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Scraper's, Millwright's tool chest time capsule

rivett608

Diamond
Joined
Oct 25, 2002
Location
Kansas City, Mo.
This is a somewhat shameless post as I have just put this on ebay but thought you guys might like to see it (or own it) before it is gone. In cleaning out my shop a made a pile of stuff to make go away…. this included lots of things that have been laying around the shop for years that take work and effort to make them nice….. this was bought in the rain at a flea market and it was clearly not the first time the dealer had shown it in the rain.

Anyway the cool thing is it was the personal set of scrapers by a Mr. Paul Coble from Cinn. Oh….. I am guessing early 50's since no zip code, maybe someone on ancestry.com can look him up. I wonder did he work on the road taking the train or driving to where he would scrape? Or did he work in a big shop where he might have had to walk across the plant?…. or did he make this so heavy so none of the guys would bother to swipe it?……….. I think it is neat to either imagine or know the real story behind a personalized tool set that helped him put food on the table for his family.

Here is the ebay description and some pictures……

Here is cased set of Machinist's scrapers for rebuilding machine tools. These were owned by a Mr Paul Coble of Cinn. Oh. according to the name plate. He was so proud of his tools that he made a very heavy caring case to get them safely to his work site. There are 2 different styles of Anderson Bros. of Rockford, Ill. scrapers, one hollow and light weight, the other very solid. both have detachable handles. One is Pat. Appl. For and the other pat # 1,476,033. There are a number of cutters for these, some with carbide tips. There are also 6 what look like shop made scrapers with brazed carbide tips. These have various numbers stamped on them. And there is a 18 flex rule, possible from Germany… doesn't look Starrett, B & S or Lufkin. it is in poor condition. As you can see by the pictures, this set needs cleaning! Being a collector of antique tools i prefer to clean them myself so I shall let the buyer do the same. These are covered with a surface rust, in the first picture I spent less than a minute with a single edge razor blade and 400 grit paper to expose the makers name. I feel this set will clean up very nice but the rust will leave some staining. I bought this years ago at a flea maker in the rain….

The case is very heavy plywood. 20" x 11" x 3 1/2" with hardware. I have a very big box to ship it in. A neat set to put back to work and a tribute to Mr. Coble.

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I think this is kind of funny, I have posted a lot of threads about neat old tools from my collection. Almost every one of those has started a conversation where we all learn something...... And that is why I do it plus I like to share what know.

This thread is unusual in that the item is for sale... And with one exception no one has said a thing about..... Just check and there are 60 folks watching it....... Is the reason no one has commented on it is because everyone that is interested doesn't want to call more attention to it? If you guys are interested, good luck and thank you.
 
Rivett, I am sure you might get more interest in the sale if you had taken the time to clean the rust off. Not a criticism necessarily as I am fully away of your capabilities. I know you have little interest in the items personally and cleaning them up wont really effect the end value much. But just sending them as they are sends the wrong message, at least that is what my first impression would be if I just came across them for sale.

Also I imagine that some folks are put off by the fact that most of the blades dont have replaceable inserts and I am sure folks are a bit intimidated by the idea of having to resolder when you might need to.

As for comments here, well I am not sure what you expected. I mean your post seems pretty clear, they are for sale and I although I may have missed something there isnt very much of real historic or technical interest in this kind of tool.

Good luck with your sale and thanks for sharing.

Charles
 
I think it very likely in Cincy during this period that these were not the scraping tools of a rebuilder, but were one of the factory scraper hands at one of the big machine tool companies located there. Heavy box because he didn't carry them anywhere very often, they were at his work station, although he might have had to move from station to station in the factory as each new machine came through. Could have been the guy that scraped the ways on the 1943 Pacemaker I ran, or the Cincy horizontal or vertical I ran, or the L&S at the shop now, or the Bickford drill, etc... Plenty of work for a good scraper for about 60yrs there by the river.
 
