This is my favourite Christmas present

[DeeBye]

My Opa (Dutch for "grandfather") died two weeks ago. He was 93, and old age finally caught up to him. He had congestive heart failure and died peacefully with his wife holding his hand. They had been married for 66 years, and had been a couple for over 70 years.

I don't want to turn this into an obituary thread because those are depressing.

My Oma (Dutch for "grandmother") gave me a very nice Christmas present. She decided that all of the grandchildren were to receive a personal memento of Opa.

She gave me this


It was a Christmas party cellophane bag with some small metal things inside. She sealed it with an elastic band. It must have taken my Oma a long time to get the elastic band sealed around the bag.

Opa was a tool and die worker in Holland for Philips before he and his family emmigrated to Canada. In Canada he worked for Westclox until his retirement.

The cellophane bag my Oma gave me contained things that Opa used when he was still a tool and die worker in Holland. Oma thought I would be the most appreciative grandchild of these things because I am the only one with mechanical engineering education. Oma was spot on.

This is where I require some help. Oma can't specifically identify everything she gave me. I'd like to know exactly what I have. I have some guesses for these items, but I'm no expert.



This is screwdriver-type thing. The extra bits are stored in the handle, but the bits are not at all like normal screwdriver ones. There are two flathead-type bits, but the other bits are a pointed one and a square-to-a-point one. They all store neatly within the shaft of the driver, and the left-most thing in the picture is the cover for the bits. The total length of this is about 3".



I know what these are. These are optical magnifying aids while doing precise work. You put the fat end in your eye and the magnifying glass makes small stuff easy to see. I tried both of them out and they work great. They are perfect for very precise work on a small scale. I can pretend to be a diamond appraiser when I wear one.



This one is a gauge of some sort, I think. It is aluminum, and has the number "15" etched on the top. The bottom end is (as far as I can tell) a perfect concave. You can't see that in the picture, unfortunately. Oma told me that Opa always saved the first thing he machined when using new tools, and that this was what he made when they still lived in Holland.

I really like the Christmas present my Oma gave me. It is by far the most sentimental gift I have ever received. I'm hoping that someone can definitively identify them.

[LochnarITB]

As I scrolled the first picture up, I thought, "Grandpa had one of those." I have no idea where he got it. He came to Minnesota as a kid so he must have acquired it here. He was a welder, worked on engines, built clocks, did woodworking and much, much more so I don't know if it was from any of those activities specifically. I just knew it as a small screwdriver. In fact, now that I think of it, I might actually have that tucked away in my toolbox, having gotten it from him at some point. Unfortunately, I wouldn't even know where to start looking for my tools since I haven't done anything with my "real" tools in years.

Big help, huh? :huh:

[yangman]

The mystery tool, to me, seems like small chisels for working metal.

A quick look around wikipedia turned up something called cold chisel.


Do I win? ;)

[DeeBye]

The mystery tool, to me, seems like small chisels for working metal.

A quick look around wikipedia turned up something called cold chisel.
Do I win?  ;)
[right][snapback]98314[/snapback][/right]

That's gotta be it. Thanks :)

[--Pete]

Hi,

That's gotta be it.  Thanks  :)
[right][snapback]98342[/snapback][/right]

I sorta kinda doubt it. A cold chisel is a device for cutting metal and that involves hammering on the non-cutting end. A hollow tube like the one in your picture would most likely deform, and the end cap would most likely collapse. Of course, the tool in question could have been used without chucking it into the handle, but then why store it there? And a machinist has little use for a cold chisel.

The pointed object is most likely a scribe, used to put scratches on metal to indicate things like the location of screw holes. In doing machine work, it is common to 'paint' the material with bluing and then use a scribe to mark dimensions, lines, etc. Also, before mylar was introduced, many plans were drawn on aluminum sheet covered in bluing and than lacquered. These plans were much sturdier than those on paper, and if the temperature was controlled (say, normal office temperature) they were also dimensionally more stable.

The wedge shaped tip might have been a light weight hand scraper, useful for "erasing" an incorrect line on bluing. The remaining blades probably are common screwdriver heads, since set screws in machinery were often of that type before the introduction of Allen head screws. Many machinists carry a similar set of tools in their pocket protectors, along with a six inch scale, a spring type center-punch, and a Sharpie marker. But the age of your set could make them valuable to a collector.

You've already identified the loupes, and I have no idea of the last item. If you live near a University, go to one of the machine shops there, and you'll probably find someone that can tell you what each of those items is, who made them, how, and when. Machinists are some of the most knowledgeable people around ;)

--Pete

[DeeBye]

Yeah, you're probably correct. Thank you for the informative post.