What is this Tool?

Thank you.

Any idea what it might have been used to cut or ream? He was an electrican by trade.

Smitty

He would likely have kept a 6-32 and a 8-32 tap for cleaning up threads on untility boxes and receptacles. The things are always buggered up.

It has already been stated (by edignan) that this is a tap wrench. It is a small tap wrench that accommodates taps for machine screws. The following machine screw sizes have been used in electrical work for a long time:

6-32: Attach switches, receptacles, and cover plates to outlet boxes

8-32: Attach outlets and cover plates to square and octagonal boxes

10-32: Attach grounding lead to square and octagonal boxes

Other tap sizes also come in handy from time to time, but those are the most common. It is better to chase an inside thread that is dirty or damaged than to risk stripping the screw. You might not be carrying a suitable replacement!

It's A pipefitter trade tool

That was an easy one.

They look just like that.

Broken tap exteactor.

Hard to say - a general use tool

A tap is used when you need to thread a hole, but the same tool can hold a drill - but the material would have to be pretty soft

Should/could be a set of taps around somewhere

Would they look like the taps I use on my Rigid Pipe threader only smaller?

There are a lot of small tools and wrenches by companies I have never heard of....solid looking stuff but rusted away in places.

he used to repair scales and meat grinders for Hobart Dayton as a side line.

I am jsut cleaning up finally after 20 years and sorting through what is good and what is not.

Thank you all.

Smitty

They'd look like this (only rusty)

http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PARTPG=INSRAR2&PMAKA=510-1267&PMPXNO=8910544

Daggone, they do look about the same.

I took the stud bolt out with some vise grips and used a tap holder to re-groove the threads in the stud bolt receiver hole for the truck radio antenna I broke off tying 20 foot sticks of rebar to the pickup.

Actually when pulling screws or broken stud bolts I did the drill in and reverse thread process.

Never have broken a tap.

You might have us.

You my dear man need one of my classes in how to procrastinate till you have inn sufficient time left.

I recently had 5 trucks to mount a mountain of equipment in. All the same. One at a time.

I had 3 drills going at the same time. One with a 10-24 drill-tap combo. one with a 1/4-20 drill-tap combo, and one working with a set of cobalt drills. The truck is aluminum, steel, and stainless steel.The 10-24 drill-taps were sensitive to jamming and breaking. The good news was that they were weakest at a point that left sufficient material for a small vice grip to fit.

Umm, good snag Bob

I'd completely forgotten

Tap removed....smooth fingers all the way.

Thank you for the website. I see exactly what it did (does).

Inhside the tool, where it splits open, there is tapered smooth groove about 2 inches down.

I can not get a good picture of the grooves, but they are smooth . the end of the tool looks just like any drill chuck only really small.

No teeth, just a smooth long groove extending down the shaft on each side.

Thanks again.

The old man was a pack rat.

I just found two wooden handled braces and whole box full of 12"-16" giant wood bits. Seems there are all kinds of treasures in that shed......

Thanks for the ID, I'm cleaning them up and putting them on a long dispaly shelf in our house along with decoys and some kerosene lamps.

Smitty

"The old man was a pack rat."

The "old man" must have had to remove a broken tap at one time. You can't appreciate that tool till you have tried to remove a hardened tap stuck in a piece of hard steel with no vice grip room.

The "old man" was an ex WWII Jarhead 3 striper . Patience was something in short supply. If it wasn't moving, it had better get moving!. . . . and , if he couldn't move it. . . . he broke it !

How he worked on those slicers and scales with all those little parts is beyond me.

I just do not ever remember seeing him use this tool.

Thanks everyone for the info. Memories are all we have when its all said and done.

Looking at your second picture, this tool has two fingers (ignoring the two Shadow fingers).
The size of the whole tool appearers to be very small (compared with hand/fingers) and should be for small taps.
Smaller taps have three groves and how do the two fingers set therein?

I was wondering if it could be a pin vice for a drill bit or small tap as was suggested by others.

Jon

Great answer Bob. I have had one of these in my tool box for years. I have broken too many taps and been saved by this tool every time. Now if I can just remember where I put my rapid-tap I won't burn off another one. Cheers, Bloefeld

It is a tap holder. The threading tap is inserted into the mandrels (in second picture). The mandrels are tightined to hold the threading tap, and then the "T" bar is used to drive the tap into the hole (drilled to tapping size-see appropriate charts). This cuts a female thread in the work piece. The tap is backet out or released from the tap holder and passed right through the hole.

Hope this helps

Quai_Oui

Could be a tap handle. Can you insert a tap in the blut end?

Years ago...

My dad would have said, "Hey, that must be off a hay bailer!"

And I would have said, "Dad, that did not come off hay bailer..."

And my dad would reply, "Well... it's not ON a hay bailer is it? It must be off one!"

Nowadays, my dad would just stare at me and wonders who I am. I'd rather hear him talk non-stop about selling Kirby vacuums...And I mean non-stop about the "good old days knocking on doors showing and selling Kirby vacuums".

