What's INSIDE This 80 Year Old Box is Amazing . The tools that built today.

This week I share one of my most prized tools. This 80 year old DoALL tool chest is one of very few that exist still holding the tools that came in it new.
It isn't 100% complete but boy is it close. Its hard to believe that it survived this long and stayed this good. Inside are the tools that helped build the precision world we live in today.
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[@janderson8401]

My dad started as an apprentice machinist in 1940. After serving in WWII he returned to his old job but the apprenticeship program had changed. Before the war apprentices spent time learning every machine the company used. Some people would then specialize on a particular machine but all of them could be shifted around as needed. After the war apprentices were trained on just one machine, and given that the company already had a reputation for retaining workers, they still had some employees who had worked there since the company was founded in the 1920s, Dad could see the possibility of being stuck operating a surface grinder for the next 20 or 30 years. He threatened to quit and was sent to night school and became a tool designer. I still have his wooden machinist’s tool box, as well as drafting board and drafting tools.

[@jamesconner8275]

I have never seen such parallel lines at that magnification. WOW!!!

[@suzukipilot4773]

Super awesome find! ! ! I've never seen monochromatic light in combination with an optical flat, thank you for sharing, Steve!

[@JonPMeyer]

Very cool stuff, Steve. In a very odd coincidence, those missing gauge blocks were sent to be checked on the same day that my late parents were married in Austin, Texas a few months before my father shipped out to England for service during WWII. It is amazing how many of the tools that you and others like Keith Rucker and Keith Fenner still use were originally made to support the war effort during the 1940's.

[@doug.ritson]

Made at the time the Allies were liberating Paris.

[@rockin355]

I was a machinist at Caterpillar Tractor Co. back in the late 1970's at the Mount Joy Iowa plant (Davenport Ia). Darn now I have told my age. Sure brings back the memories as I had a box just like that one. . Nice truck! I watched all of the episodes of the restoration and enjoyed all. I enjoy all of your shows for that matter. Keep up the good work

[@frijoli9579]

We always called those square bars with the handles "master straight edges"

[@railfan439]

Steve, the basic box could have been made by Gerstner. Pull out the two bottom drawers and check inside, on the bottom of the box. There may be a Gerstner stamp there, indicating the species and manufacture date of the box. Thanks for the video, and GREAT FIND! Jon

[@sethbracken]

What an incredible score. Can’t think of a better guy to get ahold of that.

[@brianmoore1164]

That is fantastic and a great video. Cora the shop dog adopting you and being so obviously crazy about you always makes me smile.

[@chrispfeffer1106]

Wonderful presentation. Love seeing some historical equipment still valid today.

[@jimlebiedz5723]

Cora is such a sweetheart. You for fortunate to have her!

[@ke9tv]

I saw the thumbnail saying, "80 Year Old Machinist's Box," and immediately thought, "Why does Steve have Mr Pete's box?" Then I realized it was the box, not the machinist.

[@SteveSummers]

😄

[@johnridgeway6718]

That's a 10 ! ! ! LOL

[@StephenHunt-yl1zo]

Great to see those old tools and how they were used. It would have been nice to see another 'not so flat' object to see the patterns the optical flats made. Keep up the great videos.

[@budlanctot3060]

Very, very cool. I'd never heard of such a thing as an optical flat, let alone seen it demonstrated. Thank you.

[@Uncleroger1225]

Happy Saturday Steve, Cora, Family, and Grits! Wow what a piece of history and excellence. It amazes me to see the state of technology in past years. I can think of no more proper home than you who will use and appriciate them. Thanks for sharing! God Bless.

[@PSUK]

Morning all from Dorset, 🇬🇧

[@davearthur514]

Great video again, i think you should of shown us the lines when the glass is put on a surface that isn't flat, it would of been nice to see the difference.

