What is your oldest and best tool?
 

40 years old.....BF whacker, cheater bar. From my uncle, RIP.

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Used to use the phillips screwdriver from my 356 tool kit to work on computers... Nice joke about a $100 screw driver.

Then the wife used it and lost it.

Not my oldest tool....
One of my first purchases after I bought my house was an Estwing English pattern claw hammer.
Used it for my renos, garage, fence building etc.
Then the dumb ass tile guy I hired decided it would be fine to bust up concrete with my hammer.
What a dickweed. Took the polish off of it and generally screwed it up.

I have some pretty old tools - 100 year old hand planes come to mind as a favorite. Just used an old floor scraper the other day. I enjoy well made, old tools.

Lost a couple mini swiss army knives to the TSA. My bad. Still not in Guantanamo yet.
First one had a light and tweezers.
Scissors were strong enough to cut through toenails.
Blade can open any plastic packaging with ease.

Grandfather's hammer.

What is my oldest and best tool?....

I've had it since birth.

At adolescence it was obvious that it would give me no peace so I resolved to give it no rest.

That's what came to mind.....

The Yellow Pages. Whenever I have a really tough job, I pull out the old Yellow Pages.

Is it ALWAYS hard and up to the task 24/7?:rolleyes:

Didn't take long for this to hit the dirt.

I have one that is 57 years old.
I can't use it like I could when I was in my 20's.

Besides the obvious, it would be my Vaughn 24oz framing hammer. Built my first garage with it and many other projects. Both tools have pounded home a lot of nails, still have the original warranty.

I have a double-bladed axe that belonged to my great-grandfather. The handle has been replaced once, so only the head remains of the original tool. Still, it's functional and I use it on occasion.

Not my oldest...sold my work horses when I left CA in '08...bought new last year.
Floor standing drill press & an 8 inch jawed Wilton vice.
Hard to imagine not having either.

My metric socks set and socket wrench is a set I bought in 1970 and bought my first car. I broke the 14 mm socket so it is the only one that has been replaced. Those socket are the ones I use anytime I need just a standard socket and not a deep or SAE socket.

The sockets are a Japanese brand made in Japan.

I've wanted a caliper. spreader vice for a while so I had an old boss pick it up for me when he went back home to Germany. This thing has been used for a ton of stuff besides brakes.

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I forgot...I still have my Craftsman/Sears 1/2" - 3/8" drive socket set, metric & SAE in its original metal box from 1971.
Never replaced any sockets so far...have disassembled both drives for cleaning & lube.
The set has a 1/2" drive 10 mm socket. :eek:

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This was my grandfathers push drill from when he was a carpenter in the 40s & 50s. Great tool to use when I'm repairing some stuff at my buildings.

The vice that I have mounted to my workbench is from my maternal grandfather. It was in his garage from the days I was a little kid.

Many times I have thought about getting a bigger vice but this one is the only tool I got from that grandfather.

I have a wooden tool chest from the other grandfather that my dad used to dig into when he was a little kid. I believe it was from my great grand father. It is made with hand made nails. It was covered in sheet metal long before I was born. It is rather beat up but I got it in that condition. I would love to have an expert look at it and tell me more about it. I doubt it is worth much if any money but I would not sell it anyway.

Pretty much all my tools were bought new around the time I started driving. Dad is hoarding all the good old tools in his shop still!

Probably the oldest tools are in the toolkit in my 944, and that's an '86!

Still have a 'John-Deere' 9/16" double box / starter wrench for removing the inside bolts on early seventies inline diesel 6's. It looks like an exaggerated "S"with 2 different angles on opposing ends. I cannot tell you how many times I have used that in other, almost impossible situations over the many years. I bought it when I was a Junior in high-school, working at the local JD tractor dealer.

If you worked there, you could buy anything (almost) as an employee, get a substantial discount and they would deduct it from your check spread-out over as many weeks as you wanted. I remember working for peanuts and had them split the cost of that wrench over 2 paychecks!

