$20 Tool-Fest, Part 6 - The Rest of the Story

In this post, I'm offering up pics of the remaining items in this yard sale tool lot.

Many of these tools are duplicates of versions I already have in the shop, but I did find several that I didn't have, plus some upgrades of others.

Portable drill accessories - sanding disc's and wire wheels:

A heavy duty staple gun and supply of staples:

A selection of putty knives and scrapers along with spare blades.

A variety of utility knives and spare blades:

Painting stuff:

And a lot of random odds and ends:

So far, this has been a very enjoyable stash of tools to go through and process!

Next post will cover a number of odd and random objects that were interspersed among the tools.

Stayed tuned!

$20 Tool-Fest, Part 5 - You Know The Drill

 Yep, you know what's coming...

This post will be fairly brief, as it concerns the small amount of hole-making stuff in the tool collection.  

First is a small selection of various random drill bits and incomplete sets.

The coolest tool in the drilling category is this vintage ratcheting push drill.

It includes eight various-sized chisel tip drilling bits that store neatly in the handle.

This item is ideal for boring out small pilot holes in wood.

I thought I would include the following in this post because it is somewhat related to metal workpiece hole processing.

This is a nearly complete tap and die set.  All of the components were found loose in the bottom of the tote.  I plan on going down to the local 'Smoker's' store to pick up a wooden cigar box in which to store this set.

At the top of the picture is a small T-handle chuck tool. Not part of the tap & die set, but still handy for other small drilling and reaming tasks.

More posts to come.

$20 Tool-Fest, Part 4 - Screwdrivers

 No yard sale tool collection is ever devoid of screwdrivers. Here is the pic of the variety found in this one. 

Nothing really special here - most are the garden variety, plastic- handled, straight and Philips drivers. Makers include Allied, Craftsman, Philips, and Tradesman, with the rest having no mark.  

The longest one is a coveted Snap-On #SDD 4160.

The crown jewel of this collection, and the reason I re-visited the yard sale on its second day, is this Yankee 30A ratcheting push screwdriver.

Stamped:

North Bros. Mfg. Co.

Phila. Pa. USA

Patended Dec. 11 1923

The tool was made anywhere between 1924 and 1946. In the latter year, North Brothers was bought out by Stanley Tools, who continued manufacturing the model 30A, eventually adding the Stanley mark.

It is in excellent shape and works wonderfully.  I even found the set of three screwdriver bits that originally came with it.

They were rattling around loose at the bottom of the plastic tote, and were a bit rusty.

A quick soak in some vinegar and a rub down with some fine steel wool took care of that nicely. I am elated to have the complete set intact.

This driver is a great addition to my collection of antique and vintage user tools.

Rounding out the screwdriver finds in the box are these two incomplete sets of Makita accessories. Both are long out of production and may date back as far as the 1970's.

I haven't yet done the in-depth research on these to learn their details and history, but that exercise will be forthcoming.

More posts on the way!

$20 Tool - Fest, Part 3 - How 'bout Them Wrenches?

 In today's post, I will focus on the various wrenches (and a few other tools) that have surfaced in this big box o' stuff.

1. Vise Grip 10R - Vice Grip Co.

2. Vice Grip tool - China

3. Adjustable wrench, 8" 200 - Master grip

4. Adjustable wrench, 10" - Top I-Hi Japan

5-7. Ratcheting wrenches - all Pittsburgh Tools

3/4 & 7/8,  5/8 & 11/16,  1/4 & 5/16  

Here are the open-end and box-end wrenches:

These are from various manufacturers, all foreign (Taiwan, Japan, India), and are a mix of SAE and metric.

The large 1-1/4" wrench will be added to my collection as I do not presently own one. The rest of them are duplicates.

Finally, what tool hoard is complete without the presence of lots of Allen wrenches:

Still much more to come!

$20 Tool - Fest, Part 2 Crimpin', Strippin', and Cuttin' !

 Today's post covers those types of tools populating the newly acquired stash.

Here is a pic of the smaller tools:

1. Crimping tool - Taiwan 

2. Slip joint plier - also Taiwan

3. Long nose plier with cutter, 6"  - HDX

4. Long nose plie with cutter, 8" - Commercial Electric

5. Pruning cutter - Fiskars Pat. # 5.367.774

6. Wire stripper/cutter - Taiwan, missing one of the yellow plastic handle covers.

7. Wire stripper/cutter - Great Neck

Here are more larger tools:

1. 14" straight jaw tongue & groove plier- Crescent RT214

2. Aviation snip, straight, compound action - Wiss M3

3. 14" bolt cutter - Workforce 350

4. PVC cutter, 1/2"-1", ratcheting - Orbit.  

The PVC cutter has a nasty notch in the blade, but replacement blades are available.

This item will be a welcome addition to my garden drip system irrigation/ yard sprinkler toolbox.