[@anemone104]

Wow. Thanks for posting, I've learned stuff. Heard of optical flats but never seen one. Some gauge blocks and surface plates and height gauges were in my Dad's effects but I never saw him use them and didn't know how. I'm an ecologist that messes with machinery - I learned a lot from Dad, but not that. Now I have some clues. Thanks especially for 'valuing' the do-all box and contents in the terms of the time in which it was produced, rather than today's money. I recall bidding on the gauge blocks and height gauges at dispersal auctions on Dad's behalf (far to 'excitable' to bid himself) and remember how pleased he was to get them. Best wishes from the UK.

[@doctwiggenberry5324]

Bless you for taking in that dog. what a wonderful addition to your channel..Where are the tree rats? haven't seen them in a while.

[@geckoproductions4128]

really cool

[@marcusplanlos2037]

Greetings from Germany. I recently discovered your channel and I think it's really great. I am in the process of building a small workshop and am currently learning to use my milling machine and lathe. I hope someday I have a workshop like you.

[@DonDegidio]

Hi Steve, That is an amazing find in such great condition. We use interference lines when making flats for reflecting telescopes. Very tedious work, but rewarding when the lines are straight indicating a very flat surface. You and your family stay safe.

[@scottvolage1752]

It looks like a Gerstner box. You might find a makers mark under the fold down panel if it is and they still make replacement hard ware for all of their boxes if it is. Or you could have them replated or polish them up. Enjoy the rest of the weekend and have a good week to come.

[@termlimit]

Steve that is an incredible find! Not jealous....

[@crocketteerden6240]

I am impressed by the wood maker who crafted the boxes. My Bro. had a wooden tool box that had the same green felt liner

[@TheAyrCaveShop]

Wow ! That's an amazing find, Thanks for sharing Steve !

[@jjbode1]

Way special. Glad you have it!

[@TomokosEnterprize]

OH MY ! What a wonderful piece/pieces. The quality of tools back then was second to none. I can think of no other that can appreciate and care for this set. Measuring with standards always appealed to me. The adrenalin flow when making that last cut is great. Then the result of all that careful measuring and knowing the machine doing the cutting makes for a great day behind you when heading home. Nailing the last finish cut right smack in the middle of the tolerance allowed on the print is another feel good eh. This one was short and sweet but never the less as entertaining as all your posts are. Thankx a bunch my dear friend. See you next time eh.

[@ronwhite6719]

Good morning Steve. Nice piece of inspection tooling history. Looks like Union Tool Chest made chest for other companies, including DoAll. DoAll was one of the first companies to make machinist/toolmaker "gauges" for use with their bandsaws and blades. They offered a complete array of inspection equipment. Very well known at the time for accuracy in the millionths. (Thank you Wikipedia)

[@robinhoff4598]

Great item Steve. Look at the bottom of the interior drawer . Possibly the makers mark or name will be found.

[@gbentley8176]

Fantastic, what a superb set of instruments. Those were the days when not only equipment was precision made but presented in pleasing to the eye cases. The crackle finish was the norm. Took me straight back to teaching young students how to measure the wavelength of light and also to have applications in the science field. That was nearly 60 years ago. Also with applications in high resolution macro photography. Makes me cringe when I handle some stuff today, fresh from the injection-moulded box. Best wishes from a UK dinosaur!!.

[@kuakkacam]

One hell of a find. Those days are long gone when those analogue tools could be made by hand. Bogles my mind the skills back then. Hopefully you'll be able to replace the missing items with a period correct set. I'm sure there's still an old boy out there that has one in the shed.

[@johncarey9149]

That is absolutely stunning. The accuracy, the quality, the history, the condition ... stunning. Thank you very much for sharing Steve

[@staciedziedzic8706]

Hi Steve! OMG! That box is from Minneapolis Minnesota one of my favorite places Ever! I am absolutely going to love this video! Hi to Elizabeth!❤️

[@justryan7109]

Very cool! Thanks for the history lesson Steve! Really really interesting.

