All About Pocket Knives

Dan, I have seen these called Farm jacks, Hi-Lift jacks (brand name), Jackall (another brand name), Widow-maker Jack, Lift Jack, Tractor Jack, Off Road jack, Jeep Jack, etc. I think mine came out of the same factory in Canada that made the Jackall brand now owned by Maasdam. What was left of the label said 3630 KG, or 4 ton / 8,000 lb lifting capacity. They call it the widow-maker jack because the handle will slap back and knock your head off if you aren't careful with it, and they are just generally famously dangerous. I also would never get under anything lifted up with one of these things. But they are handy when you need one. Somebody wrote: " a great servant, a vicious instructor" about it.

That's a cool old forge, Jimbo, and a nice old compressor, Mumbleypeg.

Mumbleypeg wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 5:06 pm I’ve got three or four old farm jacks around. They’re handy for all sorts of jobs.

That will be a worthwhile project Jimbo. Reminded me of my old shop compressor. The motor and compressor still work great but the tank leaks (too much internal rust) so I’ve retired it. The compressor is a Model A, the label on the tank is dated 1963. Everything made in USA. My son bought me a new Ingersol-Rand to replace it - the tank was made in Mexico, the compressor and motor in China.

Ken
46C9DA6F-13BA-496F-8BCF-98C0A2783563.jpeg

Thanks Ken, Ingersoll rand was always good quality stuff. Now a days it’s hard to tell what good and what ain’t. Most everything is Mexico or china!

Unk wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:16 pm Nice Xcelite kit, Eveled. I think I have one of my dad's old xcelite kits. One of the small sets of screwdrivers. I will dig it out and snap a pic.

Here's an old farm jack I picked up cheap at an estate sale. It was pretty rusty and dirty when I got it home. I ran it through the angle grinder with a wire wheel and the smaller parts on the wire wheel on my bench grinder. It cleaned up nice and works fine. Not crazy about the green color, but I had some leftover cans of Rustoleum "hammered" paint from when I restored my bandsaw a few years ago - so I decided to use what I had.

Best I can tell, the company was American Gage & Mfg Co. based in Wauseon, Ohio, but the jack was made in Canada. I am thinking 1970s or 80s maybe.

Nice Jack unk! Came out lookin good for sure!

Oledadsknives wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 10:45 pm

Mumbleypeg wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 5:06 pm I’ve got three or four old farm jacks around. They’re handy for all sorts of jobs.

That will be a worthwhile project Jimbo. Reminded me of my old shop compressor. The motor and compressor still work great but the tank leaks (too much internal rust) so I’ve retired it. The compressor is a Model A, the label on the tank is dated 1963. Everything made in USA. My son bought me a new Ingersol-Rand to replace it - the tank was made in Mexico, the compressor and motor in China.

Ken
46C9DA6F-13BA-496F-8BCF-98C0A2783563.jpeg

Thanks Ken, Ingersoll rand was always good quality stuff. Now a days it’s hard to tell what good and what ain’t. Most everything is Mexico or china!

I’m planning to salvage as much of the old compressor as possible. It’s all good except the tank. I got it about 25 years ago from an old small town independently owned gas station that went out of business. Somewhere out there is a tank looking for a compressor!

Ken

Yeah, I have a little 1 hp speedaire compressor that has the same problem with the tank. I have a dewalt pancake comp. also and it works great but is noisey as all get out. I prefer the oil comp. For sure. You will find that tank eventually!

At one time I was a air comp mechanic. One safe fix is a lag bolt and a faucet washer. Short bolt large diameter, like a sheet metal screw. With a hex head. Hope this helps.

Here's a set of jackstands that are about 55-60 years old. These were the ones I learned on. Dad just gave them to me and I thought I'd restore them for another 50 or more years of use. I did them one at a time just in case.

Unk wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 7:04 pm I also would never get under anything lifted up with one of these things.

