83GMCK2500
Active Member
My dad and I like to collect vintage tools, he has been at it quite a bit longer than I have but if I see something somewhere I'll try to snag it for the collection.
He recently was given a medium sized tool chest with various tools in it. Most of them are el-cheapo imports and all of them are dirty. I have been going through them this afternoon with some penetrating oil and a wire brush. I'd gotten most of the US made stuff cleaned up, had just picked up a Blackhawk ratchet that was in pretty good shape, just needed a little cleaning and lubing. It has an interesting bullet shape to the handle and the head on it is gearless. My dad has a 3/4" drive set that has a gearless ratchet so I was familiar with it, for those that aren't...google it, it's neat. Instead of the dial that you turn to switch directions there is a button and when you depress it you turn the socket/extension/bit one way or the other. Anyway, back to my discovery, I got it cleaned up and lubed and went to fit a socket to it to try... It looked like it was a 3/8" drive, I grabbed an extension I had nearby...didn't fit, wtf? Grabbed a 1/2" drive, it fell off. WTF??? Wash hands, in house, google the part number, find picture:
Yup that's it, now wtf is it? Part of Blackhawk's 7/16-Drive Tools and Sockets (That's a link to a site with their history)
BENT MY NOODLE!!!
I remember reading about them when I researched my dad's 3/4" drive gearless, but NEVER thought I'd see one.
EDIT: The following is copied from the webpage that I found, in case the link does not open for you.
7/16-Drive Tools and Sockets
Blackhawk's line of 7/16-drive tools was one of their more distinctive products, and no other company is known to have produced tools in this drive size. According to the Blackhawk sales literature, the enabling factor for these tools was the extra strength of the Hexite steel alloy developed by Blackhawk.
By the mid 1930s Blackhawk had developed an alloy steel named "Hexite", and claimed it to be 70% stronger than the typical chromium-vanadium alloys in use. As if to back up their claims, Blackhawk designed a new line of sockets and drive tools with 7/16-drive, and extended the claim that these were as strong as conventional 1/2-drive tools but only slighty larger than the corresponding 3/8-drive tools. With these tools (or so the marketing claim went), the mechanic could dispense with the trouble and expense of maintaining both 3/8- and 1/2-drive sets and go entirely 7/16-drive.
Blackhawk produced a full range of 7/16-drive sockets to go with the drive tools, including shallow, deep, and universal sockets. Since this line of tools was supposed to replace both 3/8- and 1/2-drive, the socket sizes ranged from 5/16 up to 1-1/4, in order to cover the normal size ranges of both the larger and smaller drive sizes.
Dates of Production
The initial production date for the 7/16 drive tools has now been established as early 1938. This date had been somewhat uncertain for a while, but based on the date codes of collected examples, the tool series appeared to have originated in 1937 or early 1938. In particular, all of the known 7/16-drive sockets use the "three-groove" design, which was patented in early 1938. (See design patent #D108,143 for details.)
A recently acquired catalog No. 240 of 1940 provided the missing documentation, as the catalog states that the 7/16 drive line (called "Nuggets" by Blackhawk) was introduced in early 1938. By 1940 a full range of 7/16-drive tools was available, and Blackhawk was heavily promoting the new tools, even to the point of offering a discount for a trade-in of older tools of any make.
Production of the 7/16 drive tools continued until at least the mid 1950s, and possibly longer, as two of the Blackhawk catalogs issued by the New Britain Machine Company (after their acquisition of Blackhawk) still offer 7/16 drive tools. However, the 7/16 drive line had definitely been discontinued by the time of the 1963 W-203 catalog.
He recently was given a medium sized tool chest with various tools in it. Most of them are el-cheapo imports and all of them are dirty. I have been going through them this afternoon with some penetrating oil and a wire brush. I'd gotten most of the US made stuff cleaned up, had just picked up a Blackhawk ratchet that was in pretty good shape, just needed a little cleaning and lubing. It has an interesting bullet shape to the handle and the head on it is gearless. My dad has a 3/4" drive set that has a gearless ratchet so I was familiar with it, for those that aren't...google it, it's neat. Instead of the dial that you turn to switch directions there is a button and when you depress it you turn the socket/extension/bit one way or the other. Anyway, back to my discovery, I got it cleaned up and lubed and went to fit a socket to it to try... It looked like it was a 3/8" drive, I grabbed an extension I had nearby...didn't fit, wtf? Grabbed a 1/2" drive, it fell off. WTF??? Wash hands, in house, google the part number, find picture:
Yup that's it, now wtf is it? Part of Blackhawk's 7/16-Drive Tools and Sockets (That's a link to a site with their history)
BENT MY NOODLE!!!
I remember reading about them when I researched my dad's 3/4" drive gearless, but NEVER thought I'd see one.EDIT: The following is copied from the webpage that I found, in case the link does not open for you.
7/16-Drive Tools and Sockets
Blackhawk's line of 7/16-drive tools was one of their more distinctive products, and no other company is known to have produced tools in this drive size. According to the Blackhawk sales literature, the enabling factor for these tools was the extra strength of the Hexite steel alloy developed by Blackhawk.
By the mid 1930s Blackhawk had developed an alloy steel named "Hexite", and claimed it to be 70% stronger than the typical chromium-vanadium alloys in use. As if to back up their claims, Blackhawk designed a new line of sockets and drive tools with 7/16-drive, and extended the claim that these were as strong as conventional 1/2-drive tools but only slighty larger than the corresponding 3/8-drive tools. With these tools (or so the marketing claim went), the mechanic could dispense with the trouble and expense of maintaining both 3/8- and 1/2-drive sets and go entirely 7/16-drive.
Blackhawk produced a full range of 7/16-drive sockets to go with the drive tools, including shallow, deep, and universal sockets. Since this line of tools was supposed to replace both 3/8- and 1/2-drive, the socket sizes ranged from 5/16 up to 1-1/4, in order to cover the normal size ranges of both the larger and smaller drive sizes.
Dates of Production
The initial production date for the 7/16 drive tools has now been established as early 1938. This date had been somewhat uncertain for a while, but based on the date codes of collected examples, the tool series appeared to have originated in 1937 or early 1938. In particular, all of the known 7/16-drive sockets use the "three-groove" design, which was patented in early 1938. (See design patent #D108,143 for details.)
A recently acquired catalog No. 240 of 1940 provided the missing documentation, as the catalog states that the 7/16 drive line (called "Nuggets" by Blackhawk) was introduced in early 1938. By 1940 a full range of 7/16-drive tools was available, and Blackhawk was heavily promoting the new tools, even to the point of offering a discount for a trade-in of older tools of any make.
Production of the 7/16 drive tools continued until at least the mid 1950s, and possibly longer, as two of the Blackhawk catalogs issued by the New Britain Machine Company (after their acquisition of Blackhawk) still offer 7/16 drive tools. However, the 7/16 drive line had definitely been discontinued by the time of the 1963 W-203 catalog.
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