Goodwill tools

[picker77]

Nothing very exciting for Show & Tell, but I did hit Goodwill for a bag of old tools. Left to right is a "special" combination wrench (sickle bar blade wrench?), 1-1/8 & 1" weird curved open end, 1" - 7/8" open end, 3/4" - 7/8" open end, a pair of 11/16" bridge reamers (one nice, the second one made in Brazil and pretty chipped up), a decent 9/16" bridge reamer, a masonry chisel from "H.W. C&S", four old Nicholson files, a pair of Japanese files,  couple of RR spikes. There was also a rusty & frozen up 14" Stillson, and a small flat-jaw adjustable wrench (that one might be from a Model A took kit). I really wanted the lot just to get the bridge reamers and the two adjustable wrenches. The reamers have been crudely "converted" from taper chuck to hex drive, and whoever did it is one of those rare folks who is a worse welder than me, lol. I converted the Stillson and the monkey wrench into twist wrenches for my shop.

Do old open end wrenches have any forging value, or is that stretching the "mystery steel" idea a bit too far?

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

9 hours ago, picker77 said:

Do old open end wrenches have any forging value,

Yes they do. There is a thread about making them into hangers/hooks and bottle openers with cat faces, I think by ausfire (not sure).

[SLAG]

I. D. F. & C,

Ausfire did, indeed, post numerous cat faced bottle openers on the site.

I remember seeing it about a year ago.

He might give us the link shortly.

SLAG 

[picker77]

Great, I'll stand by for the link. The artistic side of my brain is routinely humbled by the ideas Ausfire constantly comes up with. He, and a few others on IFI, can look at common everyday things like old wrenches and see them as something else, something entertaining, clever, whimsical, visually arresting. As if that weren't enough, they also have sufficient craft skills to actually make the transformation happen with fire and hammer. I remain constantly in awe of the artistic talents of IFI members who produce work at that level. It's a lot of fun to watch, and maybe the best reason to regularly read these forums.