Tomorrow's post will feature....

.....even more tools!

$20 Tool-Fest, Part 1 - Striking Tools

 To start out this comprehensive assessment of the recently acquired tool stash, I will begin with the biggest items first.

Here are the hammers found in the tote:

On the left is a Plumb 3-pound hand sledge/drill hammer, model USM3.  This tool was manufactured post-1980, as denoted by the Cooper tools logo. Cooper bought out Plumb in 1981.  

Next is a standard, run-of-the-mill claw hammer, covered with paint splatters. It is of Chinese manufacture. 

After that is a smaller claw hammer with no makers mark.  There is a remnant of a paper label on the handle.

Lastly is a small rubber mallet with no markings except for a 'TAIWAN' on the end of the rubber grip.

All of these are fairly useful tools, but nothing out of the ordinary.

 The drill hammer and rubber mallet will be added to my tool arsenal, while the other two will be cleaned up and put out at my next yard sale.

More coming up on the next post.

An Outstanding Tool Score!!

 This weekend, a nearby neighbor has been conducting a yard sale.

The offerings included a large plastic storage tote packed nearly to the top with all manner of hand tools, shop consumables, and a little bit of hardware.

I asked the homeowner what he would take for the whole lot.  

I nearly hit the pavement when he replied, 

"How about twenty bucks?"

Needless to say, I went home pretty darn happy.

Clearly this lot of tools was the result of someone cleaning out their shop/tool box and being interested only in just getting it all off their hands.

Even a quick look through of the lot reveals hundreds of dollars worth of tools.

So, at this point, the focus of Eddie's Random Ramblings is now shifting gears from army men to a series covering the contents of this tool find.

After all, this blog is all about randomness and is prone to sudden changes of content!

Stay tuned.... 

A Cool Fort For The Green Army

 During the days when my 4-year-old grandson is present, I have been working on building a LEGO fortress for the green army man set.

I have a fairly extensive LEGO parts stash, so running out of materials to build a good-sized structure isn't a problem.

I pulled out every box of gray and dark gray bricks and plates that I have and just started building.

Not working to any plans, I just started clicking bricks and let the design evolve.

Here is the end result.

The fortress features a high wall with parapets, a guard tower on each front corner, a working front door, a two-story HQ building with a fortified roof, and a tall observation tower complete with flag mast and banner.

I even built up a few sections of abatis to place out front.

More pics:

This fort is nothing fancy - just the necessary elements to make it play-worthy. Over the next few weeks I might add some additional aesthetic details here and there, but in the meantime it will serve as a splendid centerpiece for many playroom battles!

Army Men, Part 15 - What's Wrong With These Pictures?

 While beginning my examination of the Confederate soldiery in the HL Civil War Value Pack (hertofore to be referred to as CWVP), I noticed this very strange footwear anomaly on the kneeling rifleman figure:

At least they got part of it correct!

Army Men! Part 15- Back To The Civil War!

 Now that I am through with posting about the old army man collection, I am turning my attention back to the Civil War figures, since that is my primary area of interest.

Now it's decision time. 

Do I leave the soldiers as they are for play with the grandkids,  or do I modify and apply paint to render them diorama worthy?

I am leaning toward the latter, as my penchant for Civil War history will definitely factor in.

Since I actively build and fly model rockets, and engage in woodworking, I have a fully equipped and supplied shop as well as the skills and patience for building quite detailed miniature battlefield scenarios.

I also intend to build up my Union and Confederate armies through the purchase of additional sets from various other sources beyond the Value Pack at Hobby Lobby, gaining as many different soldier poses as possible.

Speaking of that, I closely studied the problematic rebel soldiers from that Value Pack, and learned that they will need extensive modification to render them historically accurate.

This project will definitely provide lots of fodder for future posts on the blog.

Let the fun begin!

Army Men! Part 14 - The Wretched Refuse

Rounding out my army man collection is a small handful of random figures. 

In this instance, it's a couple of spacemen, a ninja, and a small minuteman. (Minute man, get it? Nyuk!), and a western figure.

I don't recall when or where I acquired any of these. They just appeared.

Also, I have this guy, made of rubber.

This gentleman came from a farm play-set that I had many years back. With the addition of a lone miniature rifle he became a citizen soldier.

Back in the farm days he had an accompanying wife figurine. Same blue color. I recall she wore a long dress with apron, a bonnet, and was carrying a bowl of eggs. Sadly, she disappeared many years ago, leaving him a widower with little else to do but pick up arms and fight in my play-room floor Alamo battles.

Finally I have these six horses, five of which are equipped with separate strap-on saddles.

I plan to use these in a diorama of one of the Civil War Napoleon cannons and its limber being pulled by the standard six-horse team.

Lastly, while we're on the subject of animals, I have a few camels that go well with the Tuareg Arab warriors.

