Amongst some 'stuff' I found a Zodix Calculator Wheel No 2 ... a circular slide-rule .... about 8.5cms in diameter ... made in Australia. It calculates resistances in parallel, capacitors in series, capacitance and inductive reactances

Does anyone use these calculator wheels?
Collect them??

Made in Australia!!
Boy you don't hear that anymore!!
Not likely to either now the Tasmanian economy is even beating NSW,,😆😆😆
On the Topic of tools , check out " vessel" tools
Made in Japan!!! I like Japanese tools!
Peter

Pete, I'm not sure where you got that info about TAS from but the NSW economy is the world's 26th largest with a GDP of just under $600bn.

If anyone wants an Australian-made hand tool, Crescent pliers and Lufkin tape measures are still made here and just as goodly as they ever were. It's a shame that the entire electrician's kit isn't made here anymore but I guess that reflects our secondary industry as a whole. All our major retailers want to sell is junk and they are doing it quite well.

Haven't seen a circular slide rule for ages. I still have three common straight ones: Two have instruction books, the other just says is a "Japan", which is of no help. Handy as the batteries are never flat when you want to use them.

You will find Slide rule collectors & I copied & sent the instruction sheet of the Farber-Castell to him.

On the news, out of all the states the Vic economy is the best and NSW is now in 3rd place and only 4 years ago it was in first place

Cresent pliers are now made in china unfortunately.
This week I was looking at them at Bunnings and total tools, the pliers use to be made here as I have a old pair , but not now.
Pete

If they are made in China, that change must have happened recently, say, in the last six months or so. If they aren't just importing to meet demand it is disappointing and the quality isn't likely to be the same.

On that last note, the only tools that were made here that are still of similar quality would be Stanley screwdrivers. The handles are still tough enough for them to be used as chisels, sometimes a necessary evil in the electrical trade. The Stanley Works had a fairly large factory in Balmain and I remember it well. It's gone now of course - I am not sure what they did with the land but if someone said a block of flats was built on it I wouldn't be one bit surprised.

With regard to state economies, I wouldn't take much out of what appears on the news. There's various economic indicators to show that NSW is the best performing state. We were last in 2011 but first now. I've already mentioned GDP though unemployment across NSW is only 3.8% and more rural jobs were created in NSW this year than all other states combined - an issue debated in Question Time this week. It's 40,000 for NSW and 5,000 for everywhere else. NSW also leads by far with dam building and urban renewal and is the only state with no nett government debt.

Mind you, I'm not keen on an interstate rivalry here. I wish the other states were doing better. When the states compete and all do well, then it can only be better for the country.

I'll also be contributing a few bob to the Victorian economy this coming weekend and looking forward to it too. No prizes for guessing how and why.

EDIT: If there's some Aussie made Crescent pliers around still, I might buy another five pairs - they should help me see out my career without needing to downgrade to the Chinese-made ones.

Yep, if you see them buy them, because total tools and 3 Bunnings stores I went too, Cresent pliers are now made in china !
But they use to be made here and were great.
I did spot some new range of pliers made by Stanley that were excellent and that new series is made in France.
These are not available at Bunnings, but Dulux or Mitre 10 have them. Pete

QUOTE: Made in Australia!!
Boy you don't hear that anymore!!

One should have a look at the new Tesla Car Assembly plant. Build apparently started January and is now at the point of doing test runs to fine tune the machinery (lots of Robots). Ok that's about ten months to build one of the biggest assembly plants in the world.

Big eye opener....Never happen here.... Output will likely be bigger than anything Henry Ford dreamed of.

We cant even build a modern NBN /Mobile communications system over several years, which works. Telstra mobile signal here has been pathetic since day one. Phone cannot even get 4G. I was told by Optus that they are dumping NBN locally as aside from the percentage using it 66% of their traffic is complaints about it.

This is how you get rid of rubbish. If you have dodgy goods you take them back to point of sale. That ties up a sales person, hopefully several, the result of that will be that they will get rid of the product, like the battery story recently, as they are paying people to sell, not waste selling time dealing with people like you, who are not buying anything. .

Marc

I have an ancient side cutter made by "Berg" and model type "Piano" engraved on them.
You can cut through anything , wire, nail , bolt, soft or hard so long as you are strong enough!
The jaws are as hard as hell and don't nick or buckle.
Not like the flashy big side cutter I was given with some dad tools, I tried to cut a 3/16 bolt with it and the bolt sank into the jaws!
I threw them across the workshop and they disappeared forever under a bench.