Great grandpa's hammer. It has his initials stamped into it and I've used it for all sorts of things around the house and on the car. Now that I know whose it is I'm a lot more careful with it these days.

The hands that guide the tools. Mine are wore out & no longer have the strength or fine motor skills to guide the replaceable widgets.

Delta Unisaw from 1939/1940. I've since added an outfeed table and Biesemeyer fence.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachme...9&d=1303918817

this is why that puddle beneath the urinals make me angry. we should be much much better and accurate. i've hit a butterfly! flying?

U beat me to the retort.

I have my Grandfather's Mould making tools and box from when he started working for Ford in 1916. Also I have tools that are even older that he aqquired along the way.

Plus I have my Dads wooden machinist chest and tools from Packard when he worked there in the 1930's and 40's.

Then there is the Jap bayonet and prewar style US military machete. Sovenigners from the Pacific in WW2 that possibly came from my Dads cousin who was in the PT Boat squadron with JFK? Those were in Grandfather's work shop.

I have one, too...still in the box.

I have an ancient Makita 10" chopsaw that my brother gave me ages ago. The thing won't die; I've used it for every home improvement project large to small and it just keeps on chugging.

Up until this year it was my air compressor, 1945 WW2 surplus. 160gal lie down tank. Date is stamped on the tank and labeled on the head, made in Canada.
I've had it since the mid eighties, positive the 5hp motor had been replaced, but it was the original head and tank. Last summer it started banging and before I could hit the breaker it tossed a rod. I replaced the head ($500) with a Rollair.

So now all that is left is the tank, I thought about replacing the whole deal but the tank is in the loft and weighs a ton.

What is your oldest and best tool?
 

Out of grand dads machinist tool box from the 30's works great for setting spring height on Porsche heads.

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And his tool box he made with some of the old tools still in it.

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Sent from me

oldest "tool"...kinda
 

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Gandfathers S&W .357 pre-model 28, also called, Highway Patrolman. MFG in 1954.
He was deputized as a reserve Sheriff Deputy during the big flood in No. Calif. in 1956.

1973 911 T MFI Coupe, Aubergine

Steve

I still have some basic pliers from the 80s.
My 30 year old heat gun just died last year.

I don't think I have ever tossed out a tool.
Still have a little hammer that I had from my child's tool box when I was 3.
I actually use it sometimes for tacking very small nails.

Just remembered something else...
 

I've never known a time in my life when this very Nicholson 4-in-hand wasn't part of my dad's toolbox.

I had one of my own, but now I use this one whenever I have a home improvement project bigger than hanging a towel bar. It's not as sharp as it used to be, but it still works fine for removing the rough edges from a sawcut or making a hole just that much bigger or anytime a 4-in-hand is the tool for the job..


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I have my dad's old Weller soldering gun that I still use for anything that needs some serious wattage. It's lousy for semi-conductors but just the ticket for working on old point to point wired stuff and reflowing old ground connections.

Not it, but looks like this one.
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i have the same one..but mine is new and from mexico. :(

all my bastard files are ancient and from the good old USA.

This is my oldest and best tool - at least what it was used for. I retired it some years ago mostly in favor of a heavy duty heat gun. I think my dad had it since maybe the '40s. I had two but gave one to my neighbor. I like looking at it once in a while.

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I remember those...been a long time.
Never used one but my uncle had one.

I was doing some work on my rally car and had to remove the water and oil coolant lines to the turbo. Very tight quarters and couldn't get any sort of wrench on the water line without partially disassembling the turbo. So I went DEEP into the recesses of my tool chest and found an old open-end wrench stamped 'Ford'. It's very thin and has sort of tapered openings. I got it from my Grandpa 30 years ago and forgot about it. Worked perfect and I now keep it in the car's tool kit. Turns out it's a 1917 Ford Model T wrench :eek: My Grandpa was a Ford mechanic.

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