[@petermcneill80]

Brilliant what a treasure

[@Hey_Its_That_Guy]

Wow, really nice Steve. Glad it fell into your hands. I have a very, very similar style box that I purchased from a guy. It is full of really nice precision measuring instruments in near perfect condition, mostly Starrett, Brown & Sharpe, and Lufkin.

[@AlmostMachining]

Wow. Amazing set!

[@robertschauer376]

Very cool old war time inspection tools

[@lilianneterrelachesys273]

:) A very piece of History

[@dogshouse1]

What a find! That is some awesome industrial history right there. Also, since it is in such good condition, in the right hands, is still usable and highly accurate today. A little slower than a CMM but hey, probably a lot cheaper. And again, MUCH cooler! Hope your grandkids can use them someday.

[@jamesmorris3175]

That’s a genuine real world treasure chest! Optical flats are fascinating.

[@byron7165]

looking at the materials and construction, I would think Gerstner made those boxes for Do All.

[@Ironman-harmonica]

Very nice Steve

[@ifyoucantjointhem]

Great vid. Love to see a follow-up to know what belongs in the spaces adjacent to where the gauge blocks live in the bottom drawer...

[@mumblbeebee6546]

0:17 is worthy of a special award, how many times did you two have to rehearse to get the “jaw dropping” work so well with her jaws holding onto the stick 😂

[@mesomachines]

This was probably made for the WWII war effort, paid for by all of the sacrifices everyday people made not buying sugar, flour and other items. Nice to see that that sacrifice bought something so incredibly well made (as well as victory) It also highlights the skill and organization of the machinists who made it in Minneapolis.

[@tobiasbostwick9002]

Absolutely fascinating!

[@rexmyers991]

So very interesting. Thanks for the education

[@paulw3182]

Cool Video! Thanks

[@benbateman947]

Very cool!

[@jonathangriffin1120]

What a great score on that old inspection/metrology kit, I can almost smell it! There must have been thousands of those sets produced during WWII when precision engineering was going full tilt, aircraft, vehicles, armaments etc. With all the care taken by DoALL to manufacture and package that equipment it's a pity they spoilt it by miss-spelling 'gauges', still, there was a war on........ All The Best from Somerset, England.

[@UKDrew]

Awesome as Always... That is amazing.Love the History

[@RB-yq7qv]

Amazing bit of kit

[@marcellucassen8033]

I guess you don't know what flat is until you have a master flat 🤔 It is an incredible set and I'm glad you took the time to show us. Luckily, I guess, I never had to use this kind of precision.

[@ColKorn1965]

This box looks to be exactly the same pattern I bought at a swap meet 23 years ago. Mine was made of walnut and full of tools from the 20's

[@johnfriend240]

Steve, please keep that drawer square on the table. The bulk of the weight is off the table. Not to mention Cora liking to put her paws up to see what you're doing!

[@johnkries8189]

cool tools

[@samrodian919]

First again ! Absolutely beautiful case of very fine metrology tools Steve, it's a great pity that the pieces sent out for calibration never got back into their home. I wonder what happened to them? The post man was a metrology freak? Lol you and the family stay safe and look forward to next saturday

[@mdvener]

When I 1st saw it in the opening shot thought it was a Gerstner(not sure of spelling) still really nice and in great condition. Lots of great tools inside. Well kept. A great find. Enjoy, stay safe, n see you next week.

[@waynespyker5731]

The 2 panel till was the give away.

[@kevinmartin7760]

The optical fringes you showed are there because one edge of each flat has been raised a bit, making a wedge of space between the flat and the metal surface. On the second one the edge has been raised more. so there are more fringes (as you observed you can count them, multiply by half the wavelength to find out how much the edge of the flat has been raised. I'm not sure if what is raising one edge is a deliberate feature of each flat (a tiny bump on the rim) or just a speck of dirt you trapped there, but it seems to be rotating with the flat. It is often useful to have such a wedge. Without it the errors in the tested surface will show as a bunch of rings and other contour lines, but without the wedge, you can't tell which side of the contour is the high wide, e.g. if bull-eye rings are a bump or a hollow (or perhaps a hollow with a bump in the middle, or...). By adding a spacer deliberately under one edge you can tell which side of each contour line is the high side.

