What's your oldest tool?

Geo-TH,In

Well-known Member
Mine is a 6 foot metal brake, but I use it on aluminum too. Only brake that can fold metal about 135 degrees and then fold it a full 180 to remove the sharp edge.
geo
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Certainly won't be the oldest tool on here, but my dad gave me a Porter Cable worm-drive saw many years ago- it was about as old as I was (1948), still worked fine. He was a carpenter, and had decided to get a new Skil worm drive, so gave me his old one. A year or so later, he came to my place to help me with a project, and was carrying an old Porter Cable identical to mine. I said I thought he was going to get a new Skil- He said "I did. Worst piece of junk I've ever had. Burnt it up in 6 months, not pushing it any harder than I did my old one. So I found another Porter Cable." He still had it when he died at age 85, and it was one of the first things to sell at the garage sale.

Mine needed a new switch- went to my authorized Porter Cable store, and asked them if they were still available. He smiled and said, "Not only are they still available, we have it on the shelf. We caught so much heat when we quit carrying the parts that we started carrying them again. I don't know, but suspect that every old Porter Cable tool ever made is still out there working somewhere".
 
I have my grandfathers anvil from the 1800's. My dad use to say if he had a dollar for every horse that was shoed using that he could take a good long vacation
 
RichardG,
If you ever need a new flat belt for your drill press and can't find one, there is a place in Terre Haute that makes new ones.
George
 
1910 13 inch South Bend turning lathe- gear change. Also have a 15 inch, 8 foot bed lathe, quick change, from 1940s-50s. plus two drill presses like what Richard G posted.
 
If you include tools used in the kitchen it would be my 1896 meat grinder. I sue it to make hamburger out of deer meat.
 
Not so ancient but probably the rarest. It's believed to have been made in very early 20th century. This 14" bandsaw is the only known machine made by the Winner company of St. Louis MO.
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I really do not think patent dates are a true indicator of when something was made. Many items were still made for years after they were first invented.
 
MikeM,
You may be right, but I'm guessing 1887 is close. Here is the history of the company. Looks like it been around for a while.

The origin of the Peck, Stow & Wilcox Co. dates back to 1797. In that year Seth Peck, of Southington, Conn., commenced the manufacture of Tinsmiths' Machines, to take the place of hand tools exclusively used by tinsmiths before that date. By gradual growth the following firms have succeeded to that business: Seth Peck & Co., O. & X. Peck, Peck, Smith & Co. and the Peck-Smith Mfg. Co.

Up to this time the sole manufacture was tinsmiths' tools and machines. By 1870 the S. Stow Mfg. Co. of Plantsville, and the Roys & Wilcox Co. of East Berlin were competitors in that business. In December 1870, these three firms united and formed a joint stock company under the name of the Peck, Stow & Wilcox Co. In 1880 the firm was incorporated by special act of the General Assembly with an authorized capital of one and a half million dollars. Within a year that amount of capital was all paid in and Wilcox, Treadway & Co., of Cleveland, C, was absorbed by the firm.

The company now has factories in Southington, Plantsville and East Berlin, Conn., covering a floor space of about two hundred and sixty thousand square feet. and factories in Cleveland, O., covering about eighty-nine thousand feet more, making in all about seven and a half square acres.

Tinsmiths' tools and machines still constitute a prominent portion of the company's product, but a varied line has been gradually added. This now embraces as its principal items, carpenters, machinists and blacksmiths tools, housekeeping implements such as meat and food cutters, coffee mills and scale beams and a varied assortment of builders' hardware.

In 1950, the company was bought out by Billings & Spencer. The PEXTO logo is now used by RW Acquisition, L.L.C. which also owns Roper Whitney .

BYT, Do you know of a way to drill out 1 inch egg shaped holes on terremite to a larger size to install the split steel bushings? My stabilizers are in need of help and a few other places.

Geo.
 
My uncle had a 6 1/2" porter cable "side winder" power saw when I was a young feller about 1960 that I would have truly loved to have had. No telling where that saw is now.
 
"Grandpa was carpenter ... he built houses, stores, and banks ... chained-smoked camel cigarettes, and hammered nails in planks".

Have a C-clamp from about 1910, great uncle was a carpenter.
 
If you can take the stabilizers off they can be bored out in a milling machine fairly easily. There are specialized boring machines to do them right on the machines but if you could find someone to do that I bet it will get expensive.
 
Not really a tool, but in a box of tools I bought was a kitchen / carving knife labeled Wilson ,Hawksworth ,and Ellison - Sheffeild England . From a google search I found they went out of business in 1854. So I put a new handle on it as it was missing. The base of my milling machine has 1884 as a patent date but that does not indicate the year it was made.
 
Mike M,
I decided to attack the wear issue from the other end. In the past, the worn stabilizers has broken welds on hydraulic cylinder and even cracked one cylinder. So I decided to use an adjustable ream and open up the hole that connects the stabilizer pin to the cylinder. Now when the stabilizer moves, there is enough give not to pinch the cylinder.

Hope this works until I find a machine shop to open up the stabilizer holes and use a bushing. My first terramite has fewer hours on it and has been taken better care of.
geo
 
How long is a patient good for? Don't patients on Rx drugs only last a few years and the clock start a with the trials. That's one of the reason drugs are costly. I'm thinking patients last for 20 years or less.
 
I have old ones not set up and running but this old planer works, I just run it with a belt off the tractor. I used to take it to our local tractor show and run some boards through it.
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coshoo, I very likely have the same model 'skilsaw' your Dad had. Very heavy but it still runs. I've been a Carpenter for over 50 years now and when I had the chance to get a new model '77' I did. I have used and abused that saw and it keeps coming back for more. The switch has been replaced twice and about 10 years ago, I won a 'magnesium' model 77, which is still in the box. Why switch 'horses' in the middle of the stream?. LOL
 

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