Vintage Wright - Share it Here

[misterbill]

Like many of the folks in this sub-forum I like to collect WWII-era tools. Over the years (with a lot of help) I've managed to put together a lot of Wright tools from that time period. I'll start with at link to the only online catalog of Wright tools that I've seen. Sadly it is from 1957 but has been informational for my purposes just the same: https://archive.org/details/WrightToolsCatalog571956

Next up, 3/4" drive.

Bill

 

[misterbill]

The 3/4" drive pieces I have nicely make up the contents of a 41-W-2620 WWII socket set. I've managed to locate all the pieces except the N-312 8" extension.

 

[misterbill]

The 1/2" drive bits are in support of my original goal of trying to find the sockets/ratchet/extensions/etc. that were part of the General Mechanics Tool Kit (GMTK) during the war. At this point I have gathered up all the bits except the 7/16" socket and the 5/8" socket. I also have N-62 ratchets marked 45+ but have never seen one dated earlier than that which leads me to believe the N-60 was the one made during the war.

 

[misterbill]

And here are some of the 3/8" drive bits that have joined the collection along the way. One of the nice things about the Wright tools from this period is that they have a two digit date code (i.e., 41 - 45). Many of them also have an "AC" stamping on them which it is believed to signify "Air Corps" as Wright had contracts with the Army Air Corps during the war. The meaning of the -/+ prefix/suffix is also an unknown at this time.

Has anybody seen anything manufactured by Wright during this period other than drive tools? I have seen wrenches marked Wright but I believe they are probably Bonney-made (or perhaps another manufacturer) for Curtiss-Wright aircraft.

In that same light, if anybody has any catalogs or price sheets from the war years I'd definitely like to see a copy.

Bill

 

[jabberwoki]

Nice I love Wright tools too.

 

[davethorik]

The catalog you linked is very interesting...it shows the Frankenstein 1/4 ratchet, and the 3/8 and 1/2 ratchets are the earlier round heads with the starwheel shaped selector. Very cool.

I live close to Wright Tool but don't see a lot of their older stuff. I have a 1961 dated 3400 ratchet marked PAT. PEND, and that is the oldest example I have.

 

[Sam'sAutoParts]

Very nice collection, I don't believe I have any Wright tools to contribute, but along for the ride

 

[twertsy]

Here's a wrench I found this morning, the earliest I've seen.

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[Private Lugnutz]

I wonder if that's a WRIGHT Aircraft company wrench. I don't know if I've ever seen another Wright (Tool and Forge) DOE wrench earlier than 50s, and that one is probably from the 20s with those bolt sizes on it.

 

[twertsy]

I wonder if that's a WRIGHT Aircraft company wrench. I don't know if I've ever seen another Wright (Tool and Forge) DOE wrench earlier than 50s, and that one is probably from the 20s with those bolt sizes on it.

AA has the same exact wrench.

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[Private Lugnutz]

I just saw that googling around. Go figure!

 

[Username already in use]

Nice thread Bill and an excellent collection you have going!
I’ll keep my eyes open for your missing pieces.

Todd, that Wright DOE looks very Cornwell/VTC with the hex shaped throat. Didn’t Cornwell mark their wrenches in a similar way as well? Maybe an early contract production wrench?

 

[twertsy]

Nice thread Bill and an excellent collection you have going!
I’ll keep my eyes open for your missing pieces.

Todd, that Wright DOE looks very Cornwell/VTC with the hex shaped throat. Didn’t Cornwell mark their wrenches in a similar way as well? Maybe an early contract production wrench?

I thought about that, and did some comparisons. I don't think so. Tomorrow I'll post some shots of that.

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[Private Lugnutz]

Or Cornwell made it for Wright Aircraft and AA has misidentified it. Maybe I'm just being stubborn. It just seems strange to me that a tool and forge not known for making DOE wrenches has no other examples. The idea that they subcontracted it out just seems stranger on top of that. If I had more time on my hands I would start comparing logos/fonts. They were awfully similar.

Then again, I don't know if the aircraft company even had a need in the 20s.

Just spitballin.

What do you think, Bill?

 

[davethorik]

Nice thread Bill and an excellent collection you have going!
I’ll keep my eyes open for your missing pieces.

Todd, that Wright DOE looks very Cornwell/VTC with the hex shaped throat. Didn’t Cornwell mark their wrenches in a similar way as well? Maybe an early contract production wrench?