This wraps up my old collection.

Next post, I'll be re-visiting the Civil War set. 

Cheers!

Army Men, Part 13 - The Great Rescue!!

 Way back in the 1960s I was living in a house in the Ivywild area of Colorado Springs.

Back in those days families were allowed to burn paper trash and yard leaves in a backyard incinerator. The above illustration is one I drew from memory of the incinerator at our house.  This was a purplish-color clay structure. One built a fire in the bottom and loaded the trash into the opening at the top. An air vent/smoke escape was at top rear.

When I was old enough, it fell to me to assume the chore of emptying and burning the household paper trash. This was great for a ten year old kid, because it amounted to sanctioned playing with matches and fire!

Anyway, one afternoon I went out to burn a load of trash. Just after loading the paper products, I bent down to light the fire when I noticed something colorful among the ashes at the bottom.

Upon closer scrutiny, it turned out to be one of my Tuareg toy soldiers. I plucked it out and noticed the presence of a couple more figures.

What??

It turned out my entire army of French Foreign Legion and Arab soldiers was there at the bottom of that incinerator!

I don't have an idea about why they were there, but I suspect that sometime during the week I might have pissed off my mom or older sister, and the disposal of one of my favorite toy sets was my vengeance- driven punishment. 

The insidious part is that I would have unknowingly been the designated executioner!

Nobody ever copped to this deed, and, to this very day it remains a mystery.

Needless to say, I pulled out all the trash, dug through the ashes, and retrieved every single one of those soldiers!

With my army completely rescued and safely moved to a shoebox in my bedroom, I returned outside and cheerily lit a fire in the ol' incinerator.

Army Men, Part 12 Desert Warriors

Now for the highlight of my army man collection.

This highly colorful set of soldiers also dates back to the late 1950s to 1960s.

These are standard sized French Foreign Legionnaires and Tuareg Arab warriors, probably inspired by the film 'Beau Geste'.

Interestingly, they all came from cereal boxes as the featured toy prizes.

That was back in the days when cereal box toys were actually substantial...and cool.

Moreover, one did not have to mail in box tops or a proof of purchase label and a dollar to get them.

Nowadays, cereal boxes only have dumb jokes and puzzles printed on the back of the box - and no toys.

Nope, back in the day, you had cellophane- wrapped prizes that you had to wait to get to the bottom of the box of cereal in order to retrieve.

My mom told me she remembers that these army men came from boxes of Special-K, which she bought regularly.

I seem to remember the soldiers coming in packs of four from each box. At first, my older brother and sister (by 7 and 5 years) glommed onto them, but as they grew older, and developed other interests, the figures passed on to me.

I've since learned that the figures were manufactured by Lido.  Each army is represented by four different poses, some being officers/chiefs, and the rest being rank and file soldiers. 

The figures are molded in many different colors and shades of plastic, some even being a mix of two different colors.

This collection consists of 39 figures from each army for a total of 78.

They are definitely  the veterans of countless bedroom floor battles.

For my Alamo re-creations these guys were placed in the role of Santa Ana's attacking Mexican forces, even though their appearance is not even close to being historically accurate.

Thank goodness for the miracle of adolescent imagination!

These soldiers had two common points of breakage: The Tuareg swordsman would often lose his raised sword, and the F.L. bayonet fighters would lose the musket stock.

For one of the latter, I attempted to make a new pose by cutting parts of the musket away to make a form of short sword or dagger. Using a match, I used the flame to softened his arm and bend it into a forward position. The blackened scorch marks still remain.

Even after so many battles, only 10 of these figures are broken in the above manner.

Needless to say, these armies have been long-retired!

Cheers...

Army Men!, Part 11 - How Revolutionary!

This multi-colored set of soldiers dates back to the early 1960s, produced by the Lido toy company.

The set appeared in my Christmas stocking from 'Santa Claus' when I was perhaps 7 or 8 years old.

It is, of course, a set of American Revolutionary War regular army soldiers.

Originally, there were nine figures in the set - an additional kneeling- with-musket soldier in yellow, and a drummer in light blue. 

Both of those guys were lost somewhere along the way.

In my playtime battles, these men were usually used as defenders of the Alamo in those particular re-creations. One of the sword-weilding officers was the closest I could get to a representation of Colonel Travis!

A quick story:

I think it was in 3rd grade, around 1963, that our class was studying some U.S. history, specifically the time of the American Revolution.

As a small extra project, I volunteered to make a show-and-tell diorama using this group of plastic soldiers engaged in the Christmas surprise attack on Hessian forces following the Delaware River crossing.

I made a detailed cardboard base with some landscaping rocks and trees on which I could set up my brightly-colored army in battle formation. It looked pretty cool and I was proud of my work. 

To my surprise, I was actually derided by some of my classmates for playing with toy 'Cowboys and Indians'!!

What?