[@UpLateGeek]

I'm really curious about why those gauge blocks were never returned. The note says where they went, but it's a mystery why they never came back. It's possible they were just too worn out or damaged to be worth returning and they just bought a new set to replace them, or maybe they just got lost in the mail, but we may never know for sure why they weren't returned.

[@mesomachines]

When the war ended, the facility that did the certification probably shut down and everything in it walked away or was auctioned off. The serial number is there, so wouldn't it be cool if the set was reunited some day? It was probably used over the years, so I doubt the condition would match the rest of the set, but the story would be nice.

[@jsteifel]

maybe we should see if they are still there 😛

[@WreckDiver99]

Late 1944...maybe the backlog was such that these were a year out and the war ended and the location shut down. So many things it could have been. Still, what a piece of history.

[@grntitan1]

Excellent score. Color me jealous.

[@WilliamTMusil]

Hiya Steve

[@-sily8203]

Would have been interesting to see the optical flats used on something less flat.

[@williamparry9314]

Those are precision go/no/go gauges. real old school. Nice to see.

[@williamparry9314]

@SteveSummers1- G.F.Y.

[@robertlark7751]

I have used this type equipment when resurfacing the faces of mechanical seals used in pumps in the nuclear power industry.

[@wheelieking71]

I can see Tom Lipton's @oxtoolco spidey-senses pinging off the meter from here! LOL. That is beautiful stuff Steve!

[@briankirton9636]

Im guessing this was used in the manufacture of optical instruments for the war effort. Possibly for bomb sights or optical range finders.

[@MikeKehoe-re8ck]

cool

[@mikemarriam]

Museum quality stuff for sure. I'd up the insurance on the contents of my shop if I were you.

[@madteyahoo]

Comment for the algorithm!

[@stevenlansing7535]

I don’t think the box was built by Gerstner, I haven’t seen one where the sides and back are joined with finger joints. Gerstner box sides are usually finger jointed sides to bottom. I also see at least a few other differences like no Gerstner stamping on the latch. I think someone here said probably made by Union - I think that’s a better guess.

[@scottfoster2487]

This could hve been part of the war effort. Sure a neat old piece of history.

[@ScottHiland]

Neat find, Steve! Is it me or was your audio volume much lower than usual this week?

[@SteveSummers]

Yeah, the low audio is my fault. Sorry about that

[@ScottHiland]

@@SteveSummers We can turn up our headphones or speakers, I just wasn't sure if it was me! Thanks for the content!

[@tdimccullough]

who makes that weather station screen on the bench at the window?

[@lundysden6781]

Great dog! What kind is she?

[@jeremylastname873]

Oh, son of.. ..wow.

[@keithworker8556]

What a fantastic discovery,being a self proclaimed tool junkie that’s like finding the eldurado

[@johnkelly6942]

It would be interesting to know if Gerstner (Dayton, OH) made the wood boxes for DoAll. The way it is detailed is very close to how Gerstner made their boxes. If the drawer bottoms are galvanized steel nailed in place that’s how Gerstner did their bottoms in the 1940’s.

[@sithus1966]

Agreed. The drawer construction is exactly the way Gerstner makes their drawers. By removing the bottom drawer and front cover one could look at the inside bottom of the box to see if their are any markings. Also a e-mail with pictures to Gerstner would be able to confirm that they made it for DoAll.

[@watershedwonders1744]

Hmm, nice gizmo, who knew.

[@dizzolve]

11:08 looks like a cylinder square might go in that bottom right hole

[@kenburner]

I think Tom Lipton might be a bit envious of that kit…

[@oldschool1993]

Apprentice burglar- "Damn, the box is locked" Master burglar- "Just grab the handle and take the whole thing"

[@sithus1966]

I would bet money that Gerstner made that box.

