Hand Reamer Set from Keystone Reamer and Tool

I went to a local pawn shop looking for a wrench size I did not have. They had the size I wanted but it was made by a company notorious for spotty quality, so I went poking around looking for something else. I found a set of hand reamers made by the Keystone Reamer and Tool Company, Millersburg, PA. I did a bit of bargaining and walked away with a set of hand reamers from 1/4" to 1" by 1/32" except for 25/32" for $30 plus tax. The box had partly fallen apart in the past and been repaired with ? hide glue and nails in a somewhat non-expert manner. The box was very greasy and the reamers were very grungy with oil, dirt and chips on all surfaces. I managed to clean up the reamers with lots of work using acetone and WD40. The box was able to be disassembled fully because the hide glue (or whatever it was) chipped off. I sanded all wood surfaces down to get the oil off, but left the dings. I glued and nailed the box back together and finished it off with Watco Danish Oil. When it was done, the box and reamers look much better.

I am attaching before and after restoration pictures.

Continued in next post due to the number of pictures for me is limited to five per post.

I am also attaching pictures of the reamer inscription and the brand on the bottom of the box.



I did a bit of research about Keystone Reamer and Tool. They were located in Millersburg, Pennsylvania, and per the person that answered the phone at the town hall in Millersburg when I called a few days ago, the company closed about 5 years ago. Evidently it was a long painful death. Some of the employees were hired by Alvord-Polk, also a reamer maker, and what is now Dauphin Precision as the company died. When the end came, the person in the town hall thought that no one bought the name to the company or resumed business elsewhere. I would presume the equipment was sold, but don't know that for sure. All three companies are/were on or close to the Susquehanna River. I found a few other references to the company from the web. There are dozens of reamers of the adjustable type and hand type on Ebay for sale. The others were all on PM asking for information about Keystone R&T. Not much was forth coming.

The bottom of the box did not properly fit into the sides made for it. This was the likely cause for the later damage to the box which I repaired. On the bottom of the box, after sanding away oily wood and grunge, I found a brand stamped or burned into the wood by the box maker. It was at an angle to the box, and way off center. It seemed kind of haphazardly placed. The box was made by American Novelty Works, Herndon, PA. No zip code was given. I remember zip codes coming into being in about the early sixties. It took at least a decade for Zip Codes to come into wide use per my memory. So, I presume the box was made sometime before the mid seventies. I found a few references to American Novelty Works on the web. One was an obituary of a person who evidently worked there shortly before WWII. The other was to something suggesting they were in business in the forties. Herndon, PA is about 21 miles down the Susquehanna River from Millersburg.

Interestingly, the box is made entirely with solid wood, and not a bit of plywood, particle board, masonite, etc. The top and sides are made with a grain pattern similar to oak. The bottom might be pine as it is very soft. The cutouts for the reamers appear to have been routed. The top of the box has two long narrow pieces of oak butt jointed to one another, and the end caps for the top are tongue and groove jointed onto the two long pieces.

Overall not much is known about Keystone Reamer & Tool, at least not much on the web. If anyone knows anything, post away!

Regarding my reamers, some cleaned up and look perfect. Some have signs of use / abuse, such as minor chips on the long straight cutting surfaces, galling on the chucking surfaces from slippage, moderate rust pitting on the chucking surfaces, and rounding on the wrench gripping surfaces, but all are still probably usable. My questions are:
1) What is the roughness of the metal between the cutting surfaces, which does not look like wear to me. Is that common on reamers at the time of manufacture, or is it a sign of poor workmanship, possibly related to company financial distress?
2) What is the tenacious black stuff stuck between the cutting surfaces? It is affected by acetone and WD40, but only with lots of Q-Tips and time spent scrubbing and soaking. How do I get this black crust off?
3) Should I stone off the dents in the reamer without altering the diameter, or leave well enough alone?
4) Are these worth sharpening? I know of a place that will sharpen all of them for +/- $120. The owner said he would be sharpening only the leading edge, which would not affect the reamed hole diameter.
5) Is there anyway to accurately know the size of the reamed hole by measuring the reamer before using it?
6) The reamers do not mention the material they are made of. The one reamer I tried a file on was totally impervious to the file. The box had no company label or other information from Keystone R&T, nor have I seen that on the reamers offered on Ebay. Does that imply the reamers are made of carbon steel, high speed steel, or it is uncertain?
7) Can anyone give an estimate as to how old this set of reamers is? My guess is older than the seventies, more recent than WWI.

