Here. I will ask if they will let me come get the other one, but I don’t know how that will go over. They want me to come back to work for them but I can’t afford it.

 

[c1504]

Nice find with the clamp Lugz! My grandpa has one and I have always thought it was super cool but I have yet to see another one

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Nice find there Lugz!
Makes my matching set of 5 inch Hargraves look not only dinky but almost contemporary. Oh the horrors

Thanks, Shifty. To be honest, I am not an avid clamp collector. They're out there. Just like the vise guys, with collections in the hundreds. It's a nifty niche. And I can see why vise collectors would also be clamp collectors. But I will grab them when they're interesting. For example, I have a pair of Peck, Stowe, and Wilcox "Steel Screw" clamps, a No. 4 and a No. 5, found, like most of my collection, at different times, different places. I like them maybe just because of their looks - the shape, the ornate thumbscrew, the name, and the forged marking. Posted in the PEXTO thread, here. But believe it or not, except for modern working clamps, and the 'CIN'TI TOOL CO. CIN'TI O.' No. 14 parallel wood clamp I turned into a display mounting for my H.D. Smith collection, posted earlier on the official Grand Opening tour portion of this thread, here, I don't have any other vintage or antique clamps.

interesting mechanism on that clamp.
almost too simple.

Zackly! Similar, or at least related, to quick set vises in that regard.

Nice find with the clamp Lugz! My grandpa has one and I have always thought it was super cool but I have yet to see another one

I don't think they're too common. I know RTM has been hoping to run into one, too. I guess I should count myself lucky to have found two - and two different sizes.

Which is a perfect segue...

 

[Private Lugnutz]

...for a return to the Austin-Western topic.

We're snowed in here, so the Curator t̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶p̶a̶r̶t̶ carefully reconnoitered and searched through the Lugzsonian looking for the other AWCO GOLD NUGGET tie rod tool.

The GOOD NEWS is that he found it.

The BAD NEWS is that it is not a No. GN 45 as he was hoping. It's a duplicate No. GN 35.




The GOOD NEWS is that it's not exactly a duplicate, because it's clearly from a different production era, using octagonal bar stock. Based on the 'PAT. APPLD FOR' notice, he would say that it's older than the one the Acquisitions Dept just found. Although that No. GN 35 doesn't have a patent marking. None of them do, apparently, which has confounded many AWCO GOLD NUGGET prospectors before us.

The BAD NEWS is that now he not only has two different styles of the same size AWCO tie rod tool, the Acquisitions Dept needs to find two style-matching No. GN 45 mates!

The GOOD NEWS is that he has more than enough bottle openers!

See how deceptively complex and i̶n̶f̶u̶r̶i̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ challenging this hobby can be!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

The machine is still here in town where I worked for a year...[ ]...They want me to come back to work for them but I can’t afford it.

Great pickers' story - and funny punchline!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

See how deceptively complex and i̶n̶f̶u̶r̶i̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ challenging this hobby can be!

On the other hand, sometimes things just fall into place quite inadvertently, which is the Curator's lead-in for...

Random Inventor's Spotlight #1: George A. Colton

Whilst randomly paging through this 1944 Couch & Heyle catalog for a good couple pages to use as a backdrop for in-action photo of the no-hands book weight the Acquisitions Dept found at the flea a few days ago...



...the Curator noticed the Colton's No. 10 File Cleaner at the bottom right corner and let out an audible "Hmmm," wondering if it was the same Colton as the vise inventor.

The answer is YES!

Here's a handy summary from DATAMP.



And here are two examples in the Lugzsonian that the Curator did not realize belong together.



Our file cleaner is several decades later than the patent, a design which clearly withstood the test of time...






....and we don't have the elusive bracket shown well in this period ad to convert our rare, tiny combination vise from hand to bench use, but we're happy by this happenstance discovery.

 

[tombell572]

Lugz, here's another clamp similar to your Stern's, made by Colt in Batavia, NY which is about 100 miles west of Syracuse. Throat depth is 6" and maximum opening is about 10". A tag sale find maybe 20-25 years go, heavily made.

