Long Beach Car Swap Meet, Part 2 -- Sunday, February 14, 2016

Tools purchased at the Long Beach Swap Meet -- After "cleaning up."

The pictures below show the before & after cleaning, item by item...

Ring pliers are a rarely used tool but when you need one...

Pretty corroded but it's a "Whitworth" wrench (probably part of an old Triumph motorcycle tool kit)...

I especially like tools marked "Los Angeles"

From a Honda motorcycle tool kit...  Very large size...

Didn't know anything about this brand/company.  Looking it up, it appears to be an old German company basically in refrigeration...  It's currently a pretty large corporation with 65,000 employees world wide...

I know this brand from other tools that are made to be part of the tool kit that comes with the car for Mercedes and BMW...  This tool is really nicely made...

This is a really big breaker bar (1/2 inch), about 14 inches long...

This is the valve cover for the 1980's Maserati BiTurbo cars...  The cars were not well regarded but this is still a very cool casting with the Maserati logo.  Need to repaint it with wrinkle finish paint...

This thing is huge and heavy.  It looked terrible when I bought it but cleaned up really nice...  Looks like it might have originally been closed & someone may have cut it open for access...  Might fit on something on a bicycle...  There's supposed to be a 3 foot long extension tube/handle!!!

This is a huge wrench...

Manhattan Beach Pier -- Saturday, February 20, 2016

Old Tool Swap Meet (at Andersen Plywood in Culver City)

Yet another tool box...  This one is actually in near new condition (the few scratches in the picture are actually superficial and the paint condition overall is very good...)

Looks like a Kennedy box but is labeled as "LUMIDOR" and says Los Angeles California...  Based on some seaching, this company appears to have started in the 1940s and was based in LA.  It mainly supplied tool boxes for Sears (under the Craftsman label) but also sold tool boxes with it's own branding...

I'm guessing there must be a connection to Kennedy Tool boxes because the design of this box is so very similar (almost identical) to the Kennedy boxes...

Bought this "plank" of Walnut wood...  It's about three feet long and about a foot wide with one raw bark edge. It's about two inches thick.  It could be made into a table or a bench or ?  With a little sanding and a light coat of oil, it would look pretty attractive...  Certainly would be sturdy...

This is a very small card ( about 1 x 2 inches).  Very nicely lithographed in Canada...

Can never have too many feeler gauges...  Especially ones made in Lancaster PA...

German brand (Stahlwille)...  7 mm Allen socket.

I think this might be an old pickup truck gas cap...

Spoke Wrench with 8 sizes... could be very handy...
No markings at all (manufacturer or location...) so I suspect NOT made in the USA...

Craftsman socket.  Interesting idea of putting a plastic sleeve at the bottom of the socket for making the size and also for easier turning of the socket by hand...  But I wonder how easily it could be damaged or fall off...

New Front Derailleur -- Shimano Ultegra FD-6700 -- From the Whittier Bicycle Swap Meet

NOS Shimano Ultegra front derailleur FD-6700 for 10 speed setup (Ultegra is second to the top of the line for Shimano.  Top of the line is called DuraAce...).  The front derailleur on the bike I ride is corroding due to the pretty severe salt environment along the beach...  Still works OK but may not function well for too long so this is a potential replacement...  Don't really need it yet...

If you look closely at the castings and the finish, it's incredibly well made.  The individual pieces are like works of mechanical art.  The only piece that's not super nice is the chain guide (not that it's not nice but the cast pieces are so much nicer...).  Considering how functional (the tolerances in the moving joints is phenomenal...  everything moves/pivots with nearly zero slop...), reliable and durable this is, it's a pretty much the highest level of mechanical engineering achievement, for the masses...

Bike ride to Marina Del Rey on Valentines Day -- Sunday, February 14, 2016

A particularly beautiful day... (not super hot like the next day...)  

Original GT40 Brochure