What did you do in your shed / man cave today?

[austastar]

Hi,
   Repco was around in the 60s. I bought a  selection of tools for my FJ Holden and a Roto toolbox cheaper than a similar pre packed kit. Each tool and set was illustrated and priced in a Sidchrome catalogue.
Cheers

Typed with phat fumbs

[Mace]

Hi,
   Repco was around in the 60s. I bought a  selection of tools for my FJ Holden and a Roto toolbox cheaper than a similar pre packed kit. Each tool and set was illustrated and priced in a Sidchrome catalogue.
Cheers

Typed with phat fumbs

They certainly were the place to go back then, more a combination of engineering work provider and provision of home based vehicle  servicing equipment than auto accessories, sound systems, etc as they are now.  My dad also used to buy his sidchrome gear there.   

[austastar]

Hi,
   I wonder if they still sell long and short motors?
I doubt it!
Cheers

Typed with phat fumbs

[Brisbane Puff]

I think Gem exchange engines went the same way as the Holden red engine... Don't think they even covered the later engine blocks.. Was about the same time as the Repco engine factory down at Fortitude Valley closed down..

[Pottsy]

Spent the last couple of days finding out that there is still a workbench under the pile of stuff on top of it!

As part of doing so, I was going through the toolbox full of sockets, spanners & so on, both metric & imperial, (with a lot of both Sidchrome & Dowidat) that were mainly my FiL's, but also some that belonged to my g'father, who was a truckie in the 1920s, 30s & during WW2.

Brain in neutral while doing so, & started to wonder where things would have come from way back when.

These days there's a SuperCheap / Autobarn / Repco / Bunnings on every second corner where you can get tools, but where did people go back then?

So, does anybody remember their Dad / Granddad talking about where they used to get tools from?

Can’t vouch for QLD but having worked in the tool game for over 35 years, these are just some of the major hand tool, engineers supplies, hardware businesses that have disappeared over time in SA, Dicks, Engineers Supplies, Sellers Atkins, PRT, Flint Bros, Flintware, EPTS, Mik International, Futura Machinery, Haselgroves etc.

Now we have copious Total Tools (Metcash Owned) , Sydney Tools, TKD (Bunnings owned) Bunnings.
Blackwood and sons now the major industrial supplies business.

[austastar]

Hi,
    Sidchrome must have had a factory in Melbourne (1960s), 'cause a couple of my shady mates there who moonlighted as cleaners, were sprung with sugar bags of near finished spanners they were flogging to order.
Cheers

Typed with phat fumbs

[Raym]

Remember visiting the Sidchrome factory, in Melbourne,  maybe 71 or 72 during my apprenticeship (blacksmith).

One of the workers had a great outlook on life. His job was to grind off the dags on the ends of the ring spanners after they were drop forged. Had a post set up on the rest of the grinder. Had 44 drums full of the same size spanner to clean up.

When asked if he got bored, his response was oh no I get to do a different size every once in a while.

[lloydus67]

Back in the uk in the eighties, I bought all my professional grade tools from the local tool shop and any cheap rubbish that I needed but wouldn’t use every day came from the pommy equivalent of Bunnings. I think it was called B&Q homemade and is still around in my home town. The local hardware store had long gone even back then.


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