Tom B.

 

[Outlawmws]

Wow I didn't know Colton had the patent for that file cleaner! I suspect it was licenced to a few companies as I have seen others made the same way (maybe post patent expiry as well)

I have one that style around here somewhere -a quick search failed...

now the race will be on to find the mallet!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Lugz, here's another clamp similar to your Stern's, made by Colt in Batavia, NY which is about 100 miles west of Syracuse.

Nice find, Tom!

That has some of the features of Colt's second quick-acting clamp patent (792,758), granted Jan 20, 1905. See how the end piece (connecting the eccentric-lever plunger mechanism) is at a right angle to and a separate piece from the long frame or what Colt calls a "beam" in his patents? Both my quick clamps - the E.C. STEARNS and the smaller one that isn't branded, have a frame or "beam" that curves right into and is integral to the end piece, as shown in his first quick-acting clamp patent (237,431), granted Feb 8, 1881. However, the second patent shows jaws that are more advanced than the little flat ball-jointed cups, which yours has. So I'm just guessing that yours might be from sometime in between. If you go to his DATAMP pages, linked here, you'll see what I mean.

I didn't even know Colt was making them under a company with his own name. My STEARNS was clearly licensed. My smaller one is not branded. It has Colt's first patent date forged into it. So maybe that's actually an early Colt.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

now the race will be on to find the mallet!

"Not known to have been produced," sez DATAMP. Or the lathe chucks. But I like your attitude!

 

[Outlawmws]

I just looked up that Mallet patent - Dang that is scary close to one I picked up last August! The inserts are not threaded, but they do have a shoulder for the threaded collar to hold them to the head with...

 

[four.cycle]

The file cleaner was manufactured by at least two other companies.
I am not finding evidence that Colton actually made it himself. Still searching.
I have zero on the mallet.
Again, "Not known to have been produced" is the datamp.org default entry when no other information has been found or entered into that field - it doesn't necessarily mean the item wasn't actually produced. (But you already knew that.)
What is rather interesting is that the Colton file cleaner was required equipment for all incoming freshman at the State University of Iowa. (If I read that document correctly that applied to medical and dental students.)

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I am not finding evidence that Colton actually made it himself.

Same. I read an interesting puff piece in an 1890's trade mag that included a testimonial saying he tested it himself in his own shop for a year before he allowed others to start making it with his name on it. Probably hyperbolic, but cute. I'll find it again and link it.

Here's the piece in Modern Machinery, 1898. When you click on it, scroll down to see the beginning of the article at the bottom of the lefthand column. It says it was being mfged by D.P. and John Wilkinson, 150 Kinzie Street, but doesn't name the city. The bit about Colton testing it himself is near the figure.

Modern Machinery

books.google.com

But I have not yet looked into finding out if Colton's, Inc., who made mine, was merely using the name or was somehow still in the family.

The word "Colton's" was TM'd for file cleaners in 1936. First use 1889 is no doubt a reference to the original. That's a year before it was patented.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

According to this piece, he did have a part of a company called Munger-Colton Mfg that was making them.

 

[four.cycle]

^ we were cross-posting yesterday and I missed that 1891 Iron Age article until just now.
would it be reasonable to assume that Munger-Colton was manufacturing the file cleaner early on?
they most certainly had the manufacturing capacity for doing so - I'm finding print ads in trade journals for various hardware items they were making.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Yeah, I'm pretty much moved on, though. The file cleaner was commonly specified and mass produced for shops for decades and it looks like the rights to the name ended up with Knudson as early as 1936, and he probably milked it more from Bensenville.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

The Curator has been busy cleaning, cataloging, and sorting into their proper places the Acquisition Dept's latest finds, but he is stumped on this wrench, which goes into the TBD bin. It was hand-forged, with a 3/4" 6-point socket, machined, and a 1/4" open end, no markings, and traces of what is undoubtedly black japanning.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Bubo has been no help on the matter.

