Mystery socket set

[winchman]

Not sure which section to put this in?

As some of you know my son has a strange addiction, he collects Britool tools pre the Blue handle ratchets, so pre 80's ish (He started with just sockets but now will buy a Plastic bag with Britool on it!)
Here is my son's latest purchase its his first Hex drive set for his collection, he bought it as it looks to be complete and we have never seen another.
It looks to be from WW2?
We also wonder what the long spanner type thing is? I wondered if it was a tool kit for a military vehicle?

Found this on line

"Demand for Britool’s products grew between the 2 World Wars; indeed, Britool was the principal supplier of tools to the British armed forces, during the Second World War, supplying over 200 million wrenches, sockets and accessories." 

 

[Gordon_M]

The tool forum on G503 might identify it. 

The lack of chrome suggests WW2, but I'm sure I can see hex drive in there as well as square drive, and that pretty much died out by then.  There's a couple of special twiddly bits in there, so it may well be a specific tool kit for something, but no idea what.

 

Britool were one of the few UK manufacturers to make 9/32" square drive stuff, presumably on contract for the RAF ( as the USAAC and USAAF used a lot of 9/32" drive stuff on aircraft )

[Tony B]

What is the Patent number on the tool? It may take some tracking down but that will tell you what it for.

[Stefan Karlsson]

Do not know if it helps, but we had similar sets in our Centurion ARV's in Sweden, but no box - canvas bags. I suppose the vehicles were complete when they were bought from UK in the 1950's

[winchman]

1 hour ago, Tony B said:

What is the Patent number on the tool? It may take some tracking down but that will tell you what it for.

Cant quite read it 3280076 but not certain?

[winchman]

1 hour ago, Gordon_M said:

The tool forum on G503 might identify it. 

The lack of chrome suggests WW2, but I'm sure I can see hex drive in there as well as square drive, and that pretty much died out by then.  There's a couple of special twiddly bits in there, so it may well be a specific tool kit for something, but no idea what.

 

Britool were one of the few UK manufacturers to make 9/32" square drive stuff, presumably on contract for the RAF ( as the USAAC and USAAF used a lot of 9/32" drive stuff on aircraft )

Thanks will see if I can join, he has a 9/32 set but its missing the ratchet, bought from an aircraft engineer who was retiring, he bought it military surplus when he was a teenager with no ratchet it had a Tipco one with a reducer, I have a scan of the Britool catalogue and they sold sets with and with out ratchets

[ruxy]

It seems that the socket set is what is known as the  .488"  hex drive range , certainly sold by Britool until late 1960's , probably discontinued abt. 1970

I think  .488"  started as a WW2 range,  1/2" square drive took over as more popular - the ratchets & extensions were more or less identical except for the drive.

[winchman]

21 hours ago, ruxy said:

It seems that the socket set is what is known as the  .488"  hex drive range , certainly sold by Britool until late 1960's , probably discontinued abt. 1970

I think  .488"  started as a WW2 range,  1/2" square drive took over as more popular - the ratchets & extensions were more or less identical except for the drive.

We cant find any info on the hex drive?

[ruxy]

Try and find a Britool catalogue from early 1960's ,  a dealer gave me one approx. 1965/1967 but it would be dated a few years earlier.  The  .488" hex. drive is detailed there with various sets.  I still have the catalogue but it would take a bit of finding ,,

Scroll down here :-

http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/Museum/metalware/britool/britool.htm

 

It is the cat. with the coloured front , seems dated  1960.

ISTR  ,  possibly no  1/2" square drive listed then  ?    At the time - as a apprentice I was building up a comprehensive set of  3/8" drive - that were then called  Britool  "AERO" .

I did have some  .488" drive & adaptors to 1/2" drive - that I used with my first 1/2" drive set - a Elora purchased from the pages of Exchange & Mart  at a exhorbitant price but still a fair bit cheaper than Britool.   I remember my elder sister picking up a copy of E&M and throwing it away with the comment  "I don't know what you see in that magazine , it's full of adverts"  LoL