History What tools built the Traditional Cars back then?

Tig and Mig welders were around a long time along with Plasma cutters but only in industry as they were very large and expensive. Not a home or small shop item.

When whoever was starting the work on my Model A they torched most of the holes, makes me think they were working in a building or place with no electric. Also they use the torch to remove the roof and got a suprise when they got to the front door frame and found wood. The other side looks like it was done with a saw.

 

Airplanes in WW 1 were wooden frames covered with canvas. Tanks were probably riveted together. In the early '60S IT WAS MOSTLY HAND TOOLS AND A 1/4 " drilif you were lucky someones father owned one of those Millers Falls geared reduced 1/2'' monsters. Washing machine motor with a flex shaft and and grinding wheel was real high tech. Shop tools were flat belt driven.Built a drill press from pipe fittings using plans from Popular Mechanics.

 

When I was 16 I watched ,helped , whatever another 16 year old build a hemi powered t bucket in a garage with a 1/4 inch drill and hand tools. Rock floor in the garage , in beautiful Sedalia Mo. Hell the car is probably still setting in that garage.

 

We need all these cool tools now because "we" have no patience.
I know guys who can do anything with a gas outfit, a hand drill, an angle grinder, and some files.
I know guys who CAN'T do anything with a million dollars worth of stuff...

That's what I love about this place, you get to see it all.

 

Good thread!
I didn't start building till the early 70's, put my first car together with basic hand wrenches, a Proto 3/8 drive ratchet and Craftsman sockets. Still use the same ratchet and sockets today. Mid 70's I got into doing custom paint and body, saved up and bought a 2 HP compressor, an oxy/ac set, couple body hammers/ dollies and a grinder. Used an air chisel to cut off any panels and staighten the edge with snips, welded it back with the torch. Did many custom paint jobs on my Mom's driveway with that little 2 hp compressor and a Devilbliss paint gun, guess lacquer was more forgiving! Built my first hot rod in the garage with these tools, I remember building motor mounts out of 1/4 plate, all cut, bent and welded with the gas torch set! Wasn't till I turned pro I started buying air sanders and a big Airco mig welder.
Looking back, I think the tools today I'd miss the most are the cutoff wheels and my Tig.

 

I started in the 60's and eventually had the following Craftsman tools, 1/2" drill,bench grinder with wire wheel on one side, Vise, 7' grinder and a 220 buzz box welder. I also had a fair selection of Craftsman hand tools. We built lots of cars with only that selection and all the tools still work,NOT LIKE TODAYS JUNK!

 

I remember only a few articles from decades ago in rod magazines...

One coupe or roadster feature car write up said : " Bill made all his cuts on the frame and brackets with a hack saw. He then used bolts instead of welding. Bill said he did it this way because heat from cutting torches and welding, would weaken the metal"

I recall thinking "yea, he HAS NO welder or torches, that's the real reason".

I guess he was embar***ed that he had so few tools to work with?


It still bothers me to see someone working with very little. It kind of bums me out because they have to work so much harder and longer than a guy that can afford more stuff.

 

Invented in the 1920s and improved prior to WWII. Yes, they did.

Not heavily marketed until the early 1970s, however.

 

my dad used a stick welder for everything....his dad taught him how to weld by putting a new floor in a 51 chevy...firewall to trunk.... used a torch to remove the old one.

 

Automotive wiring repairs were quite a deal too. I never saw a crimp connector. You could just twist the wires together & tape them, but that was considered a poor fix, & rightly so. To do it right you got out your soldering torch, went to the corner gas station with a Mason jar & got some 'white gas' to fill the torch with. Run a couple drops of oil down on the pump leather to seal it & pump some pressure in the tank. Put some of the gas in the pre-heat cup & light it off from a wood stick match struck across your belt buckle. Then get the main jet open & lit off, get a nice green flame coming off the soldering iron you had resting there & you were ready for the flux & solder. Later you taped it & that was like a black Levi material.

 

Wasn't that tape called friction tape?

 

I guess I was like the kids in the 50s, but in the 70s...I didn't have much in the way of equipment either. No compressor of any kind, we had to take tires into town to fill them with air. No torch of course. My neighbor rented a torch for a weekend to do some bodywork on his old Power wagon. He also rented a (big) compressor, sandblaster, and paint gun to strip and prime it. We pulled engines with a (borrowed) come-along chained to an overhead rig. Of course it required pushing the car 100 yards to get to it. I'd get my brothers to help me carry an ***embled short block from the shed to the back of the pickup, then I'd put the heads on it and haul it over to the rig.

