Taking a break from finding the top of my workbench 100+ degrees in the garage. Anyhow, I thought I would share a couple pics of two recent additions to my stable of old tools. The first is a Companion drill press, had this one awhile but as i recall I gave $20 at a garage sale for it. The other is a 3/4 hp Omaha Industrial Tool bench grinder that I got for $10 bucks a few weeks ago at an auction, runs like new. With all the cheap offshore junk in the tool stores nowdays I always keep my eyes out for a REAL tool that I can put back to work. Anyone else got some nifty old pieces that are still getting the job done?
I've been tooling up seriously for the last 4-5 years. My welders are modern units (A Lincoln mig and 185 amp tig), but my machine tools all date before 1969. The 10" Sheldon lathe and small horizontal mill date from the mid 50's, I have a 14" Logan lathe from the mid 60's and a big English made vertical mill called a Beaver made in 1969. My shops not free of modern import tools (bandsaw, drill press, hyd press, etc), but I've been keeping my eyes peeled for good older industrial replacements. People in the know have been writing about how fast things are changing in China (worker unrest and economic troubles in general) and that they expect prices to start to rapidly increase for imports from China. We've seen prices increase in the last few years just from raw material costs going up. They also seem to think that many of the businesses and investors searching for cheap labor will start to move operations to India. The downside to this it seems is the low low level of quality of the stuff coming out of India at the moment. It'll be like the Chinese products of the 80's and early 90's. Don't pass up any of the old tooling people, they just don't make it like they used to.
I have a 20s? Goodell and Pratt mini lathe. A belt driven turn of the century drill press. Forr woodworking I have 6 75 year old plaNES IN VARIOUS SIZES.
I have a lot of old tools, I prefer to buy old stuff, some of my tools date back to the early part of the last century, I have a Kendric wheeling machine from then and many other old sheet metalworking machines. Nothing better.
Was at a local autojumble,spent 5 mins lookin through a box of cheap rusty spanners in hope that i would find something,And,it paid off,size 14/15 (i think) King Dick (you may not of heard of this maker of tools,good enough make,pretty much the same quality as craftman),got it for a for £1,would equal to $0.60?
I buy all of my tools at auction. No pic but I bought an old Stanley Yankee drill in it's original box practically unused the other day for 4.00.
Well I'll be damned lol. Still heavy as hell works like a champ. I don't think I'll be asking for my money back.
Not all Chinese stuff is crap. If it was made to a quality standard fine. Made to the cheapest price Well ya get what you pay for. I have a fair bit of import machine tools and tooling and some is Chinese . Most of it is made very well, but I do not look for the lowest price either. Just yankin yer chain a bit G V !
old body hammers can't buy new that are as good I have a bunch of new martin body hammers the best you can get new but i like all my old stuff way better, better balance and feel and HARD beating on welds does not mar the faces like my new stuff
I have a floor mounted Delta Drill press All cast iron.Use it only to notch tubing. A cast iron flatbelt drive bench drill press and 1933 Southbend 9"lathe. However not all old tools are beter than new. Try climbing a 20' ladder with an old gear reduced 1/2 power drill or grinding with with a wheel on a flex shaft. Also ever use old open or box end wrenches.
Not all old tools are better than new. Likewise not all overseas stuff is bad either. But I prefer old stuff, I just try to find the good ones. One of my hobbies is rebuilding old tools to use. I also have a lot of woodworking tools. I would love to find one of the old craftsman metal lathes made by atlas. But when you compare the older stuff to new many times the older is better. I have noticed that a lot of the overseas stuff started going down about 10 years ago. Some of the overseas stuff is good but a lot is not. Anyway I like the stuff from the 30s to the 60s. I also have a lot of hand tools and hand power tools. I enjoy rebuilding them as much as actually using them. I think it would be natural for people who like the old cars like we see here to also like the old tools. Like many of the old rods here we are keeping tools from a bygone era alive. You can see a lot of my old tools at http://good-times.webshots.com/album/569408649spoWff And one of the saws I rebuilt http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/570839443RItWVK
The Jalopy Journal