We all know now, that it is a multi purpose torsion type of wrench used mainly for a tap set, but can cover for a drill (bit) holder.

But we also know it is most certainly off a hay-bailer!

JL Mealer
Mealer Companies LLC
America's Next Major Automaker
http://mealercompanies.com

Hmmm... And I thought it was off an airplane... What was I thinkin'?

It looks similar to a tap handle which is used to hold a thread tap

to chase threads or make threads manually. It could also hold

a drill bit.

Yes it's a tap wrench. I have one just like it. Just because he's was an electrician does not mean it's an electrical tool. Most trades people know how to do many things. It is used to create small bore threads in metal. He could have simply had something break like a lawn mower and had to drill out a bolt and retap it.

looks like a tap hande.when put together is their a square hole in the bottom.if so then that is were the tap goes and you tighten up the spool on the bottom to hole the tap in and then you can put Threads into will say a peice of metal or plastic.

that is what it looks like from the pic.

You said the tongues had a smooth groove in the insides. Sounds to me more like a pin vise. These usually come in sets and are used to hold small diameter round stuff ( pins ). Say an axle from a clockwork item or meter. Or to hold a small drill for sharpening. But they don't usually have a cross bar. It is the cross bar that makes it look like a tap holder. A tap holder will have 'v' grooves inside the tongues to hold the square section on the top of the tap. Pin vises come in sets to hold different diameters.

It is clearly a tap handle, for holding a tap for tapping holes. First you drill a pilot hole and then using this tool, screw a tap into the smooth hole to make internal threads. The two tines of the fork you exposed by taking it apart are most likely deeply grooved, and taps have square drives on on end and the threading lands and grooves on the other. The square drive of the tap is captured on opposite corners by the two grooved tines and pinching of the tap to hold it is accomplished by the threaded and knurled outer sleeve, the more the sleeve is screwed down the tighter the hold on the tap. The T-handle can slide in its hole and can be offset for leverage as you carefully screw the tap into the hole.

My two cents

Mike

Looks like a tap handle to me. And no, I don't mean beer.

http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMPXNO=17751491&PMT4NO=65515709

If it is a tap handle it will have a square hole in it when it is closed. If it is for removing broken taps it will have a round hole in it when the fingers are removed. Small taps have two or three grooves in them. The fingers fit in the grooves and back out broken taps. If it has a round hole when closed it can also be used as a pin vise.

It's a tap tool used by mechanics to rethread a hole that's been stripped by over-torquing a bolt. It was a very common accessory when a head bolt would get stripped when changing head gaskets on old flat head engines (also valve-in-head Chevvys!). For some reason, a blown head gasket on some pre-world war II cars was a common occurance. Every mechanic I knew from that era would have had one of these in his tool kit. I know I did.

Ken Leigh

the tool shown is nothing but a collet type holder for small taps and drill bits. Taps are used for creating threads in hole to tight screw in it and drill bits are for creating holes in metal. The tool (tap holder) shown is very useful for watch makers.

Does it work like this modern one?

http://www.waltontools.com/products/extractr.htm

A holder that is held by the tap handle, a collar to hold Fingers and Fingers that fit down the flutes of the broken tap and a sleeeve that slides down to apply force on the rods and the flutes. Turn the assembly to feed the tap through a plate or reverse it from a dead end.

Jon

Thank you. I have not been able to find a good picture of those tap extractors. I have a 5 piece set that covers -10 through 3/8" or so. I have used 1 or 2 of them only. I hope I never have to use them again. The MSC catalog lists 3 and 4 finger styles.

Bob,

Welcome. Or as they say in Oz; "No worry."

Jon

I can't see by the picture:

Are those fingers flat and fluted on the inside and don't extend very far from the end of the housing when the housing is adjusted so that the fingers are in full contact with each other and conversely open for an object to fit between them to be held by them when the housing is adjusted?

Or are they round rods that extend a considerable distance beyond the housing and the housing is used to force them together onto an object like flutes of a broken tap?

Jon

If anyone can read this, it may describe # 88

Looks like it goes from 1 to 56.

Jon

You seem to put an end to this at last. Page 56 shows 2 tap handles. One of them is numbered "88" , the same number that is stamped on the OP's tool. A well deserved GA to you.

The shed has been cleaned out and this No.88 Tap wrench was among many small and really delicate looking tools that have rusted in a wooden box since the 1980's when Paw died.

My sister says they were used for his side job of fixing slicers, meat grinders and commercial scales.

I've cleaned them up and will retire them for my kids to gawk at in an age of high tech electronics and digital gizmos.

Its hard for this generation to believe that our fathers and grandfathers built an entire world with out the aid of one single computer!

Go slide rule!

Smitty

_{All of the comments, are searcher looking to be the first to look better than the next,all the loser visit this web site,I know, I use to be one of them!}

Looks to me like it could be some type of radiator key to release water.

Not ure of the size by your picture but sort of resembles an old radiator key.

I'd be interested to hear what a really is.

Coinzy- I love old tools....That was the fabric of our country!

Read through the other entries first and you would have discovered what it really is and would not have said: "I'd be interested to hear what a really is."