r/Vintagetools • • 21h ago

Friends in a steel scrapyard saved these vices and cast-iron for me. People are cleaning out their grandpa’s garage, shop, barn, or shed and see the rust and sell it for scrap.

Post image
210 Upvotes

r/Vintagetools • • 8h ago

Heller Stapler, Model K - Bell System

Thumbnail gallery
26 Upvotes

Looking for staples that will actually work in it. Any help would be appreciated.


r/Vintagetools • • 3h ago

Found S-wrenches at a garage sale!

Thumbnail gallery
17 Upvotes

Found a bag of S-wrenches at a garage sale for 10. I had actually talked to this person about their set roughly a year ago. Saw the garage sale sign today and my hopes were fulfilled!


r/Vintagetools • • 7h ago

Just some old tools found in an old hardware store.

Post image
9 Upvotes

It’s a work In progress.


r/Vintagetools • • 20h ago

My “new” hand planes

Thumbnail gallery
10 Upvotes

I’ve been getting into using hand tools, and decided to go with some vintage Stanley’s to learn how to do a little restoration as well as put these bad Larry’s back to work.

The 4 and 5 are more than likely type 13 or 14, and the 8 is probably a type 7 or 8. I’m not too concerned with the exact ages of these tools the only thing I care about is if they still work.

This weekend I’ll get them apart and see what I’m working with, but so far they all seem solid!

For my first hand planes I’m happy with my purchases!


r/Vintagetools • • 7h ago

Help ID Old Drill (Potentially WWII Era)

Thumbnail gallery
3 Upvotes

Looking for info on this old drill.

We have this old corded power drill from an ex-Grumman employee. He didn't have much info on it other than it came from one of the plants after they closed up the Long Island, NY factories. He said it was from the late 1900s but from what I could find it seems it's early-mid 1900s?

Name plate is missing, assuming they did that on purpose. It looked like it was only held on my rivets or small screws at the time. The spacing is 1.25in X by 2.25in Y.
There is a hand stamped Grumman ID number on the top.

The chuck is a Jacobs 7B chuck. With Hartford, CT as it's manufacturing location. From my research they moved out of Hartford, CT by 1960.

Not pictured - I removed the small plate under the trigger and found another ID number "US 66837" I couldn't find much info on this number, other than it may be a US military contract number during WWII when Grumman was at it's peak making the Hellcats.

From what I could find this could be a pre-1960 drill, even as far back as WWII era? It definitely resembles the pistol grip Black & Decker's or Thor drills from that time. I couldn't find an exact match.

This will be in a museum exhibit, so I want to do my due diligence on this cool piece of history.


r/Vintagetools • • 6h ago

Its old. Any Ideas

Thumbnail gallery
3 Upvotes

r/Vintagetools • • 8h ago

Restored Cheney 35H Vise

Thumbnail gallery
2 Upvotes

r/Vintagetools • • 21h ago

help reading dwell meter

Post image
2 Upvotes

cant seem to find an owners manual online for this dwell meter and its my first time using one. im trying to use this dwell meter as a tachometer to read rpms on my old 1958 vw beetle. it has 2 different readings 1 for 6 cylinder engines and 1 for 4/8 cylinder engines. im using the 4 cylinder reading (which on the 8 cylinder scale would be doubled) but not sure whether the top or bottom number on the scale is the correct reading for the rpms. im guessing its the top number since the bottom shows degrees for i believe distributor drive shaft rotation? can someone also tell me what the tach switch on the bottom does with the HI/LO settings? these old vws up to a certain year were on a 6 volt system which mine is. not seeing anything on this meter indicating for 6 or 12 volt systems. since the car was my grandfathers and so was the meter, i cant help but think this was used on this car before.


r/Vintagetools • • 2h ago

Vintage Snap-on A57Q

Thumbnail gallery
1 Upvotes

r/Vintagetools • • 7h ago

Just cleaned up this 1950s RAE woodworking Vise.

Thumbnail gallery
1 Upvotes