I'm fairly certain that until the WrightGrip wrenches came out, most Wright open end wrenches had hexagonal gullets. After some searching, not all did...notably the larger (1-5/16+) wrenches.

 

[misterbill]

Or Cornwell made it for Wright Aircraft and AA has misidentified it. Maybe I'm just being stubborn. It just seems strange to me that a tool and forge not known for making DOE wrenches has no other examples. The idea that they subcontracted it out just seems stranger on top of that. If I had more time on my hands I would start comparing logos/fonts. They were awfully similar.

Then again, I don't know if the aircraft company even had a need in the 20s.

Just spitballin.

What do you think, Bill?

I'm in the same boat as the rest of you. So little evidence makes it difficult to do anything other than speculate. Just my opinion, but the early Cornwell tools always appear crudely made to me in comparison to their peers. So the wrench Todd found makes me think "Cornwell" as much as it does "Wright". I'm constantly on the lookout for a catalog or price sheet or something that would add to the knowledge base.

Bill

 

[twertsy]

First pic is a comparison of the Wright with 1927 Cornwell, the second is 1928.

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[MrGrnJeans]

Misterbill, I have got something you need to go with your collection of Wright wrenches. It's a Hartzell wood propeller, it has Wright Aviation engines stamped into the center hub. It's about 10' long with the original finish on it, it was my grandfathers that he had boxed up in the garage loft. It would look cool with your wrenches!

 

[MrGrnJeans]

Could someone tell me why when posting pics, that sometimes they are shown with my reply, and other times they are shown as a link that you need to click on to see them? As in my previous reply, they don't show the pics, you have to click yon them

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I'm fairly certain that until the WrightGrip wrenches came out, most Wright open end wrenches had hexagonal gullets.

Dave,
Do you have examples?

All,
Does anyone have any examples of Wright Tool and Forge manufactured DOE wrenches other than the same wrench that both AA and now Todd have in their collections?

I'm not saying they don't exist, but it's odd that they are so uncommon. I can't find any on the net.

First pic is a comparison of the Wright with 1927 Cornwell, the second is 1928.

I haven't found any consistency or pattern in time with respect to the shape of the heads on early hand forged Cornwell wrenches where they meet the shank, Todd. Sometimes they are ground and finished there with a more rounded head, sometimes very shallow round, and sometimes almost squared off, irrespective of codes. It's almost as if it was up to the personal fancy of who was on machine that day!

I don't have any of my other Cornwell DOE wrenches posted, but I posted a set of pre-AW marked Angle Wrenches in the DOE thread here, if anyone wants to look at more examples. They have a slightly more rounded head.

What's interesting is some of the other examples of early Wright wrenches on AA.

Granted, these aren’t DOE wrenches, but they are wrenches with open ends, hand forged, and grinded into shape the same way the heads on early Cornwell (and apparently Wright) DOE wrenches were made.

For example, look at this Wright tappet wrench, which has a squared off head, just like we see with many crudely made Cornwell heads.

Now let's shift gears a little.

AA has no Wright catalogs earlier than 1957, and no evidence of a Wright date code system other than the obvious and straightforward numerical system in use from 1940 through 1960, and the letter code (1961=A, 1962=B, etc) after that. And yet, when describing Todd's wrench, they attribute the "-O" to an unknown date code system. They do the same for a "-V" and a "-W" that appear on other early WRIGHT wrenches (tappets). But apparently don’t see any similarity to the same dash letter codes (-A to -G, 1927 to 1933) used by Cornwell.

Now here is a WRIGHT box wrench, bearing the same phonetic model numbering scheme ("BW" for box wrench) used by Cornwell.

Granted, it's round shanked, and Cornwell was making flat shanked DBE's. But the use of the same scheme is very curious. To me, anyway. Apparently not to AA, which makes no mention of the similarity.

It's not enough to convince me, but it all seems too much to be a coincidence.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

As an aside, one more comment on your WRIGHT-marked wrench, Todd: I have never seen a size marking quite like that.

As I am sure you reconnoitered, the "9 16 OP." marking (no fractional slash mark!) refers to a 9/16-inch milled opening, which matches the "3/8 S.A.E." bolt size marking underneath it on the same jaw face. And the "1/2 OP." marking on the opposite face refers to the 1/2-inch milled opening to match the "5/16 S.A.E." bolt size marked underneath it.

