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Wrench Set

collector

Hot Rolled
Joined
Nov 1, 2007
Location
Parksville BC Canada
Has any one seen a set of wrenchs that have a logo of a feather or feathers on them? My helper was taking about them to me that at one time he had a set of them. He then left the shop road home on his bike and died 1/2 hour later. He was 65. Just wondering the significance of the wrenchs as that was the last thing we talked about.

Collector
 
Blackhawk incorporated 2 feathers in their logo so maybe ... but then lots of native symbols & names in older cars etc. A quick internet search did not turn up anything. Like early car manufactures there had to be hundreds of small and larger ventures making wrenches in those times.

I gotta admit, after reading the sequence of events for a second I was hesitant to reply.

Dave
 
There is a website which is dedicated to the histories of US hand tool manufacturers. I forget the name of the site, but it does show trade-marks and emblems which were stamped into or forged on the tools. Even some obscure manufacturers are listed there.

Sorry to hear about your helper. 65 is way too young. At least he got a good ride in before he went to the hereafter. Hopefully, you parted from him on a good and solid note.

Posts like yours make me more aware of my own mortality- I am 67. I climbed on my 1978 BMW R 100/7 yesterday, delinquent from engineering jobs and much else, but I knew it would be one of the last good riding days. I rode a bit over 100 miles over back roads in our hills, seeing the corn stalks withered in the fields and in some fields, the stubble waiting to be turned under. It always reminds me of the cycle of our lives when I ride this time of the year. Hopefully, you and your helper had a good run and you will keep some part of him alive in your memories and whatever else you may have picked up from him.
 
Joe,

Last night I looked at Alloy Artifacts and a few others. They are a start but relative to machinery lists they don't show many company names or logos at all. You may fare better. It seems more likely that someone here has one sitting in an old toolbox somewhere.

I remember an old add for Chrysler cars showing Walter Chrysler's toolbox. It was a pretty comprehensive set of tools. The add stated that he had made all? most? of them. Lots of blacksmiths made wrenches for themselves, the wrenches might be from Europe as well. T also wondered if the feathers were something else.

Looking forward to someone to identify the brand.

Dave
 
I gotta admit, after reading the sequence of events for a second I was hesitant to reply.

Dave

That was my first thought , so I didn't tempt fate :D

Seriously I'm sorry to hear of your helper, ...always more of a shock when it's someone you know and work with.
 
Dave D

Walter Chrysler started out as an apprentice machinist in a railroad shop in his hometown in Kansas. As a freshman at Brooklyn Technical HS in 1964, one of the pieces we had to read for English class was "Ambitions of an Apprentice" by Walter P. Chrysler. Chrysler describes how, during his apprenticeship, a kindly older man working in the same shop made him his toolchest as a gift. Chrysler also describes making many of the tools in that chest himself. In the days of Chrysler's apprenticeship, ready-made tools were a luxury that most apprentices and journeymen could not afford. The result was they made as much of their own tools as the could and only bought what they could not make themselves and truly needed.

Blacksmith forged wrenches were once quite common. Prior to 1914, or thereabouts, I believe there was no real standard in place in the USA as far as sizing of bolt heads and nuts. Working on steam locomotives as Chrysler was doing, he may well have run into a lot of bolt heads and nuts that required a wrench with a "non standard" opening. It is also not uncommon to find factory made wrenches which some mechanic or machinist has heated and bent to get into a particular job.

It was a matter of considerable pride and was also expected that apprentices and journeymen would make many of their own tools. In a typical machinist apprenticeship, back in Chrysler's day, knowing how to forge and heat treat tools was all part of it. Nothing came easy in those days. Scraps of good steel were used to make tools.
I was in a shop up in Port COlborne, Ontario where we were having some hydro turbine parts machined. One of the foremen there had a really nice set of machinist tools- dividers and calipers of the "wing" type, in different sizes, all neatly made to the same pattern with the proportions carried through. Each tool had a beautiful mottled casehardening, worn and patina'd from use, but still quite something to see. A man's name was engraved on each tool. The foreman told me those tools were made by his own grandfather during his apprenticeship many years earlier.

My own tools have quite a few tools I have made myself for different jobs. Some are service tools for Airhead motorcycles. Some were made because I found a piece of good steel or an old file and was at the forge. Things like drift punches, cold chisels, gasket scrapers, pry bars and an occasional special box wrench are all the kinds of tools I make from scraps of good steel- old air hammer bits, truck spring leaves, or highway snow plow cutting edges or worn out files. I like having tools I made in my tool boxes, especially when they are made from what would otherwise have been sent to the scrap heap. Busted power hacksaw blades are saved and made into various knives and scrapers. Another habit is fitting good hardwood handles to old hammer heads. I prefer a hardwood handle on a hammer, and I like to shape the handles to fit my hand. I mangled my right ring finger over 50 years ago, and the scar tissue runs diagonally across from the first joint into the ball, and the nail bed never did come back except as a kind of claw. I shape my hammer handles to accomodate this finger when a handle seems to not feel right. I draw scrape the handles with scrapers made from old hacksaw blades, and brand my initials into the handles with a piece of 1/8" welding rod heated with the torch. I linseed oil the handles, but with the black grunge from working on things like diesel locomotive engines, the handles do not stay clean for long.

A lot of tool manufacturers came and went in the USA. Some were quite prolific, some were short lived. Years ago, when I was a young engineer on a powerplant project out in Ohio, I rented a house from an older couple. The fellow was kind of punchy, like an old boxer, and kind of deaf. He was a sometime farmer, and sometime steam hammer smith at a shop called "Herbrand Tool". My landlord told me he'd run steam drop hammers at Herbrand for many years, and had seen all sorts of things come through the shop. This included parts for Galion- a maker of road graders and road rollers, along with all sorts of parts and service tools for other firms- as well as tools. Some of the tools were stamped with Herbrand's own name, some were forged for other firms to be sold under their label. The wrenches with the feather emblem could be one of those cases of tools forged by one firm and stamped with someone else's logo.
 
Blacksmith forged wrenches were once quite common. Prior to 1914, or thereabouts, I believe there was no real standard in place in the USA as far as sizing of bolt heads and nuts.

Perhaps a little earlier. Williams began standardizing wrenches prior to 1900. (Their sizing number scheme was adopted by many wrench makers.)


Working on steam locomotives as Chrysler was doing, he may well have run into a lot of bolt heads and nuts that required a wrench with a "non standard" opening.

Seems to be a lot of shop made wrenches with railroad application. Many of them seem to be longer than standard. All the railroads had serious blacksmith shops that could be utilized providing in-house and right-on-time tools.
 
and kind of deaf. He was a sometime farmer, and sometime steam hammer smith

Joe -

For not the first time one of your posts makes my memory kick in. Your description would be part of the description of the man who taught me a lot during summers he put up with me being his assistant - but I would have to add builder extraordinary to it. The last house he built is ours - he and I built it back in 77-78 - after my wife and I moved back here.

Early in Clarence's life he operated a hammer in a forge. They lived close enough that he said he could tell which job was running on second shift by the tone of the hammer. I have no doubt of that - or of the part it played in his hearing loss. Especially now that I'm losing mine!

My brother still uses the 1957 Galion grader our Dad bought back in 1968 or so - surplus NY DOT. Your old landlord might well have made some of the parts still in use. Engine has been rebuilt once.

Dale
 








 
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