Neither would I. That goes for anything supported solely by a jack.

edgy46 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 3:44 pm At one time I was a air comp mechanic. One safe fix is a lag bolt and a faucet washer. Short bolt large diameter, like a sheet metal screw. With a hex head. Hope this helps.

Thanks, Bill but think I'll scrap the tank anyway.
It's 60 years old and was used heavily for much of that time - it was the compressed air supply at a service station. Not sure how well it was maintained - had a lot of rusty water in it when I got it so it probably wasn't drained as frequently as it should have been. I used it in my shop another 25 years after that. I can get a new 5 gallon tank for about $150 so that's probably the route I'll go. Might take another $30 for new fittings.

Ken

That's the safest thing to do.

I actually have an ultrasound machine that measures the thickness of metal. Just at a pin point, but you can check as many spots as you want. I use it at work to check oil tanks. I should check the tank on my compressor.

If you know an oil guy, he may have the same machine.

Ken, yep, I would go with a new tank.....there are several videos on Youtube about old rusty tanks exploding. It doesn't sound very fun.

My old compressor is a Campbell-Hausfeld from around 1990. It's not really big enough to run any tools, but it will air up tires, run a brad nailer, and blow saw dust off everything in the shop. It is loud enough to wake the dead, and dances all around the shop when it is running, despite putting rubber feet on it. It is made in the USA, with a G.E. motor. But it is old enough that I don't stand very close to it anymore!

Unk wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 1:14 am Ken, yep, I would go with a new tank.....there are several videos on Youtube about old rusty tanks exploding. It doesn't sound very fun.

My old compressor is a Campbell-Hausfeld from around 1990. It's not really big enough to run any tools, but it will air up tires, run a brad nailer, and blow saw dust off everything in the shop. It is loud enough to wake the dead, and dances all around the shop when it is running, despite putting rubber feet on it. It is made in the USA, with a G.E. motor. But it is old enough that I don't stand very close to it anymore!

Anything to do with old tanks under any sort of pressure is fraught with danger.

...air compressor going off.

In the bed of my UTV:

Ken

Ken, it looks like you have something to put the t-posts in the ground with, and something to pull them out!

Unk wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:51 pm Ken, it looks like you have something to put the t-posts in the ground with, and something to pull them out!

The bane of my existence. I prefer to use the front end loader on a tractor though, when I can. There's usually a "come along" (fence stretcher) in there too.

Ken

Templeton, Kenly & Co. "Simplex" A5 15-Ton Toe Jack. Found this one in a barn on a property we leased a few years back.

Needs some cleaning up badly, but I've used it like this for a few years. I prefer the railroad jacks. Almost all of our Simplex stuff is nearing a century old, and still works like the day they made it.

I also need to pick up an appropriately sized piece of square steel to use as a handle.

I bought this nice drawing instrument at last years flea market spree.
The case has a little tab that you pull out to release the top.
You see points and leads for compass being stored in the screw driver and pen.

Made in Germany. Richter .....

Nice Jack, Cody. And that's a beautiful set of drawing instruments, FRJ.

The wife and I hit an estate sale this morning. Picked up a Delta variable speed grinder, and some vintage Stanley items - two squares and a No. 66 beader - along with some misc. tools.

Also a Bridgeport steel handled hatchet. These were used as the Official Boy Scout hatchet for a number of years, but mine does not have the Boy Scout logo. This one was made 1948 to 1960.

The No. 66 beader was made 1886 to 1941. Used to make decorative beading and routing on boards using different cutting / scraping blades.
The adjustable square - a No. 21 - dates to 1921-22 based on the Sweetheart logo.
The No. 12, Type 2, Improved Try Square was made sometime between 1898 and 1984. I will have to remove some more rust to get a little closer on the date. Time for an electrolysis bath!

