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This tool box and most of the contents belonged to my maternal Grandfather who prior to the war had a very interesting job indeed.
He worked in the R&D department at HRD Motorcycles so really knew his stuff, he even got to attend the Isle of Man TT as part of his job. There's a couple of poor quality photos of him on the Vincent-HRD owners Web page with my Grand uncle sat astride a full race spec AJS 350 in the background taken the best part of 100 years ago in his garden.
Anyway, at the age of 14 he gave it to me along with the remaining contents to me as well as a small bench vice which is still in use today. Though as I've two much larger British made pre war vices, a 30kg Record and a 70kg Parker it doesn't see much use, I'm going to fit it with a pair off alloy jaws for delicate work.
On to the tools, all of what's in the main layout on the floor was his, though I still need to find a nice imperial vernier that belonged to him. It can't be far away, I recently used it so it'll no doubt come to light when I embark on a major sort out in my workshop over the Christmas period. I need lots of clean space to build turbo's as well as strip down Daves old 1.8T engine to assess what that needs.
Right, on to the job in hand, I've cleaned the box as sympathetically as I can inside and out with good old Henry the hoover aside from polishing his name with brass polish. It's beautifully made, almost certainly by my Grandad with steel lined draws.
I just need to cut a section of leather from one of my old waist belts to replace the handle as that's what was there originally.
Now I need to gather up all the tools that are all over the place to put back in it. When we moved house 30 years ago the box along with some tools got put into storage with a load of furniture. A lot of the tools were in my kit so didn't get put in the back of the loft along this box, which to be honest I couldn't recall owning. Though as soon as I saw it loads of happy memories of working on my BSA Bantum, CR125, TLR 250, MT50 and CG 125 come flooding back.
He had a lot of his spanners and other tools stolen one day in the 1950's while servicing his car. He went in for lunch and came back out to find nearly half his kit gone. Luckily the box was in his garage behind a gate so they didn't get that.
His name was Alvin Midgley and he liked to mark all his tool with those initials and as luck would have it my local junk shop had a load of good quality British made spanners of the right vintage that someone else had marked AM... So I'm trying to a put a full set together to replace the ones that were nicked around 80 years ago.
The tool makers letter and number punches are now soaking for the night in diesel, it appears I still have the complete set. I thought the Atco oil droppers would fit in well with his other stuff, they were also acquired from the local junk shop which has now sadly closed.
Sent from my SM-A115F using Tapatalk
He worked in the R&D department at HRD Motorcycles so really knew his stuff, he even got to attend the Isle of Man TT as part of his job. There's a couple of poor quality photos of him on the Vincent-HRD owners Web page with my Grand uncle sat astride a full race spec AJS 350 in the background taken the best part of 100 years ago in his garden.
Anyway, at the age of 14 he gave it to me along with the remaining contents to me as well as a small bench vice which is still in use today. Though as I've two much larger British made pre war vices, a 30kg Record and a 70kg Parker it doesn't see much use, I'm going to fit it with a pair off alloy jaws for delicate work.
On to the tools, all of what's in the main layout on the floor was his, though I still need to find a nice imperial vernier that belonged to him. It can't be far away, I recently used it so it'll no doubt come to light when I embark on a major sort out in my workshop over the Christmas period. I need lots of clean space to build turbo's as well as strip down Daves old 1.8T engine to assess what that needs.
Right, on to the job in hand, I've cleaned the box as sympathetically as I can inside and out with good old Henry the hoover aside from polishing his name with brass polish. It's beautifully made, almost certainly by my Grandad with steel lined draws.
I just need to cut a section of leather from one of my old waist belts to replace the handle as that's what was there originally.
Now I need to gather up all the tools that are all over the place to put back in it. When we moved house 30 years ago the box along with some tools got put into storage with a load of furniture. A lot of the tools were in my kit so didn't get put in the back of the loft along this box, which to be honest I couldn't recall owning. Though as soon as I saw it loads of happy memories of working on my BSA Bantum, CR125, TLR 250, MT50 and CG 125 come flooding back.
He had a lot of his spanners and other tools stolen one day in the 1950's while servicing his car. He went in for lunch and came back out to find nearly half his kit gone. Luckily the box was in his garage behind a gate so they didn't get that.
His name was Alvin Midgley and he liked to mark all his tool with those initials and as luck would have it my local junk shop had a load of good quality British made spanners of the right vintage that someone else had marked AM... So I'm trying to a put a full set together to replace the ones that were nicked around 80 years ago.
The tool makers letter and number punches are now soaking for the night in diesel, it appears I still have the complete set. I thought the Atco oil droppers would fit in well with his other stuff, they were also acquired from the local junk shop which has now sadly closed.
Sent from my SM-A115F using Tapatalk
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