This is a picture of the joinery used in the box construction:



Also note the Phillips head screws, which were first patented in the mid 1930's.
This narrows the age of this set to between the years 1935 and 1975 or so.

Nice set. Congratulations on that!
One thing that caught my eye, is the Danish oil? Being from Denmark I find it kid of funny.
Is it something about the Danish Design furniture from the past or what?

Br
Søren

It's an old school wood finishing brew, FYI Google

That is a nice set of reamers and a good job of cleaning them up.

The Danish oil thing is very funny, Danes have never heard of the stuff. It's almost as crazy as Copenhagen chewing Tobacco, They don't have that either.

Thornewmexico said:

Regarding my reamers, some cleaned up and look perfect. Some have signs of use / abuse, such as minor chips on the long straight cutting surfaces, galling on the chucking surfaces from slippage, moderate rust pitting on the chucking surfaces, and rounding on the wrench gripping surfaces, but all are still probably usable. My questions are:
These are designed as hand reamers. Galling on the chucking surfaces shows mis-use.

1) What is the roughness of the metal between the cutting surfaces, which does not look like wear to me. Is that common on reamers at the time of manufacture, or is it a sign of poor workmanship, possibly related to company financial distress?
Simply the result of milling the flutes, as opposed to grinding them. Quite normal

2) What is the tenacious black stuff stuck between the cutting surfaces? It is affected by acetone and WD40, but only with lots of Q-Tips and time spent scrubbing and soaking. How do I get this black crust off?
Some kind of Cosmoline type rust preventive. Works pretty good doesn't it?

3) Should I stone off the dents in the reamer without altering the diameter, or leave well enough alone?
Personally, I would leave well enough alone.

4) Are these worth sharpening? I know of a place that will sharpen all of them for +/- $120. The owner said he would be sharpening only the leading edge, which would not affect the reamed hole diameter.
That is correct sharpening procedure. Only you can balance anticipated usage and sharpening costs.

5) Is there anyway to accurately know the size of the reamed hole by measuring the reamer before using it?
Simply measure them. Do you have a micrometer or calipers?

6) The reamers do not mention the material they are made of. The one reamer I tried a file on was totally impervious to the file. The box had no company label or other information from Keystone R&T, nor have I seen that on the reamers offered on Ebay. Does that imply the reamers are made of carbon steel, high speed steel, or it is uncertain?
If not marked "HSS", then not high speed. Most likely a quality high-carbon.

7) Can anyone give an estimate as to how old this set of reamers is? My guess is older than the seventies, more recent than WWI.

Click to expand...

Trying to answer in context above. Don't know the age but your range is probably correct.

I approve this commentary above (said in my best pre-election voice.)

Only thing I might add is that yes, you can sharpen by "touching up" the leading edge, but due to rake of the tool cutting edge as you remove material from the front of the blade, the cutting diameter because of rake HAS to be decreased. A small amount of reduction may not be fatal.

I have used a small slip stone on these forward edges and it works fine with no sensible (to me) reduction in diameter - but it MUST be there.

I would save the $120 and when you find you don't like how a reamer operates, simply replace it with another Keystone bought on Ebay (if you're into historical) or a newer American made reamer. Some of the Chinese reamers are now VERY high quality at very reasonable price - but nothing beats a Brown & Sharpe or other name brand American.

We did set the standard for these things for a hundred years.

And don't throw away the dull reamer - you never know when you'll need "approximate" or less than optimal quality work from your tool.

Joe in NH

Cosmolene?

If the sticky preservative grease is in fact Cosmolene as suggested by Leg17, then gasoline will remove it quite handily.

(Any veteran would know this; Uncle Sam's ordinance all comes packed in Cosmolene.)

Needless to say, do this outdoors and minimize the amount of exposed liquid. Keep the can closed and far away from where you are working. etc. etc.

(Too much safety? Some years back, my community lost a fine local businessman and all-around nice guy because he took his motorcycle gas tank indoors to work on it. The fumes found the pilot light in a water heater......)