The Delta grinder is much heavier and runs so much smoother than my old Harbor Freight Central Machinery grinder. I took the wire wheel and grinding wheel off of the CM grinder and put a couple of cotton buffing / polishing wheels on it. The little grinder is much happier with the lighter load, and I now have a dedicated polishing machine.

FRJ wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 1:28 am I bought this nice drawing instrument at last years flea market spree.
The case has a little tab that you pull out to release the top.
You see points and leads for compass being stored in the screw driver and pen.

Made in Germany. Richter .....

When i did mechanical/engineering drawing at school many, many years ago. All the best compass and drawing sets came from Germany, and always in a velvet lined case.

Thank you, Mike.

Thank you, cudgee.

Unk wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:16 pm Nice Xcelite kit, Eveled. I think I have one of my dad's old xcelite kits. One of the small sets of screwdrivers. I will dig it out and snap a pic.

Here's an old farm jack I picked up cheap at an estate sale. It was pretty rusty and dirty when I got it home. I ran it through the angle grinder with a wire wheel and the smaller parts on the wire wheel on my bench grinder. It cleaned up nice and works fine. Not crazy about the green color, but I had some leftover cans of Rustoleum "hammered" paint from when I restored my bandsaw a few years ago - so I decided to use what I had.

Best I can tell, the company was American Gage & Mfg Co. based in Wauseon, Ohio, but the jack was made in Canada. I am thinking 1970s or 80s maybe.

Unk,
When I saw your post about the jack, I felt I needed to share a bit of history about my jack.
When I was a young pup everybody had a Handyman Jack and naturally as I got a bit older I had to have one too. All the ranch trucks and jeeps had one laying in the bed or bolted to the body somewhere. I finally acquired my jack on my 21st birthday ,1967. My wife of almost one year went to the Central Florida Livestock Market on the south side of town and purchased a 42" Handyman Jack. I wanted a 48" but they were out, so she bought the 42". That was many years ago and we still use the same old jack.
A Handyman made a young feller like Superman, you could go most anywhere in the woods and not stay stuck very long! These jacks were a must for a 2-wheel drive pickup truck. Two guys and a little jeep could cross the worst boggy slough if you had the Handyman and a big piece of wood for a base for the jack. If you bogged down, set the jack in the middle of the front or rear bumper, jack it up above the ruts, then have the other feller push the jeep off the jack onto high ground, kind of a balancing act. You might have to do this 2 or 3 times but we always got going again. We soon broke the wooden handle in the jack and replaced it with a big piece of galvanized pipe, flattened to go in the handle socket. Haven't had to replace it again.
As the new wore off the jack it was just tossed in the bed of the truck and retrieved as needed. The rail and the dogs that climb the rail, need a bit of lubrication to work properly, sometimes this was no more than dipping the jack in the creek or ditch water we were stuck in.
There are many uses besides lifting a stuck vehicle out of a bog hole. Naturally if you have a stout bumper, you can lift a vehicle to change a flat tire. With these jacks you can pull, push, lift or spread about anything that is not tied down. My jack had wire clamps on both ends, the top of the rail and at the base where you could grasp barbed wire and stretch it when building fence or repairing a broken wire, a little awkward but doable if that was all that was available.
When I got my 1st Ford 4X4 in 1970, I found the jack was almost too short to lift the truck off the ground to change a flat tire, big tall tires (9.00X16's) but with extra block of timber you can overcome most any difficulty. This old jack has been a great help around the farm, lifting or shifting a heavy implement when hooking to a tractor. We've lifted several small buildings, a corner at a time to level them or even high enough to get a flatbed trailer under them in order to move them.
Handyman was the main name for years and then it became High Lift, they were made in Harrah Mfg. Co in Bloomfield, Indiana. Now this type of jack is by many different companies, some of the newer ones have stamped parts.
Here's a picture of my old Handyman: Treefarmer

Treefarmer, that's a great story and a great old jack! Love stories like this.

Cool old tools, Mike.

Great story, treefarmer.