classic motorcycle forum
Motorcycle Discussions => British Bikes => Topic started by: john.k on June 09, 2024, 12:29:49 AM
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Been trying to put together a set of Whitworth spanners for a buke restorer just starting out ...............and can you believe it ,Whitworth spanners are now premium priced as collectable tools ...........everyone selling single items at exorbitant prices ...well $20-$30 each for Sidchrome rings ,anyway .........About 20 years ago ,someone gave me NOS boxes of Whit sockets with the ratchet drives and bars gone from them ,as there was zero call for Whitworth at that time.
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Yes I've seen this too, but I've also seen reasonably priced Whitworth spanners at swap meets and so on, even Sidchrome. I guess it's worth looking around. Luckily I still have the Sidchrome spanners and sockets I bought at McKewan's (?) in Bourke Street, Melbourne in the 1970s, plus the product of a lifetime gathering odds and sods. Tools are nice.
Leon
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Yes, swap meets seem to be the best sources for reasonable prices.
Hyperinflation seems to have struck anything listed online !
If you can get the fleabay sellers in the UK to post with Royal Mail economy international, then there are some reasonably priced sets to be had there.
Not Sidchromes though, obviously.
Delivery does take a few weeks, not next day or 2 like some of the sellers want to send !! Boy that costs ...
They seem to be experts at gathering up whole sets.
If you watch the local fleabay long enough, someone will break ranks and offer a set or 3 at reasonable prices.
Ya gotta be quick though ...
You can still buy new Sidchrome sets, at lower $$ than some of the used sets are asking.
Dunno if they are any good ?
And some sellers ask top $$ for the same thing, dunno what is going on there. !
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Yes I see you can buy new Whit stuff for not much more than the second hand stuff ........The kid wants antique stuff ,and he wants Sidchrome ......yeah right ,make it easy.............I do have a full set of Sidchrome Whit stuff ,and no way is he getting that..............Funny thing is that eons ago ,Sidchrome tools were dismissed as clumsy and second rate ...but thats the 60s for you .........nothing made in Oz was any good,now its all collectable............Suppose it could be worse ,he might want all Dufor or Dowidat tools .
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Maybe people would have more luck finding stuff if they used the correct terminology, ie "Imperial" rather than "Whitworth".
Whitworth, as any fule no, is a threadform not a type of spanner.
These Imperial spanners are sold at UK swapmeets/autojumbles for a quid a time as there's no call for them. It's worth rooting through the boxes of tools just to get a range of spanners to keep with each bike.
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There is a great surplus of AF tools here (think US /SAE fasteners) ,and if you say Imperial the cunning sellers immediately think 'Aha ...Ill unload this rube with a lot of SAE tools ,when I know he wants Whitworth."..............and much Whitworth tools are marked with a dual Whit/BS marking in two different sizes .....which further confuses those who know only metric ...............Sooo.If you want British Standard tools ,say Whitworth and everyone understands .
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Germany made Dowidat tools also have a big collector following here .......seems there is a worldwide interst in this obscure brand..........My first bike was a BSA A7 found leaning up against a tree where it was abandoned ..........and my first 'proper' spanner was a Dowidat Flexi -Flat in 5/16 & 3/8 that was sufficient to pull that whole motor apart with just one spanner.
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Dowidats were made in australia at some point.
Strong dependable tools.
If you watch the local fleabay long enough, someone will break ranks and offer a set or 3 at reasonable prices.
I picked these up for a travelling toolkit for a bike, not so long ago.
As you can see, not really a 'set'.
These didn't break the bank, by any means.
And if the plating is not perfect, many sellers will take an offer.
(and some silver paint will hide many sins - not when you are buying though !!)
Red in my workshop means W-BS.
(https://i.postimg.cc/BnjXWC6X/W-BS.jpg)
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The combination sets are definitely the most desirable ,and Ive seen setd like that at swaps asking $100..........Ive not got the 1/8 size combi,Id assume being small and easily lost .
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Had to hunt down the 1/8 W one.
A recent addition - hence the missing red stripe.