I had one of those sears (?) solidox torches, it didn't work very well....but I did get an AC buzzbox for my 17th birthday. I used it to cut holes, weld exhaust pipe (fun stuff), etc. I also got a carbon arc torch for it, and did a bit of brazing.

I made the lathe wrench in beginning machine shop, using mostly hand tools. We got to use the drill press to drill the hole, but the rest was done with hacksaw, files, and sandpaper.

 

I remember the same story. "Bill" was Bill Niekamp, and his T roadster won the first America's Most Beautiful Roadster award. I don't think that Bill gave a rat's *** about what others thought of the contents of his tool box!

 

As a couple of guys said previously a lot of the tools and equipment that we take for granted now either didn't exist or was too expensive for the normal working guy to afford. I don't think the retail price for a Lincoln 225 stick welder has changed ten bucks since the late sixties. They sold for about 250 then and sell for around the same or less now. In 1970 that was three weeks pay for me most of the time.

It wasn't that guys didn't want better tools and equipment then but more of the fact that for most of us the stuff was just too expensive. Tig welders usually were the huge ones in special welding shops that sold for thousands of dollars then. Migs that we take for granted now were only in the big commercial welding shops up through the 70's around here. I bought my old Forney stick welder from a truck shop that used it right up through the late 80's or early 90's and replaced it with an Esab mig. I did a lot of farm equipment repair with the Forney a few years ago and it is still out in my garage but doesn't get fired up all that often anymore.

I built my T bucket in Texas in the early 70's by cutting the pieces out with a hacksaw and then hauling them to the other end of the street to my buddy's garage where he welded them up with his Lincoln 225. The whole ch***is was built that way. I picked up a little welder from Wards for 50.00 that was 110 and had one setting plus used special rod with a starter tip on it. I would tack things together at home and haul them to Paul's house for him to weld them. I welded up most of my Tbucket body with that little welder.

One thing we tend to forget though is that a lot of the cars we start with now and think are in pretty good shape now were p***ed over by guys in the 50's, 60's and 70's as being too rough to build. In some cases they have been sitting in the same spot ever since. I bought my 48 as a solid driver early in 1973 for 75.00 a few weeks later I picked up perfect running boards, rear fenders and a chrome seat frame for 25.00 from a guy in Waco who had built a truck, sold it and got it back because the kid who bought it broke the frame in half by loading the back end full of cement blocks and attempting to do a wheelie. That left me with near perfect sheet metal that I mostly sanded by hand with a long board and then a sanding block. I used my fatherinlaw's little homemade compressor that was mounted on a lawnmower ch***is and his cheapie spray gun to primer it every morning and then block sand it and spray another coat of primer before driving it to work. The only power tool I had at that time was a 3/8 drill with a sanding disk chucked in it that I hit the rough spots with.
I've got a lot of nice tools and equipment now but I wouldn't take for those mornings before work that my 3 year old and I spent out in the garage with the 48 getting it in shape to go to Tulsa for the Street Rod Nationals.

 

Bruce Lancaster did hit the nail on the head. Being young and determined got the job done with simple hand tools. My Dad wasn't mechanically inclined and didn't ever have much of anything tool wise. In the mid 70's while in high school I remember always asking for tools for birthdays and Christmas. One year my Uncle bought me a Craftsman torque wrench, timing light and vacuum gauge. I was thrilled and still have them.I started out with basic hand tools, Craftsman wrench and socket sets, a bottle jack, electric drill. I'd hit garage sales and swap meets and eventually had a bench grinder and some other power tools.
Once I had a better job, I eventually got a floor jack, oxy/acet set, a buzz box, drill press and air compressor. Air tools followed, along with a MIG welder.
We'd have to rent a cherry picker and borrow or rent other specializrd tools such as gear pullers. I remember pre torch days required drilling a series of holes to cut out a section of metal !!!
We had a really cool auto shop teacher that (against the rules) would loan out expensive shop tools for the weekend to a few of us serious students.That was a godsend and we loved him for it! We learned to appreciate and respect the tools and always brought them back polished clean. My shop teacher always preached that once we got a job making decent money that each paycheck we should hit Sears and buy a new tool. Back in the day, if you asked, the salesperson would look up future sales in their book so you'd be able to save up for a good tool that was going to be sale priced. My Dad's friend had just about everything in the way of Craftsman electric power tools and was real good about loaning them. That was back when you went down to the Sears service center and picked up a brush set for a few bucks if the drill motor burned up. Nowadays alot of that stuff is disposable.

Bruce Lancaster did hit the nail on the head.In many ways tools have come down in price. MIG welders, portable cherry pickers, and other specialized tools, etc. are within reach for most anyone nowadays where decades ago they were only seen in pro shops.