I have plenty of antique era wrenches from Billings, Bonney, Armstrong and Williams, with all kinds of U.S.S., S.A.E. and hex cap bolt size markings, but none of them have the bolt size markings and the Across-the-Flats or milled opening sizes. Maybe it's just an anecdotal blind spot I have based on my collection, but seeing it now makes me wonder if that helps date it to some mid-1920's transitional period, say 1926 or so, before the bolt sizes were completely phased on in deference to just the milled openings.

 

[twertsy]

As an aside, one more comment on your WRIGHT-marked wrench, Todd: I have never seen a size marking quite like that.

As I am sure you reconnoitered, the "9 16 OP." marking (no fractional slash mark!) refers to a 9/16-inch milled opening, which matches the "3/8 S.A.E." bolt size marking underneath it on the same jaw face. And the "1/2 OP." marking on the opposite face refers to the 1/2-inch milled opening to match the "5/16 S.A.E." bolt size marked underneath it.

I have plenty of antique era wrenches from Billings, Bonney, Armstrong and Williams, with all kinds of U.S.S., S.A.E. and hex cap bolt size markings, but none of them have the bolt size markings and the Across-the-Flats or milled opening sizes. Maybe it's just an anecdotal blind spot I have based on my collection, but seeing it now makes me wonder if that helps date it to some mid-1920's transitional period, say 1926 or so, before the bolt sizes were completely phased on in deference to just the milled openings.

Agree with all but the mod 20s, since Wright didn't exist until "27.

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[Private Lugnutz]

Rather than a transitional pre-cursor then, from a period of exclusively bolt size markings to a period of exclusively milled opening size marking, perhaps a period of transition after the bolt sizes were being phased out (say, 1927, 1928), but before the milled openings were exclusively used, to help the old fogeys used to the jaws telling them what bolts the wrench was used on!

 

[macgee]

Could someone tell me why when posting pics, that sometimes they are shown with my reply, and other times they are shown as a link that you need to click on to see them? As in my previous reply, they don't show the pics, you have to click yon them

MrGrnJeans,

I think you need to take larger pictures to upload. The ones you try to upload onto the website are only 14kb which is extremely small and maybe not be big enough to be shown as an image on the site.

Try taking larger photo's, maybe don't crop them which reduces size.

Another really good option is to upload your photo's to photo album website like Flickr or others and then link the photo address to your post. That's how you get see those large photo's shown in the post or you can upload the photo like you have been but just larger.

Hope this helps

 

[misterbill]

One question I forgot to ask when I started this thread is whether or not anyone has ever seen any Wright 1/4" drive tools dated prior to the V-70 ratchet based sets from the 1950s. Wright must have been making some items in 1/4" size as witnessed by these two B-40 (carburetor? - look like Snap-on TMC-series) sockets dated 1939 and 1941 that came by way of Tin Medic.

Bill

 

[twertsy]

Yesterday, as I often do, I was going back through previous research because new newspapers and periodicals are being scanned and made available on the web all the time. I came across an article from 26 November of 1932 reporting that the newly patented friction clutch mechanism for a ratchet - Jacob H. Prettyman Patent #1,859,600 - Friction Clutch Mechanism will begin production the following Monday, the 28th of November at Wright Tool & Forge. This article also notes that Mr. Prettyman will move to Barberton immediately from Marion to oversee the tool's production.

I don't believe I've ever seen this ratchet and am very intrigued by the fact that it predates Pfauser's Blackhawk friction clutch patent by a full year.

Anyone ever seen such an animal?

 

[misterbill]

Here's another early Wright that I picked up today similar to the one posted upthread.

 

[misterbill]

I picked this wrench up from Plombob - first unambiguous evidence I've seen of a Wright wrench from the WWII timeframe. This 11/16" x 3/4" P22 DOE has a "41+" date code.

Bill

 

[d42jeep]

Bill,
That's a nice pickup on the wrench. Here are three 1944 sockets that will be coming in your next package.
-Don

 

[davethorik]

A couple Wright goodies from today's haul:

- BW21 offset DBE, 7/16 and 1/2. I don't know much about it other than it looks hand forged and old.

- DS-163 1" deep socket, 1/2 drive 12 pt. Decent shape, stamped 46+ so...1946?

 

[misterbill]

- DS-163 1" deep socket, 1/2 drive 12 pt. Decent shape, stamped 46+ so...1946?

Yup, 1946.

 

[davethorik]

Yup, 1946.

