Help identifying sockets

[AMT]

My father in law moved into a retirement community and decided that we was not going to bring is toolbox and tools with him, so he gave them to me.

I am going through everything to see what there is. I am absolutely stumped when it comes to his socket set. Below are pictures of the sockets he had, taken with Craftsmen sockets that I have.

His sockets are marked with sizes, but the sizes are no where near what "common" sockets are. His sockets are marked with the size and "WHIT" next to it. He also has a few other socket that are marked "GORDON" that do not match "common" Craftsman sizes, but they do match the "WHIT" marked sockets.

Any help in identifying these, and help in explaining the sizes, would be greatly appreciated.

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[Member 34319]

They are British Whitworth.

 

[bbbass]

They're huge!

What kind of work did he do? The last time I saw something like those, it was a millwright...

 

[deadeye]

Better go buy ya a british sporty car

 

[AMT]

He was actually he was a design engineer in the automotive industry. These were his personal tools sets. He's got quite a few "old school" tools that I am going to mount onto cedar boards and put them on display in my shop.

Yes, he is originally from England, and has many tools that are marked "English" or "British".

(Thank you Reno. )

Maybe I didn't pose my question well enough..... why are they marked (for example) 3/16", but they are so much larger than "American" (or "standard" SAE) size?

 

[2A2Dend]

Impact Sockets ~vs~ hand tool sockets

 

[Lilhigbee]

Normal tools throughout the world are marked with the size of hex they fit, Whitworth are marked by the thread size of the bolt or nut they fit. Also they use larger-for-thread-size heads than the rest of the world. Whitworth is actually the first standardized thread form (1841) and is a superior design as far as strength is concerned over the current US and metric threads. It fell from favor in the 1930s-40s, but is still in use occasionally.

 

[Mike_M57]

I've never seen a set of British tools, or heard of Whitworth threads before. Pretty interesting. I found this tidbit in a search:

"Whitworth threads were introduced in the 1800s and are refered to as BSW for British Standard Whitworth. A finer thread was introduced and called British Standard Fine (BSF). AF was introduced much later and refers to Across Flats and was related to UNC(universal national coarse) and UNF(universal national fine) threads in the USA A 1/2 inch Whitworth socket is for a nut that fits on a 1/2 inch diameter thread, and is usually 1.5 times the diameter of the screwed rod across the flats of the nut. A 1/2 inch AF socket fits on a nut which is 1/2 inch across the flats and could be a much smaller threadsize. "

 

[madmax]

Edit: Never post when not fully awake

 

[Mikej]

Had my first experience with "Whitworth" when I worked as a wrench in a Honda cycle shop. Someone brought is some old BSA motorcycles for work from time to tiem. I didn't get the job as I didn't have a whitworth set. Don't recall if you can get by with SAE or metric though. That is, as long as your not dealing with high torque values.

 

[Member 34319]

He was actually he was a design engineer in the automotive industry. These were his personal tools sets. He's got quite a few "old school" tools that I am going to mount onto cedar boards and put them on display in my shop.

Yes, he is originally from England, and has many tools that are marked "English" or "British".

(Thank you Reno. )

Maybe I didn't pose my question well enough..... why are they marked (for example) 3/16", but they are so much larger than "American" (or "standard" SAE) size?

They are 3/16 of a measurement based on the Witworth measuring system.

If metrics used fractions, which they sort of do but have a name fir it, they would be way different in size than fractions of a standard set.

Think MOA vs MIL 1" vs roughly 3". Different measurements. 1/10 mil would be bigger than 1/10 moa.