Did a Google Maps search for the address and come up with nothing... very possible the street and house could have been taken by the interstates, which were started in the early 50s. That, combined with the lack of zip code, would put this guy working probably 1920s -50s, pretty much the heyday of the biz..
 
I think this is kind of funny, I have posted a lot of threads about neat old tools from my collection. Almost every one of those has started a conversation where we all learn something...... And that is why I do it plus I like to share what know.

My interest is in the shop made scrapers. Is the body a file blank or flat stock altered so a file handle could fit? I think over the years I have seen a couple of 'file blanks', that is to say with no teeth cut into the body.
To date these, one would ask when carbide of that width was available. The 50's, maybe not so much. Cutting a carbide blank to suit would require a diamond wheel. It is carbide and not Stellite?
John
 
Hah, a little persistence pays off. Looks like E Amity has been changed to E Galbraith Rd. Found this on a site that gave long and lat for 2416-2456 Amity Rd and nailed the same address number on Galbraith. Followed E Galbraith back to #465 which is right at I-75. Looks like 417 is under the shoulder of the southbound lane, lol.
 
Seems there was a William S Merrell Laboratory on E Amity, perhaps now known as Merrell Dow on E Galbraith ,is it common for road names to change in the US? sometimes happens here if the place has a bad reputation.

So we have some conversation after all Rivett608 ,perhaps not what you had hoped though.
 
Good eye, sable! Looks like when they built the I-75/126 interchange, they wiped out about 7x3 city blocks, 7 N/S and 3E/W. The roads were already broken up due to bend in Mill Creek so not the total destruction it might seem. Amity/Galbraith was the only rd that crossed the north fork of that creek, so they must have let it stay as a surface route. As for re-naming, that is VERY common, at least around here when a new political power comes to be. Our city has logically numbered streets except for 22nd St, that was just spontaneously named in honor of a former mayor a few years back for no reason whatsoever and without any desire of the citizens and/or voters. In the old system, a rd of this name would lead to a town of the same name (and Amity, OH is about 20 miles off, near Columbus). No telling who Galbraith was, can't find anything.

Duh, meant to attach a map of the area..

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2115283,-84.4665446,17z
 
Seems there was a William S Merrell Laboratory on E Amity, perhaps now known as Merrell Dow on E Galbraith ,is it common for road names to change in the US? sometimes happens here if the place has a bad reputation.

So we have some conversation after all Rivett608 ,perhaps not what you had hoped though.

Yep add a bit of archaeology to the subject and now it is interesting....:)

Charles
 
Hah, exactly, Charles. Two things I started searching to see... how close the address was to the manufacturing center of the city (maybe 5 miles?) and what age the neighborhood was (right age for the absolute pinnacle of machine tool manufacturing in Cincinnati).
 
Also I imagine that some folks are put off by the fact that most of the blades dont have replaceable inserts and I am sure folks are a bit intimidated by the idea of having to resolder when you might need to.
Charles

A brazed scraper, what woud be the life expectancy of the carbide? If it was never dropped and sharpened only when needed, how many resharpenings would you get if 1/4 or .250 of carbide was exposed after the brazing joint?
 
In the 1970's, there were still a few "old timers" who would travel to your location to hand scrape machine tools.

But they were getting very scarce at that time.


With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in the early 90's, ... an influx of "Old World" Machine Builders, from the former Soviet Bloc Countries, saved the Craft from extinction.

But by then, it was more practical to ship your machines to a central location for re-building, ... rather than have the "Scrapers" come to you.

( The language barrier was a big part of that. )


Having been out of that field for over a Decade, I have no idea where you would find an experienced person to do that work now.


Best learn to do it yourself.



.
 
About the life span of a brazed carbide scraper? I use an Anderson tubular scraper for work I can't get my power scraper into, or for when I'm tired of holding a mini jack hammer that is a Biax. The Anderson tips last for several hundred resharpenings and I can get about 1/2 hour of scraping per sharpening.

Nice thread.

L7
 








 
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