Reminds me now, I bought a set of Siddons "Sidchrome" spanners way back in the 1960's from Blackwoods in Sydney.
Walked across the street back to the workshop, grabbed the 1/2" ring, did up a bolt and the spanner bent!
Walked back across the street, fronted the counter, threw the box down and asked why?
Rep behind counter disbelieved, so I grabbed one of the smaller ones stuck it in the display vyce and bent it into a U shape!
Turns out there was a heat treat phase missed and the spanners were still mild steel.
(I thought they were supposed to be "chrome vanadium").
Probably just like what you buy from china now!
Yes Blackwoods replaced the set with a good one, much hilarity in Blackwoods with bent spanners hanging out of the display like leaves on a tree, until the Siddons rep came and removed it all.
Fred.

Farms got some old stuff that's been passed on. Still have some of Grandad's saws (carpenter) 1920s Disston {?) etc.

Die stock & some dies 1911 Starrett. Transit Level (repaired) 1914.

Valve & circuit tester (overhauled) circa 1938

Chainsaw 1975

Several wrenches pre war.

Amazing what has survived with a bit of TLC.

Ute 1958; Tractor 1951 out of service under repair. Blew head gasket & needs a general tidy up.

Marc

Most of my tools are German or Japanese,
The reason I use them for all these years are , quality and application.
Tools such as sidchrome are good if you work on tractors and farm projects ,but if you work on motorcycles and cars you need a finer shape and design to get in there.
The Japanese make finer bone tools without losing quality and so for me they have been my choice for many many years,
Now Germans love to over engineer everything so for heavy work I use them.
Not sure how the be beetle missed out on over engineering ,but they are still going .
It really depends on what type of work you intend to do with the tools that decides what's best to buy for you, plus a lot of blokes just love tools and I'm one of them.

Pete

Some times you just have to, or decide to custom make one to do a specific job anyway. Tow balls are a pain at times especially where you have rough roads. To get a decent torque, I actually made a wrench just for the ute, albeit it does move around the other three. It has a tear drop shaped head and a handle around a foot long, of 5/8" rod.

To discourage the ball from unscrewing the spacer to raise the ball height is dowelled so that neither the spacer or ball can move. The nut has to actually come substantially loose for that to happen &, by that time one should have picked up on that by the noise.

One particular diesel tractor engine has long head studs that has two different diameters the top section used to hold down injectors and rockers, depending which part of the pattern its in. Pain as that top stuff has to be removed to tighten the head. For that one need "special tool" X long. So one with the aid of a Lathe & Arc welder and some impact sockets, one makes a "special tool" length X.

I have a couple of pipe wrenches here that I have managed to bend.

Marc

Marcc,
How much land do you have?
What do you use it for or Run on it?
I have a friend who is now 89 years young and he runs a cattle farm in the Hunter.
For years I would go up there and he would teach me about beasts! Haha and I would fix all his farm machinery.
We get along very well and so I just like to fix his stuff and be up there.
Years ago I had a accident and when I got out of hospital I wanted to drop out of Sydney so I rented a 1000 acre property in Tassie for one year to just get out of the rat race until I regained my health, I only had 5 chooks and 2 dogs on a 1000 acres. Haha.oh plus to rotten Tasmanian devils that lived in the shed, nasty horrible rotten things they were! Anti social creatures , pete

I recently downsized from around 279 acres as health & age were catching up & rebuilt on the block we have had since the 1870's. Due to the weather I am only running a few steers on it. Last year I destocked as I was running low on water.

The Black snakes make good pets, had one in the workshop & she would curl up in her nest & keep an eye on things.

With the drought conditions one gets lots of larder love & seem to be supporting several families, who arrive on the doorstep with the new family. Baby Butcher Bird has not quite got the handle on things: Last time it was snow dropping two socks & hanging them in the Banksia. The effort with a bit of bread was hilarious & it ended up with one of the two Magpies also taking it in: Today its a garden glove?

I tend to get involved in fixing the odd bit of farm machinery. Thanks to Telstra contractors I had to Blacksmith the Harrows tynes a while back. Currently plodding through Fergy as it blew the head gasket at nr 4. As it has not been majored for 34 years, there are a few issues that need tidying up. Still have to go spend a large part of a day, re-tightening the head on an MF35.

Supplied a new second hand motor for one of the Mens Shed Lathes (Metal) & will probably need to sort the wiring & help adapt it.

Marc