RugerSociety.com

First for me too, but that's what's great about Ruger collecting - you never know what's out there. Thanks for sharing, any idea year it was made?
Bennett

Scoot, I have a few of these somewhere that I got from Jim Hoobler who worked at the Investment Casting plant. A few years back I purchased his entire Ruger golf collection which was very extensive. I believe that I have more Ruger Golf clubs and heads including a lot of prototype heads and shafts that many have never seen. I have these in all stages of production from start to finish and believe that I have the best and most complete Ruger Golf collection in existence. It took me some time to get Jim paid off but managed to do so. I've never even played golf!

Here is the story and I wish to thank Jim for all the knowledge and memorabilia he has helped me to obtain over the years.

"OK I have a little time now so will try to tell you about making the tool.

Back in Prescott, the wax room used brake tools from various stores to open a wax injection tool. There is a slot on two sides of the tooling that a screwdriver or something similar is inserted and the top lifted from the bottom. In the middle of the tool is the wax pattern that will be

Hot assembled to a wax tree. The tree is then coated with a material several times and after it is hard the wax is melted out of the hard coat and metal poured in. This is the same step for any metal such as aluminum, brass, bronze, steel, or titanium. Then the coat is broken off and the metal parts are cut off and finished.

So the history on the Ruger Investment brake tools is once Sturm Ruger’s titanium foundry in Prescott ( Ruger Investment Casting) got into the golf club business there were two shifts of employees in the wax room making wax patterns of golf clubs.

The brake tools purchased would chip, bend if a tool was hard to open. Some probably walked away. We had a toolmaker make a wax injection tool so we could make our own waxes. I had our name put on the tool since we were using them. I am sure some walked away.

I had some I used when traveling to shows to show how we could cast lettering. The foundry was closed and tools no longer were needed.


The picture I sent you of the closed tooling, not a Ruger tool, shows the hole in the metal where the warm wax is injected and the wax flown to the machined groves. I put an arrow to show where the brake tool would be inserted and there is the same on the other side.

Pushing down on the brake tool would lift the aluminum top off of the base. Then I sent a picture of the same tool open. That tool makes three parts in one shot of wax.

Hope I might have taught you something useful. Never hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Jim"

The first scan is in PDF form and I do not have the ability to convert it. If some tech-savvy member could help me do that and post it here I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, you'll need Adobe to open that one which is of the mold closed and shows the slot where the brake tool would be inserted.

What a coincidence. I’m in awe. It’s weirdest thing ever 100% true story ask Jim Hoobler. I get a phone call yesterday from gentleman looking for wine to order. He got wrong number. When I saw your post you mentioned a Jim Hoobler. I’m like I know that name. Then it dawned on me that it was the gentleman that called yesterday but he had called wrong number. So I insisted maybe he did mean to call me so I called him and what a great guy. I talked to him for 20 min or so. Learned a lot.

A Big Buckey welcome! I knew many of the factory people over the years including Lyle Paterson. I used to call him several times a year. He was a wealth of Ruger information on Bill's car collection and different Ruger projects. Looking forward to seeing more of your collection!

That brake tool came from Steve Houle. He had an amazing collection that I purchased. I’m working on more photos later on today.

Hello and welcome from Indiana!

Small type buckle maybe a prototype. Does anyone know anything about these

2 different type boxes. Approx 4” X 5” both open up. Very cool