I was astonished at the ignorance displayed by these individuals.

Anyway, my teacher liked it.

And, yes, now around 60 years later, I'm still playing around with plastic toy soldiers - no cowboys and Indians, though...

Cheers!

Army Men! Part 10 - Old Soldier

 Today's post will be rather short, focusing on a single figure in the old collection.

This is one of the original 1950s U.S. green army men produced by, I believe, Lido.

He's a bit larger than the more standard 54mm soldiers that appeared later. The sets that this guy came in consisted of around 10 differently posed soldiers. None had plastic bases under their feet. 

More to come....

Army Men! Part IX - A Pair of Crocketts

 These two figures are favorites of my collection - two different poses of famous frontiersman Davy Crockett.

The brown one was originally owned by my grandfather. I played with it so much when I was at his house that he finally let me take it home and keep it.

I'm totally in the dark about when or where I acquired the red version.

I have scoured the internet to see if I could find out the history and manufacture of both figures, but have been so far unsuccessful.

Nevertheless, both of these figured prominently in my playroom battles with toy soldiers.  I was particularly fond of setting up recreations of the battle of the Alamo, using my extensive set of wooden blocks to build the fort's structures and ramparts.

One amusing note: These toys were definitely not based off of the 1960 film version of  'The Alamo'.

Neither one even remotely resembles John Wayne!

More to come....

Army Men! Part VIII - The Old Guard

 Now that I have completed my random ramblings about the Civil War set, I think it's  high time that I re-visit the collection of little plastic soldiers from my childhood back in the early 60s.

The collection is housed in wooden cigar boxes packed in a Rubbermaid plastic tote buried within the deepest, darkest recesses of the subterranean depths of my home.

Here is a quick look at the pile of the many-colored vintage army.

The next several posts will describe these guys in depth. There is much history and a lot of interesting stories associated with this pile of molded plastic figures.

Stay tuned!

Army Men, Part VII - Rolling Thunder

 The final segment of this series on the Hobby Lobby Civil War Value Pack focuses on the included artillery pieces.

These cannon are a very good representation of the Napoleon 12-pounders used extensively in the war by both sides.

These models are well detailed, with working wheels which are easily removable.

The best part is that each field piece comes complete with an attachable limber carriage.

The limber is detailed with an ammunition chest just like the real thing. It also features the hitch rail to which horse teams can be attached.

The 12 pounder Napoleon was a definite workhorse artillery piece in the Civil War. Most batteries had at least one or two in their line-up.

It had a bronze barrel weighing a little over half a ton, 5 and a half feet long, with a four inch diameter barrel size.

The piece was capable of propelling a 12.3 pound iron ball at a little over 1400 feet per second. The accurate range was in the 1600 yard distance, with a maximum range of 2000 yards.

All manner of ordnance was used with the guns: solid ball, timed-fused shells, spherical case shot, grapeshot, and canister. 

The guns were highly mobile and could be moved quickly on the battlefield using a team of six horses. Along with each piece and limber was an additional caisson, a four-wheeled carriage that transported two additional ammunition chests. These were also pulled by a 6-horse team.

Typically, a crew of six or seven artillerymen was required to operate one of the guns, each man having his own specific task. A well-trained and experienced team could load, prep, aim and fire the piece twice per minute.

In addition, there were two drivers tasked with moving the pieces, one for the gun/limber, the other for the caisson.

This concludes my assessment of the Value Pack offerings. Overall quality is very good, and the set is perfect for regular play.

As pointed out in the past few posts, some modifications may need to be made for those who wish to use these soldiers for historically accurate dioramas.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the set.

Cheers!

Army Men! Part VI - Flags and Officers

 This part of my review of the Hobby Lobby Civil War Value Pack focuses on the additional figures.

First, the mounted horsemen:

Both the Union and Confederate mounted figures are well done. These are great for representing either regimental colonel or even brigadier generals.

The Union officer is typical, wearing a sword and a kepi for headgear.  

The Confederate officer is also well-rendered. Same riding configuration as the Union version, except that he wears a slouch hat, much like the infantry figures in the set. 

The horses are well modeled, featuring such details as a bridle, harness, saddle, and blanket roll.

The flag carrying figures are OK, but there are some issues here.

On the rebel side, the staff seems to be a bit too short, and the flag itself is rectangular. The typical Confederate flag was 4x4 square.

On the Federal side, the glaring error is that the color guardsman is carrying a 50-star flag!

What's up with that?  

$7.99 Chinese-made set, no doubt.

More to come....

Army Men, Part V, Billy Yank

 The soldiers in this set which represent the Union army are very well done.

No complaints here. 

The uniforms are pretty much correct, all of them are wearing forage caps, and no knapsacks are being worn in combat mode. 

Unlike the Confederate soldiers, these men have varying facial features: some are bearded, and others clean shaven.

Well done!