non-typical tool sizes, and what once was lost is now found
For starters my missing box of cone wrenches and hex/allen wrenches reappeared over the weekend. Lost them over six months ago, didn't know where they went, thought they might have exited the garage via a sticky fingered passerby, and was about to start replacing them. Found them buried in the corner of the basement behind some other stuff. Had some relatives staying with us for six months while they were between homes, nine of them, us two, all tripping over each other in a one bathroom house, but they're gone now. Near as I can tell the box of tools got buried as we were moving things around to make room for them all. But on to other stuff and the reason for this thread....
What non-typical or non-standard tools do you find a need for when working on various older bikes? The reason I'm asking is because I was looking at an older bike yesterday and several of the hex socket head screws and bolts were half-sizes, like as in 5.5mm and maybe a 7 or 7.5mm, and a few others. This one was an English built bike but I don't think they were Whitworth sizes, I'll run a web search in a bit to double check that though. But this got me to thinking what I might want to add to my tool set just to cover more of my bases when working on my own and if I go back to the bike shop this coming summer then what I'll want for working on other people's bikes as well.
I can't say what the bike is just yet for several reasons, let's just say it was a very interesting and educational visit, and it wasn't for me even though it would have been very nice to have if only it fit and if I had the funds for it. I will say however that I do now have a new idea for what I'd like to look for in the future, I'm liking some of the bikes from the 50's and 60's and some older stuff even more now. I also have a better idea of what I'd like to find for a 1955 model year bike, which is something I've been thinking of for some time now.
But, anyway, back to tools and vintage bikes, what tools do you have beyond the standard stuff? My little Alien II multi-wrench met it's match yesterday so now I'm driven to add to my toolbox contents.
Excuse me now while I go look up Whitworth and Metric and Inch and other tool size cross reference lists.
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Last edited by treebound; 01-10-12 at 10:57 AM.
Reason: I seem to be typing to instead of do, oh well