I think you have scored a fine addition to a small shop!

It was interesting to note that hide glue was used in the previous repair of the box. This is very fortunate, as hide glue is 100% reversible with hot water. That's why it is always used to repair fine antique furniture.

John Ruth

Limy Sami said:

It's an old school wood finishing brew, FYI Google

Click to expand...

Thanks Limy, it was indeed something about the export of furniture I see.

very nice!

Well,Rivett,I guess you'll have to stuff your cheeks with something different from Copenhagen chewing tobacco when you're in Denmark.

Tell me,do they still have poor Prince Albert in the can? They REALLY ought to let him out!!

Thanks all for your helpful replies.

I purchased unpigmented Watco Danish Oil because I wanted to try something different than the urethane finishes I had used previously. I think I like it more than the urethane finishes because all surfaces of a board / wooden object can be coated at once, and an almost immediate reapplication can be done. The Watco soaks in almost immediately and does not attract dust, lint, or stick to news paper, at least the way I am doing it. The object can be handled bare handed, and while my hands would get the oil on them, it was not sticky or gummy at all. And when it dries it is very smooth, gives a pleasing feel to the fingers, and there was no residual stickiness to the object so that things can be laid on the surface immediately, not in days. The only down side is it smells like ?mineral spirits. Urethane finishes stink also, but maybe not as bad. I haven't done back to back tests so don't know which is worse. Rustoleum makes the stuff. I don't know why they chose the name.

A picture is worth a thousand words. I remembered I have the ability to do extreme close ups thanks to a lens extender tube on my SLR. So, here is a picture of the black stuff I was complaining about.



I looked up cosmoline and no major new information was revealed from that posted above. I tried gasoline and plain old soap and water. There were tiny bits removed, but not enough to make it a major improvement over mineral spirits, WD40 or acetone. My guess this is something burned on, but I don't see the effects in the metal.

And I also got a close up of the rough surfaces present between the cutting surfaces in the lands. It does not look like grinding or milling marks to me. It looks like ? a rough casting, or an eroded surface, but as you can see the cutting surface nearby while maybe not pristine, is pretty good looking. I am mystified what caused it. Did casting reamers used to be a way of making them? There is really no draft on the reamer so casting seems unlikely.

Any additional comments on the above would be appreciated.

Thorn,
Looks like you found the fixed sized version of what I also picked up recently.

Danish oil is nice, personally prefer Tung for oil, but for hard finish I use Spar Varnish (when I can find it) or Spar Urethane.

Before:



Rich C.

After: (Spar Urethane is still wet)




Best thing I have found to remove shop grunge without effecting the patina is a shop rag (or the Blue Shop paper towel) and Sherwin Williams (~95%) Isopropyl Alcohol, then a quick pass with 400+ grit paper to trim the hairs.

I have yet to get a chance to clean the reamers or the wood insert.

Yours might be older than you think based on the box tenon joinery as compared to the miter & nail of mine. Based on the paper I am guessing mine is WW2 at the latest.

Rich C.

crij, That is an impressive clean up with only alcohol. I'll give that a try next time I come across a gem like the one I have now. If the amount of dirt reveals age, your has more dirt and grease than mine did before I attacked it.

I don't know if this matters, but the Keystone boxes I have seen on Ebay all have a label on the inside of the lid like yours does. Mine had no label at all, not even remnants. I don't know if that means it is older or younger than the one you posted a picture of. Does your box have a brand on the bottom like mine? Does yours have plywood in it?

SouthBendModel34 said:

If the sticky preservative grease is in fact Cosmolene as suggested by Leg17, then gasoline will remove it quite handily.

(Any veteran would know this; Uncle Sam's ordinance all comes packed in Cosmolene.)

Needless to say, do this outdoors and minimize the amount of exposed liquid. Keep the can closed and far away from where you are working. etc. etc.

(Too much safety? Some years back, my community lost a fine local businessman and all-around nice guy because he took his motorcycle gas tank indoors to work on it. The fumes found the pilot light in a water heater......)

I think you have scored a fine addition to a small shop!

It was interesting to note that hide glue was used in the previous repair of the box. This is very fortunate, as hide glue is 100% reversible with hot water. That's why it is always used to repair fine antique furniture.

