RugerSociety.com

Anyone comment about this: https://rugerforum.net/tavern/370081-who-has-seen.html

Looks to me to be a brake adjustment tool but maybe someone here knows what it is.

Boxwalker had the most reasonable and seemingly knowledgable response. He said "They actually made them for the employees who removed part fixtures to change over the jobs to run different parts. You would put one end between the machine table and the fixture and pry it up so the fixture keys would break loose, like a pry bar."

I was immediately thinking it was a brake spoon or possibly a prybar to separate a tire from a wheel. I didn't know these existed so thank you for adding to my list!

Chuck,
Anything to help out a fellow collector

I tried looking at the tool you mentioned but the site will not let me on to see it.

Here ya go. I copied the photo and it isn't mine.

I showed it to a couple of friends that are retired tool and die makers. They said the same thing. You would use it to pull the jigs and fixtures loose from the machines. Dies are made with slightly relieved angles to allow them to press and sequence. I have some very specific built tools that are only used for one particular job. Many times you will buy an old toolbox and in it you will find unmarked items that were hand built by the original owner for a specific purpose. I have some very tiny hammers that are used to make gaskets. I use them to this day. Thanks for showing me the picture Chuck!

I have some updated information from a gentleman that helped develop and worked with these tools extensively. I need to do some editing of his email and photos but will post this evening on exactly what these are and how they were used.

Alright, here is what I was told about this 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 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 or 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. 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 grooves. 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 the base. Then I sent a picture of the same tool open. That tool makes three parts in one shot of wax.

Very interesting information and great explanation of using the lost wax process. Great pictures.
FT44

Ask Jim Hoobler about that tool. He's had a lot of experience using one.