[@sithus1966]

@SteveSummers1- Lets talk about you playing in traffic you scammer.

[@reamer1363]

Now that is impressive. Better hope Adam Savage doesn't see it because he will definitely be Jealous because he loves this sort of thing. I'm Jealous! Thanks for sharing.

[@JoeyG1973]

What does it look like when it isn't flat?

[@johnmcnamara3719]

When the rings were rotated the interference lines rotated with the optical flat. That confused me a little? I would have thought that that indicated the optical flat itself was not perfectly flat. Maybe someone that has used these devices in the metrology lab could clarify this. And yes a treasure chest. What stories old tools can tell. :)

[@evanpenny348]

Not sure about this but I am assuming there is a very slight slope on the metal ring holding the glass reference surface. This is so that an interference pattern of light and dark lines is produced. If I am correct about the slope idea then the pattern of interference lines will rotate with rotation of the reference assembly. Without this slope no interference lines would be seen with a flat work piece. With an un flat work piece the interference pattern would be likely to be hard to interpret, let alone correct for flatness. Would love to play with this stuff a little and find out. As an aside this very slight slope is possibly produced inadvertently, initially, as the assembly is put together, and finessed to produce interference lines with a useful spacing. This is also possibly why there is a correct and an incorrect way up to mount the assembly to the work piece. Could be wrong about all of this.

[@davearthur514]

How come the serial numbers are different? I thought they would all be the same.

[@choosesmoke2769]

steve what happen to your audio...anyway nice score.

[@SteveSummers]

Forgot to boost it in editing😒

[@joeylawn36111]

Nice! 😎 I wonder what the wavelength of the light is. Probably between 520(green) and 590(yellow) nanometers. (I'm slightly color-blind, so I can't tell if that light is green or yellow). Today, LED's would be used. What would be also cool would be to see those optical flats with different color LED's - but they might not work with other wavelengths.

[@randyshoquist7726]

You're right. A short search says 589.3nm for a low pressure sodium light. When I took college physics one of the labs in the optics unit was dealing with interference fringes using just such a setup. Lasers and LEDs weren't yet in common use for that purpose in 1973.

[@joeylawn36111]

@@randyshoquist7726 Thanks for the info. Yeah, a Yellow LED is usually rated at 590 nm.

[@428eliminator3]

The other half of the story? So how, where did you find this? sometimes that's more interesting than the find.

[@andarthome142]

Love your channel, but the sound is to low😢

[@R_Forde]

My only complaint about the video is how quiet it is.

[@wags9777]

" Let me show you these parallels here," the video cuts away to the dog laying parallel to the floor.

[@MrAvjones]

1944, year I was born.

[@jimdorman1550]

I'm a new subscriber, I like watching, but your volume is entirely too low.

[@jsteifel]

nice . Of course, now you are going to have to search out work that requires that flatness and accuracy so you can show how you are using it. And go chasing your tail, or Cora's 😛

[@bwalker4194]

Seems almost alien technology for the times. One possibility of the need for this incredible accuracy might have been in the creation of nuclear weapons.

[@kenthesparky178]

Hi Steve,you didn't mention the rare painted spelling of the word gages instead of the normal spelling gauges . I found this interesting fact. The rarely used word gage means “something, as a glove, thrown down by a medieval knight in token of challenge to combat.” A very nice piece of equipment there . Will you be keeping it in its current condition for future generations to drool over or will you use it as it was meant to be used?

[@randyshoquist7726]

The "gage" spelling is actually very common, and dictionary definitions are often not quite accurate for current technical usages. I've never seen an authoritative definition, but what I've observed from forty years of reading manufacturers' catalogs is this: A dimension, such as wire diameter or sheet metal thickness is spelled "gauge." A measuring device, such as a block or pin is spelled "gage." That gauge/gage spelling convention is pretty consistently held in the metalworking field.