John Ruth

Click to expand...

Solvents will remove reasonably fresh Cosmolene (maybe up to about 10 years old?), but I've run into some that was used to package tools for WWII that resisted every solvent I had -- acetone, lacquer thinner, alcohol, gasoline, and paint thinner. It had hardened like varnish. I had to soak the parts in paint stripper for a day to remove the Cosmolene.

In the Upper Peninsula and other parts of the Upper Midwest, the oldtimers referred to Copenhagen or Skoal as "Snoose". Supposedly, this was the Scandinavian word (or some corruption thereof) for "snuff".

Pennsylvania had a lot of reamer and tap manufacturers at one time. The reamer and tap manufacturers were out around Millersburg, PA.

The reamers are made of one of two possible types of steel: either high carbon tool steel, hardened and ground; or, high speed steel, also heat treated and ground. The high carbon tool steel was the older type of steel for these types of cutting tools. Properly hardened and tempered, it is "file hard", as the high speed steel will also prove to be. The trick with the high carbon steel was hardening the reamer's cutting area to nearly a "glass hardness" and the shank and top drive end to something less hard- to resist shattering if given sudden impact, dropped on the floor, or simply breaking in service. The shank and square flats on the reamers may be a little less hard than the cutting edges, but still hard enough to resist wear and deformation in service.

The black oxide coating in the flutes of the reamers was pretty standard. It was likely left from the heat treating, maybe a hot oil "bluing" done after or as a part of the final tempering.

A set of hand reamers like the ones in this thread could have come from anywhere. Years ago, not just machine shops but repair garages had full sets of reamers along with taps, dies, drills. These were used in conjunction with a few basic machine tools and automotive rebuilding machine tools (valve seat grinder, boring bar, hones). Automotive repair garages often had to make bushings for water pumps, generators, starters, distributors, and assorted other odd parts. Occasionally, these old repair garages made valve guides. An automotive repair garage of maybe 60+ years ago had a fair amount of machine shop work being done as a routine thing. Piloted adjustable reamers were often kept in sets for line-reaming anything from valve guides to steering knuckles for kingpin bushings.

Recently enough, a buddy of mine was asked to troubleshoot a Continental Red Seal engine in an older welder. Turned out to have a worn distributor bushing. No one currently using that welder knew that the distributor had an oiler on it and needed a drink of oil on a more-or-less regular basis. Fortunately, the welder is owned by a machine shop, so one of the machinists cleaned up the distributor shaft and made some new bushings. Years ago, jobs like this were routine in auto repair shops, and mechanics would know how to use micrometers and hand reamers to finish up a bushing. A set of hand reamers in a wood box seems like the kind of thing often found in old automotive repair garages. Machine shops were more inclined to rack the reamers or keep them in a set of drawers.

Joe in NH said:

And don't throw away the dull reamer - you never know when you'll need "approximate" or less than optimal quality work from your tool.
Joe in NH

Click to expand...

Also, there are jobs for which having reamers slightly undersize (and slightly oversize) on dia in the standard dimensional sizes can be useful.

-Marty-

Thornewmexico said:

.....

View attachment 183831


And I also got a close up of the rough surfaces present between the cutting surfaces in the lands. It does not look like grinding or milling marks to me. It looks like ? a rough casting, or an eroded surface, but as you can see the cutting surface nearby while maybe not pristine, is pretty good looking. I am mystified what caused it. Did casting reamers used to be a way of making them? There is really no draft on the reamer so casting seems unlikely.View attachment 183832

Any additional comments on the above would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

Thanks for adding the closeups.
This looks like simple de-carb from heat treat process.
All the critical areas were ground after heat-treat and this part of the flutes is not critical. Likely not too fussy about atmosphere control and just ignored the de-carb.

These are hand reamers,typically used with a tap wrench type tool.
They are not high-speed steel as hand reamers were rarely (if ever) made from that and they would have marked them HSS anyway.

As has been described above, a typical use would be final sizing on un-hardened bushings.
Lots of application in, for example, pre-WWII automobile and other mechanical work.

You may not ever get a chance to use them, but you might as well clean them up, patch up the case, and hang on for your 'heritage' collection.