Quality tools, bespoke tools, vintage tools... anyone who's fixed up and fettled a lantern will understand the importance of having the right piece of equipment to get the job done. I've made a few myself and bought them if I had to, like my collection of imperial taps and dies. My latest 'acquisition' - a pair of vintage engineers dividers - was something I've had all along collecting dust in my workshop. It belonged to my father but for some unaccountable reason I'd ignored it until I needed one. It didn't look like this when I stumbled across it again and it had sustained damage to the tips which someone had reground to act as circlip removal pliers... not very successfully. I hope it wasn't Dad but I know he was often under pressure to deal with awkward engineering problems that no-one else could or would deal with so it might have been. Anyway, once the tips were unbent and reground and the whole thing de-rusted, she works perfectly again. You can still feel the precision and they retain that stiff action synonymous with quality. I was wondering if anyone else would like to use this thread to post tool related stories or photos of resurrected or homemade bits of kit. I'd definitely find this interesting and useful.
Yes, those dividers are classy Colin. I can conjure up a pair of Moore & Wright equivalent with screw adjustment but they’re not as solidly built. Not much of a story attached to it, a purchase at a Newark CCS gathering, but my Måby punch set makes production of burner washers, viton and lead seals a doddle. Homemade ‘tool’ here is a block of oak to use as an anvil (end grain) for the punch. 1mm viton sheet for a Tilley vapouriser washer. Probably my most used tool for stove/lantern fettling is a pair (well, two pairs - small and a bit larger) of Knipex parallel-jawed grips, smooth-jawed to leave brass components unmarked. John
Over the years, as needs be, I have made a few tools to make some fettling procedures a little easier. Here is one such tool that I have developed for replacing the screens of some burners, e.g. Coleman etc. The copper washer is the template used to cut the stainless steel mesh, in this case for a Coleman 242/249 burner. The domed die and domed mandrill is to dish or dome the cut to size mesh. The doming reduces the mesh’s diameter to allow it to drop into the burner’s receiving groove. The flat mandrill is to slightly flatten the mesh causing the mesh diameter to expand forcing its edges into the burner’s receiving groove without crimping the burner’s edges. The end result reproduces what the factory made ones. Cheers Pete
I like the attention to detail is the brass end on the doming top tool threaded on?? ps the surface of the drill press table also tells a story
@podbros The domed head is actual a domed nut that was screwed onto a bolt with a partially threaded shank then put in the lathe to remove the hex on the nut. Hope that makes sense. Cheers Pete
@ColinG Be my guest mate, only too happy to share, and besides, I’ve learnt loads from you. That’s the name of the game .... we help each other.
@presscall John, you need to find an MGB with wire wheels and when no one's looking open the boot and nick the lead hammer that serves as a lug wrench. Use it to save damage to your nice set of punches instead of the hardened steel ball peen you're using. This one stuck to my tool box back in 1971 when I worked at a Jag/MG dealership. It was the first thing we mechanics went for when a used MG showed up as a trade in. The Jags had a fancy brass headed one for bashing the knock offs. Got one of those too. You can see from the shape of the head it has seen lots of use over the years. Not a lot on lantern and stoves, although occasionally to smack the wrench on the CV removal tool.
@Reese Williams Ha! That’d do nicely for sure Reese. Cutting washers requires nothing more forceful than a couple of taps in point of fact, but it’s a point well made. John
