Offset screwdrivers

[bonneyman]

Don't use offset screwdrivers all the time, but they're readily found, inexpensive, and can be helpful.

A Plomb, Bridgeport, Herbrand, No-name USA-made (but it's magnetic), and a total blank.

[bonneyman]

A Bonney, and 3 ratcheting drivers. Top two are Stanley Yankees, and bottom one is a General bit driver. The Yankees are a bit different, as in both are double tipped with different sizes of the same style (top is standard tip, the other is phillips) rather than the usual one side standard, one side phillips.

[bonneyman]

And a few of my oddities. Top two are BMC Manufacturing, with a ratcheting action of the hex-bit standard tip. You use it as normal, then push the button in until the rounded waist of the hex lets the bit slip backwards. let go of the button, the hex bit slides back into the hex opening ready for another twist.

http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com/2015/09/vanished-tool-makers-bmc-manufacturing.html

Then two phillips only L-offsets.
One is a number 2 (5" long). No name, but has a patent number 2046840 on it.
http://www.datamp.org/patents/displayPatent.php?number=2046840&typeCode=0

The other is like a #5 (12" long), with nothing but a 6 digit number on it. Not really readable - perhaps 688981?

[d42jeep]

Don't use offset screwdrivers all the time, but they're readily found, inexpensive, and can be helpful.

A Plomb, Bridgeport, Herbrand, No-name USA-made (but it's magnetic), and a total blank.

Here is my similar Plomb offset, although it is a little earlier.
-Don

[Uncle Buck]

I too have bought a few offset screwdrivers and have rarely used one, but I do favor the old timers. When you do need one though there is no substitute.

[Plomb-er]

Your no-name is much like mine, marked Made In USA, except that mine is also PWA-1058. Although I have read somewhere that the PWA-1058 was a Billings Spencer product.

[J.A.F.E.]

Here's one that's a little unusual.

[bonneyman]

Your no-name is much like mine, marked Made In USA, except that mine is also PWA-1058. Although I have read somewhere that the PWA-1058 was a Billings Spencer product.

Billings sounds plausible.

I like this particular one as the end with the flat corner bend allows me to use it as a "chisel" of sorts to get under the lip of a bearing cap on a sealed electric motor for access to add oil. One of the things I do during servicing that I know nobody else does except the guy who taught it to me.

[d42jeep]

While attempting to put together a GMTK, one tool that is extremely difficult to find is an 8-1/2" long offset screwdriver. I found one on eBay a couple of years ago but it was in a lot of several offsets. I bought the lot, kept the one I needed and re-listed the rest.
-Don

[Uncle Buck]

Some of the very first tools I bought as a kid around 16 years old were straight and phillips Yankee screwdrivers like those shown above. in the 40 years since I bought them I doubt I have used them more than a few times, but yet they still sit there in my box.

[d42jeep]

I have some Stanley Yankee offsets in my regular toolbox that I use on occasion. Here is a pre Stanley North Bros Yankee driver listed in upper echelon toolsets and a lightly marked PWA one.
-Don