Speaking of hard to service ratchets, here’s a nice early 1930′s, 1/2 ” drive ratchet from Blackhawk mfg co.

The ratchet is gearless and even after looking at the patent drawings I cant figure out how it works or how to dis-assemble it. The little thing on top that looks like a screw isn’t. It’s the button to change directions. Fortunately everything works fine and there’s no need to fix something that isn’t broken.

Here’s a nice old 1/2″ drive ratchet by Indestro mfg co. They were owned by Duro Metal Product corp of Chicago and this model was part of their “Indestro Super” line of tools.

70 years after it was made it is now ‘super’ difficult to perform any kind of maintenance on it because the inner workings are permanently assembled  ( patent number  1,902,878 ). This one didn’t need much. I could feel that the pawl wasn’t fully seating in the gear teeth. I guessed that it was from oil and dirt mixing together and gumming up on the gear. So I sprayed it with this…..

and worked the ratchet both ways and sprayed it again. It’s excellent for dissolving oily crud and seeping into joints frozen by rust. It works much better than WD-40 but smells awful. Graphics on the can show it dissolving a styrofoam cup and I’m pretty sure it will dissolve brain cells too, so I only use it outside.

Anyway, I was right. After several sprayings the ratchet action is clear and tight.

A while back I picked up this old vise by The Charles Parker Co.

http://industrialglenn.com/tools/?p=241

Some things I’ve done to it besides cleaning and lube…

1. Made a new handle for the swivel base. You can see it in the pic above.

2. Re-activate little mechanism in the hub that keeps the handle from sliding down and smashing your fingers.

3. Install makeshift bushing thing where the screw goes into the the sliding jaw. I don’t have a lathe so I just cut some sheet bronze to size instead of making a real bushing. Seems to work just as well. I took the screw out so you can see (pic below).