The rockers in old Enfields use reduced 1/8W nuts to hold them down.
So essential for a complete set.
Be making a profit at $100
Bloomin inflation ...
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Don't know about the collectability of Sidchrome stuff, but when I started out as an apprentice about 100 years ago the older fitters would take the piss mercilessly for anyone turning up with combo spanners.
"Where you been shopping the weekend boy, B&Q?" and other similar references to DiYers for combos being for weekend mechanics.
To this day I prefer a range of O/E's and a similar range of deep off-set rings to be able to do most jobs.
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I never had any combi spanners either ...just rings and open ends and sockets ........As you needed twice as many combis as DE rings to cover the same range ,that Id think is the reason.............its probably the reason they are rarer nowdays ...less of them sold.
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"Where you been shopping the weekend boy, B&Q?"
One of these is marked with the D^D arrow, so the military have been to B&Q also ...
I will confess to also buying a sturdy set of double ended ring spanners - for workshop use.
Too big to carry on a bike though.
And, I don't plan any full rebuilds beside the road !!?
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The rockers in old Enfields use reduced 1/8W nuts to hold them down.
I've found that many makers (Douglas comes to mind) avoided the 1/8W hexagon, and instead used 3/8AF. Who knows what that was all about.
I have a Lennox motorcycle made in Lennox St, Richmond, Melbourne, c1915. The engine was made on site, and I reckon they also made most of the nuts and bolts: the hexagons are all "AF" (I was going to say "Imperial" - certainly not Whitworth) but most of the threads are BSW!!! I suppose they were turned from "AF" (1/2, 9/16,...) hex bar, but again who knows. I certainly need the full range of spanners in my shed.
As an aside, when I was doing a deep clean on the Lennox I took most of it apart, cleaned and reassembled. I had problems finding a spanner to fit some of the smaller nuts on the mudguards. On closer inspection, I found that the nuts had 8 sides! The last owner of the bike was a plumber, who used the bike and sidecar for his work during WW2. He used gutter bolts where appropriate, but was clearly offended by the square nuts so cut the corners off to make octagons. I've had people tell me I should get rid of the gutter bolts, but I love that part of the bike's story.
Leon
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Completely random! Today I was scanning 'Beneath the Bonnet' by JR Beruldsen about automotive parts manufacture in Australia, and in one part it mentioned that AG Healing (well known for their motorcycles from the early days into the early 1920s, and later for radios, washing machines, TVs,...) made Austalloy spanners. They sold this bit of their business to Siddons (seems in the 1920s), and the tools later became Sidchrome. So the origin of Sidchome is with Healing in Melbourne. I have a couple of Healing-built motorcycles, and a pile of Sidchrome spanners!
Leon
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Healings was a giant,who fell to earth .....I went to the auction of the CIPE bathtub factory in Brisbane in the mid 70s.....500 ton presses ,enammeling ovens,ten acres of stuff ..............still have a workbench and 6" Dawn vice I got there ........vices were unused ,for some reason.............Anyhoo,the first bit of Sidchrome came in the post today ,some combi spanners .........unfortunately the seller didnt disclose one had a ground ring...........everything you get online now is some kind of fail.
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That would/should be grounds for a return or partial refund ?
Seller noted that the chaincases he was sending me had a crack, and included a $50 refund - unasked.
Top marks to that man ....
Interesting about AG Healing.
There were a heck of a lot of aussie tool manufacturers in the past, when you tot them all up.
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Pre-war BSA (for instance) was part of a huge industrial conglomerate, and when odd-sized hexagon nuts turned up on BSA bikes it was because someone somewhere had ordered too much of a certain hex bar, and the accountants then wanted to make sure it was used.
People were more clever in those days; they just gone on with any repairs and didn't take to social media to complain that it took more than three spanners to work on their bikes. ::)
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I'm not sure why combination spanners are denigrated. I find them useful in the workshop as the flat ring end gets where the usual cranked ring spanner won't. For example, the cylinder base nuts (pre-UNF) on small Triumph twins are tricky beasts. I just ground a small amount off the outside of the ring end of a combi and it worked perfectly.
