Ah, the Browning MkI and MkIII close combat flame throwers developed for SOE in WWII! The MkI was designed for female operatives, small enough to fit into a handbag. Only drawback – they could never find the damn thing in there.

Throughly enjoying this and looking forwards to each instalment.

Got a French President to assassinate?

Or maybe you just want to hide the fact that you’re making unnecessary journeys.

No problem, respray your car with this simple kit, perfect for jackals and illicit ramblers alike

@Marko I have fond memories of using the Optimus Hiker in the back of a Transit van parked at Les Arc 2000 in winter. All good fun until you forget to put the lid back on after refuelling it (and you’re in a sleeping bag)!

I also had a Soviet knock off that I bought in GUM at the time of Regan / Gorbachoz summit in 1988.

An extra post for Friday evening

The Nottage Hill  went down the sink but I’m happy to report that the Hardy’s has lived up to it’s name and has survived 12 years in a garage and I’m sure has probably almost certainly developed enhanced anti viral properties.

I’m hoping to cover most of the forums favourite subjects on this thread. And what hoover is always popular.So forget your Henrys and your Dysons and join the space age with a Hooverette 2944.

And yes it still works 😊

When we moved into our place the shed was absolutely bare, just a load of old empty kitchen units along the wall for storage.

Hidden in the most inaccessible one, wrapped up discretely was a load of gentlemen’s periodicals from the early 80s.

avdave2

A few of these post have items I remember clearer out of my Grandads sheds. The “jackal spray kit” and the Hooverette. Countless Haynes manuals.

Thanks for posting and keep up the good work.

This is great.
Here’s hoping the garage was full of enough stuff to last for many postings.
Loving that Hoover. I swear they had one of those in the science museum when I went there before Christmas.

Not what I was expecting from the thread title. Lovely, heart warming stuff.
I had a Triumph 2000 (or 4!) mk 2s though. Would’ve loved a Mk1.

Here’s hoping the garage was full of enough stuff to last for many postings

If I run out I’ll start on the stuff from the house, we’ll not run out too soon, don’t worry.

The hoover is fantastic, just great to look at and so reminiscent of it’s time. I’ve been thinking it might lend itself to being converted into a floor lamp.

One for the woodworkers this morning

The brass one needed a lot of polishing to remove decades of tarnish. It’ll probably look better when it dulls down a bit but it was quite therapeutic to spend the time cleaning it.

Oh nice.

The brass infill shoulder plane is probably worth a tidy sum.

What are you intentions with all these things.

Any more woodworking to come?

A great thread! Incidentally, I’ve move into a new place recently with a couple of barns and in one there was this fine vice, any ideas of heritage?

There are things I’ll keep but I’ll try and find a good home for everything else. A good friend of his wants any old rusty tools. She used to look after all the trees in his garden and later when he could no longer do it all his gardening. She was very fond of him so I’ve put aside all the tools for her to go through.

There are some nice old woodworking chisels, haven’t photographed them yet, they are under my floor in one of a large number of boxes! There is other stuff that I think actually belongs in a museum, I’ll post some of that soon.

I like that vice, looks like it’s built to last several lifetimes.

Not something you expect to find stuffed away in plastic bag in a garage draw with a load of old rolls of wallpaper.

Wow – what regiment, and does anyone know the medals?

39-45 star, France and Germany star, Defence medal. Royal Marines Commando on shoulder patches.

46 Royal Marine Commando

We have the original medals as well, they are the 39-45 Star, the France and Germany Star and the Defence Medal

The sleeve crossed rifles

are the marksman badge, Steve was a sniper, in fact the best shot in 9th Commando which later became 46 Commando, we also have the engraved silver teaspoon he won for that achievement.

We have a sniper married into the family. They have a different outlook on life.

Man was an obvious legend. Must have been a pleasure and an honour to know him.

This thread needs the like button.

Like!

@Sandwich

One born into our family. Normal day might be jumping out helicopters into the sea or cross country skiing across the arse end of nowhere in Norway. Not the average desk job.

Wow, do you have a picture of the garage in its entirety? Curious how it looks.

Have you done something to the Imgur links – I can’t see the pics 🙁

I haven’t done anything different with the photos so not sure why it’s not working for you

I didn’t actually take a photo at the beginning, it was only when I suddenly had all this time I thought I’d photograph some of the interesting stuff. The amazing thing was that if he needed you to get something out of there for him he could tell you exactly where it was although it had been a last 3 years since he’d last been able to get to it.

This thread whilst not really being my thing, is really interesting. However, it’s like watching a tv series that’s on weekly, when you want the box set 😀.

This is better than most telly.

I haven’t done anything different with the photos so not sure why it’s not working for you

Realised I was using my work laptop on the work VPN…

Only just had the chance to catch up on this thread but so glad I did.It’s incredible and I bet that jacket could ell some stories.

My mum had one of those hoovers.

You may well find him in one of these:

http://gallery.commandoveterans.org/cdoGallery/v/units/Royal+Marine+Commando+Units/46/

You may well find him in one of these:

X-Troop, second row up far left, taken on the I.O.W shortly before D-Day. I’ll post some pictures of him at the end.

I’m not into military stuff at all, but that jacket (tunic?) is an impressive find. Imagine the places that’s been, things it’s seen…

It probably didn’t actually see any action at all DezB, his first would have been badly damaged when his patrol commander threw a phosphorous grenade too close to him when trying to create a smoke screen to get to him after he’d been shot in the foot and it’s replacement would have fared no better when he’d recovered from that and was hit by shell fire in March 45 as his troop led the Rhine crossing. By the time he’d recovered from that the war was over so he didn’t return to his unit until they were back home.

Oh that blowtorch.

Methylated spirits for ignition.

My Dad had one, and I vaugely remember, that as a young child the blood* thing ignited in his face, and my Mother screaming and wrapping him in wet tea towels.

I don’t know if he went to hospital or what the injuries were, but (much later on), no scarring evident.

ps. Great thread by the way. My kids are going to ask what is all this stuff in Dads workshop – tap, dies, precision marking out tools, measuring instruments, surface table, spanners, power tools, stocks of collected timber, stocks of steel angle (re-cycled metal stillages containing Japanese motorcycles – The dealers just chucked it all out and more.

Warning duly noted drnosh, I’ll not be trying to light up either of them!

Steve obviously loved working on his motorbikes and had kept all these

I love this thread. 🙂
Thank you, @avdave2

Awesome thread!

As I went through everything over many many day days I kept moving  this around without doing anything with it. It looked like something that had been used to test a stamp.Right at the end before I put it in the scrap metal pile for recycling I thought I wonder who AFRS who I assumed were a company formed in 1759.

Well thanks to Google it’s not in the scrap pile and I’m off to buy a beer in a Swedish bar, it should get me at least a pint in Stockholm 😊

It’s not a companies stamp it’s actually Swedish plate money from 1759. This lump weighs 366g but the 10 Daler plate weighed 20kg! It goes back to when Sweden produced most of the world/s copper and wanted a way to control the price of it. It was no surprise to me when I read that Sweden was the first country in the world to produce paper money.

Today it’s the perfect multitool for the Victorian gentleman

The Billings and Spencer pocket screwdriver patented March 18th 1892

That screwdriver needs a feature in the trail pack tools article in the current magazine!