 

[slowtwitch73]

That one pic has an uncanny resemblance to a bicycle fork tip.

 

[oldpliers1]

As you walk in, you can see how there's a path around the L-shaped Shelving Island in the middle. That's the way I am going to take you around. Just to the right of that stitching pony is my quirky re-purposed tappet wrench stand (let’s see if anyone can guess what its original purposes was…), with complete sets in pouches (Bonney, Herbrand), complete sets waiting for me to find or possibly make pouches (Plomb), and partial sets or orphans (Vlchek, Craftsman, Duro-Chrome, others). It's sitting in front of that barbershop display case I picked up last year. All my antique and Roaring 20’s socket sets are either on the glass top, inside the case in the display area behind glass, or stored inside the case on shelves behind that smoked deckled glass, accessible from sliding doors in the back, where I can rotate them into the display area behind glass or the top.

Thank you for the show really nice seeing all the great stuff . Regards A from oz

 

[oldpliers1]

Thank you for the show really nice seeing all the great stuff . Regards A from oz

We don’t have basements in Oz depending on where you live
a lot are elevated to get the breeze or on slab ( the modern house ) . The benefits of a cold climate basement man caves mines in a tin shed . Cheers

 

[Arne73]

Same. I read an interesting puff piece in an 1890's trade mag that included a testimonial saying he tested it himself in his own shop for a year before he allowed others to start making it with his name on it. Probably hyperbolic, but cute. I'll find it again and link it.

Here's the piece in Modern Machinery, 1898. When you click on it, scroll down to see the beginning of the article at the bottom of the lefthand column. It says it was being mfged by D.P. and John Wilkinson, 150 Kinzie Street, but doesn't name the city. The bit about Colton testing it himself is near the figure.

Modern Machinery

books.google.com

But I have not yet looked into finding out if Colton's, Inc., who made mine, was merely using the name or was somehow still in the family.

The word "Colton's" was TM'd for file cleaners in 1936. First use 1889 is no doubt a reference to the original. That's a year before it was patented.

I know you said you've move on from the Colton's file brush but just to add to the conversation, you mentioned it had been "mfged by D.P. and John Wilkinson, 150 Kinzie Street, but doesn't name the city." My Google Earth search leads me to Chicago as the most likely location.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

That one pic has an uncanny resemblance to a bicycle fork tip.

Assuming you mean the milled open end, due to the angle, I agree, it does.

Thank you for the show really nice seeing all the great stuff . Regards A from oz

Thanks, op1. If you like 'snooping around' in other people's vintage shops (I sure do!), there are a few others on this board. Click on the Sticky, scroll down in the Index until you get to the end of the Mfgrs A-Z, and you'll see the links listed.

We don’t have basements in Oz depending on where you live a lot are elevated to get the breeze or on slab ( the modern house ) . The benefits of a cold climate basement man caves mines in a tin shed . Cheers

I have to admit, I'm lucky. It is a perfect space for my hobby. Always dry, warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. But 'the grass is always greener,' as they say. Australia and NZ look like wonderful places to live to me.

I know you said you've move on from the Colton's file brush but just to add to the conversation, you mentioned it had been "mfged by D.P. and John Wilkinson, 150 Kinzie Street, but doesn't name the city." My Google Earth search leads me to Chicago as the most likely location.

Thanks for confirming, Arne. That's where other trade mags say Munger-Colton was located.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

The Curator is shocked, shocked he tells you, that there is no Wilde Drop Forge & Tool Co. thread on the vintage board to post these classic Wilde 32* angle-nose pliers.




There are several Wilde Tool Company threads up on the General Discussion board, all more or less associated with hot deals, and Wilde gets its fair share of references here and there on the Vintage Discussion board, occasionally, including a permanent spot on 4.c's A-Z US Mfgrs list.