Any idea of age on the DBE I posted?

 

[misterbill]

Any idea of age on the DBE I posted?

I do not. I haven't seen enough wrenches yet to form an opinion. I may have one that is similar to yours. I'll check and see if it has any relevant markings. My guess is that it's prior to WWII (i.e., the 1930s) as it is more "finished" than the (presumably 1920s) USS marked DOEs but less "finished" than the 1941 DOE.

Bill

 

[misterbill]

I do not. I haven't seen enough wrenches yet to form an opinion. I may have one that is similar to yours. I'll check and see if it has any relevant markings. My guess is that it's prior to WWII (i.e., the 1930s) as it is more "finished" than the (presumably 1920s) USS marked DOEs but less "finished" than the 1941 DOE.

Bill

Dave,

Here's the wrench that I have - BW8 13/16" x 7/8" DBE with similar characteristics to your BW21. Mine has some additional stampings that are probably owner's marks. There is a small "z" next to the BW8 that interests me but who knows at this point?

Bill

 

[davethorik]

Dave,

Here's the wrench that I have - BW8 13/16" x 7/8" DBE with similar characteristics to your BW21. Mine has some additional stampings that are probably owner's marks. There is a small "z" next to the BW8 that interests me but who knows at this point?

Bill

Bill,

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=277119

In this thread, you will see some Cornwell DBEs that look strikingly similar. Is there a possible connection here?

 

[misterbill]

Bill,

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=277119

In this thread, you will see some Cornwell DBEs that look strikingly similar. Is there a possible connection here?

Dave,

My opinion - and in the absence of evidence it is only an opinion - is that there is definitely some tie-in between Cornwell, MAC, and Wright wrenches from that period. Similar manufacture, numbering scheme, hex gullets, etc. to just be coincidence. It would not be far-fetched to draw the conclusion that Cornwell made wrenches for MAC and Wright under contract. Maybe some of our Ohio members have anecdotal evidence they can offer in support.

Bill

 

[davethorik]

Dave,

My opinion - and in the absence of evidence it is only an opinion - is that there is definitely some tie-in between Cornwell, MAC, and Wright wrenches from that period. Similar manufacture, numbering scheme, hex gullets, etc. to just be coincidence. It would not be far-fetched to draw the conclusion that Cornwell made wrenches for MAC and Wright under contract. Maybe some of our Ohio members have anecdotal evidence they can offer in support.

Bill

I wish I had more knowledge...I see a lot of Wright on the used market but these 2 are probably the oldest I've found.

 

[misterbill]

I picked up this "-7" (1937) dated Wright N-35 1/2" drive ell handle today by way of eBay. It's too large to be a GMTK correct 41-H-1501 but it's the only one I've seen to date.

Bill

 

[Private Lugnutz]

My opinion - and in the absence of evidence it is only an opinion - is that there is definitely some tie-in between Cornwell, MAC, and Wright wrenches from that period. Similar manufacture, numbering scheme, hex gullets, etc. to just be coincidence. It would not be far-fetched to draw the conclusion that Cornwell made wrenches for MAC and Wright under contract.

You're not alone on this, Bill. I have remarked on the unique geography of the hand forging, the hex throats and the phonetic model numbers before on several threads, including this one. See post #20 on page 1. Documentation notwithstanding, I think the empirical evidence is overwhelming.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I picked up this "-7" (1937) dated Wright N-35 1/2" drive ell handle today by way of eBay. It's too large to be a GMTK correct 41-H-1501 but it's the only one I've seen to date.

That's a cool find, Bill. I have a few of these larger 1930's jobbies from other mfgrs, including an Indestro and a Craftsman (H) off the top of my head.

The much smaller 6-3/4" x 1-3/4" 41-H-1501 version is a tool I suspect the govt, and more accurately the US Army Ordnance Dept, had a hand in specifying. You never see them in catalogs and it has the Ord TAC ES 422 spec in the ORD 5 (vs. a Mfgrs code). Personally, if I had a heavily Wright-oriented early war MVMTS, I wouldn't hesitate to put it in my box. If only to spark a conversation about how these kits evolved from 1938 to 1942 to 1944 through a lot of push and pull between the QMC, the ORD, and the automotive hand tools industry.

Incidentally, if you didn't already know it, we had a pretty good thread going on the subject of Ell-handles. Started by ganymede back in the days when there was no Vintage board, so it's up on the General Discussion board, found here.