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As with most things, there are times when some designs are an advantage, but as said, with this type of spanner you need two sets or one set and a socket set to undo nuts and bolts.
I used (and still have) a ground down O/E spanner for those tricky nuts, although didn't they change to bi-hex nuts in later years?
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Yes, that's why I mentioned pre-UNF.....
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I wasn't contradicting you, just mentioning that in later years Meriden found a solution to that particular problem
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The other thing I wasnt too happy about was the loose bihex broaching in the rings .........small Sidchrome rings always had the problem of iffy manufacture ,..Ive got some Stahlwille combis to compare ...and there aint no comparison ...............However ,back in the day ,Stahlwille was about 10x more expensive than Sidchrome.
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OK ....called a halt to the spanners ......odds and ends for insane prices .....no way ..........Nice little collection IMHO , 5 DE rings ,4 combis ,set of 8 sockets ......just on $100.............and a small Sidchrome toolbox tomorrow for maybe $20 ,or less.
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You really have caught the bug ?
Have you noticed that quality tools start with S ?
Stahlwille, Snapon, Superslim, Samtag, Sidchrome (maybe) etc etc.
I bought this little set for a military bike, quite inexpensive (or were).
Finding/assembling an authentic set is near impossible these days ?
With a coat of army green, they look the part.
The toolroll they are in is a bit useless, all the heads can bash about ...
https://www.trojanclassics.com/assets/full/TLS0037.jpg
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Lotta years ago,I worked with a pommy who had a Norton Atlas............he borrowed one of my Sidchrome spanners to tighten up something and it broke straight off ...and he was cursing the 'too long spanners " that were made here for the sole purpose of breaking bits off British bikes.
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Hard to imagine that 1970 was more than 50 years ago.
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Torque wrenches were invented for a reason.
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Yep, to get precise and universal settings on production lines etc rather to stop "pommies" breaking bits off Nortons and blaming the spanners.
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Funny that the people who built bikes at Bracebridge Street etc managed not to break things despite not having torque wrenches. I have one but very rarely use it as I think my "mechanic's feel" is good enough. And the only fixings I've ever broken have been ones irretrievably rusted in place.
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There are at least 2 sides to every discussion !
I had someone come around to my house.
After he turned off the hot tap, it was so irretrievably mangled/twisted/bent, I had to replace it.
I hope he never gets to work on any bikes ....
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Actually,the people at Bracebridge St also made cheap spanners for car tool kits................Anyhoo,gets up early this morning,have a look at marketplace ,and there is 5" SP Dawn vice for sale cheap .........looks horrible in the pic ,but its only 10 minutes away ,so I go to look at it ...........couldnt get my $80 out quick enough .........still has the red paint under layers of grease............I dont know how the seller managed to make it look rusty in the pics .....and he also obscured the 5SP logo ...fortunately.................for those who dont know,Dawn is still in business ...in Oz.....and their Oz made vices aint cheap.
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RT Shelley was across the road from the motorcycle side of things ?
They made quite a comprehensive toolkit for the bikes.
Quite collectible these days ...
Count yourself lucky if you can locate a complete set !
(https://i.postimg.cc/282c5Q4f/Postwar-Norton-ES2-toolkit.jpg)
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There might be some gems in here: https://www.facebook.com/commerce/listing/1160084381803071/?ref=share_attachment
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I had one of those horrible shifters when I was a kid ............I think it was designed to be used as a hammer as well as a spanner ......anyhoo,the thing would spring apart at the least force and round off hex s...............and all the spanners stamped from sheet steel that would open out and be worse than useless............The car tools that were good were Ford ones ,they were made from decent steel ,and very strong...........Anything branded Ford was good.
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Triumph included some good uns in the toolkit.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/FU8AAOSwLVZVm-i3/s-l1600.jpg
Not all of them were to this quality though.
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That must be the cylinder base nut ring that my Sidchrome has been ground to emulate. i have a toolkit that came with a police BSA ,and I dont recall much of use in it.......maybe the Girling adjuster spanner.