The company, established in 1922 in Kanas City, Mo., (hence the "KCMO" marking inside the Herbrand-like banner under the name in the classic Wilde logo), by the Froeschl brothers (inventor Otto, and banker Paul), underwritten and capitalized by a Mr. Wilde (from whence the name came), is still in business, still making hand tools under the direction of a Froeschl, five generations later, in Hiawatha, Kansas.

The Curator is happy to put in a plug for them here and encourages everyone to read their fascinating timeline, linked here.

I am guessing that mine which are chromed, were either made in the late 1930's through 1941, or the late 1940's, prior to the move in 1954 to Kansas. They are robust, very well-built slip-joints, made of ALLOY STEEL with a handsome knurled grip.

The Acquisitions Dept done good!

 

[four.cycle]

^ very nice.
I did not know there wasn't a Wilde thread.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Maybe because they're not too common. In 14 years, the only vintage Wilde tools I have ever found in the wild have been a carbon scraper and these pliers, just this morning.

 

[Outlawmws]

Of course there is a "wilde" thread - its called "Free Parking"

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Snerk.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, whether he likes it or not, and in that category the Curator has been watching a horse-and-buggy period drama about New York high society on HBO Max called The Gilded Age with the Lady of the House upstairs in the Curator's Quarters. Set in 1882, just about a decade before the Lugzsonian was built, it's all about the lavish houses, parties, clothes, and well-mannered sarcasm, and the plotlines and characters include the servants (sorta like Downton Abbey on 5th Avenue, I guess one could say), but he's been impressed with the attention to detail. In every episode there has been a toolbox or a shoeshine kit or something that has caught his attention.

Tonight, in Ep 4, he actually pressed pause, rewound, and snapped a shot of this wooden mallet, block, and quoin key in use when one of the servants, who is an aspiring writer, visits the New York Globe.



The Curator happens to have one of the quoin keys in his collection, this one made by Hempl.

 

[bbbarracuda]

upstairs in the Curator's Quarters.

So does the Aquisitions Dept get to visit the upstairs quarters, or relegated to the Lugzsonian?

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Mrs. Lugz is a polyandrist, but doesn't realize it, because the Acquisitions Dept is like a silent partner.

 

[oldpliers1]

Assuming you mean the milled open end, due to the angle, I agree, it does.

Thanks, op1. If you like 'snooping around' in other people's vintage shops (I sure do!), there are a few others on this board. Click on the Sticky, scroll down in the Index until you get to the end of the Mfgrs A-Z, and you'll see the links listed.

I have to admit, I'm lucky. It is a perfect space for my hobby. Always dry, warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. But 'the grass is always greener,' as they say. Australia and NZ look like wonderful places to live to me.

Thanks for confirming, Arne. That's where other trade mags say Munger-Colton was located.

New Zealand is nice green and cold , hard to get a quid as it has no natural resources. Oz is warm and quite a prosperous place for the Majority, In general each successive government looks after the population, we pay a1% levy in our weekly tax which gives us free health care , unemployment has no time limits ( and yes some do abuse it we call them dole bludgers )
it’s that easy to get a job here it’s not funny and the wages are good ( I’m paying $43 plus pension and holiday and sick pay , plus double time after two hours ) . A waitress gets about $20 an hour no tipping .
But thank you all for the stuff you share , these things are non existent here , the rich history that goes with the American tool makers , shows that the USA was a prosperous place at one time for many not few . The one thing I don’t get is using a proud USA tool company name and making it in China . It’s a blight . Glad to see things like billing’s and Utica etc . A visual joy . Best wishes A

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I was referring to climate, oldpliers1, and mainly trying to be magnanimous and polite about there being more to life than the benefits of a cozy seasonal basement for tool storage compared to hot windy tin sheds in Oz. I wouldn't choose anywhere else on the planet to live than right here where I am, frankly, but I'm not going to go any further into comparing governments or taxation systems or wages or lifestyles, which is verboten here on GJ for good reasons.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

This week's 'Nowhere else to post them' entry are these rather odd and lethal looking dykes, with raised, angled jaws, that the Acquisitions Dept found at the flea this morning.