Local Museum donation yard sale find

[moparthug]

My local Museum and Historical Society (Woodville Museum, Rogue River, OR.) has a donations yard sale and fund raider once a year, and this year I was first in the gate!

From top to bottom-
Ford M-40-17017
Herbrand  255 offset single-box brake wrench
Herbrand 2377 deep reach distributor wrench
Proto 216 brake plyers
PWA mystery tool
Proto 6435 (exhaust manifold?)
Snap-On S-8564A (date code 1958)- 1958 to 1962 Lincoln Distributor wrench
Snap-On S9476A (date code 1958)- 1958 to 1970 Chrysler Distributor wrench

The overly pleasant elderly lady working the check-out table thought this was a $5 collection of tools, so I handed her a $20 and said keep the change as a donation to the museum.

The only tool I can't ID is the PWA off set 1/2 drive extension, it's marked with PWA598-1 PWA 607-1, and seems to have an elongated letter O as a forge ID. Is there a part missing off the ring end of this tool, or is it just for a slide through cross bar?

[Papaw]

Our newest member, Cutman, may know about that PWA tool.

[mvwcnews]

Our newest member, Cutman, may know about that PWA tool.

Is is part of an aircraft engine maintenance set (Pratt Whitney Aircraft)? Some of the wrenches for radial engine work took on very strange elongated shapes.

[Cutman]

 Hi guys, as you say it's a half inch extension then my guess is that it's for removing cylinder nuts as they connect to the engine body. Those often took very weird shapes.

We can do a search for that number tool, but as it's a three digit instead of a four digit number I would bet it's for an older  R – 985, instead of an R – 2800, R-2000 or  an  R- 4360.

That's all I got off the cuff, want me to check further?

Best, John

[moparthug]

Hiya John, my big question is about the ring end, is there something missing or was this just for a leverage bar to be put through? The tool shows no sign of the ring end being abused, it's clean and unmolested, I would think if a cross bar was used it would show some signs of use. Aside from that it's my usual OCD kicking in by not knowing exactly what-where-when-why- and how a tool is used. 

[Cutman]

 Hi Mo Parthord,

Will you look to be correct, if you Google PWA 598 to find a reference from the Australian Navy which has the 598 listed. Looks like that slot would take French handle of some sort. Hope that helps, John

[moparthug]

It took some digging to find the link but that was great, thanks for finding that!

[Bill Houghton]

Looks like that slot would take French handle of some sort.

OK, as part of my continuing education program: what's a French handle?

[Cutman]

Oi.  meant WRENCH handle.  D@@@ Autocorrect!

LOL Cutman.

[Bill Houghton]

Oi.  meant WRENCH handle.  D@@@ Autocorrect!

LOL Cutman.

You never know.  I found a reference the other day in some 1907 shopnotes to "Algerian lute," which clearly did NOT mean this:

but rather luting, which is a (perhaps archaic) term for what I was taught to call "acky-pucky," meaning a putty like stuff to stick things together, fill holes, etc.  But Algerian?  Not sure what the Algerians knew in 1907 that made their luting different.