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My mate showed me this soldering iron that he was given 20 years ago by an old man in his village. The story goes that when the old man was a boy he took it out of the tool box of a crashed German plan that had come down near the village. We are going to try to find out more about the plane and crash site. Anybody got any comments?

Don't forget that before the Germans pinched it, this symbol was an ancient mark of good fortune, used by all sorts of people and civilisations around the world for thousands of years and was even the official symbol of the National War Savings Committee in Britain during WW1.

I was wondering if they stamped the swastica on all their equipment in the same way we stamped the crows foot on ours

I'd have expected an eagle mark and why on earth would anyone take a soldering iron that needed a hearth to use it, up in an aircraft with them ?

The mark looks off-centre and home-engraved. I'd be more inclined to suspect a nasty little schoolboy who pretended to be branding non-aryans behind the bicycle sheds....

If it looks factory produced then you could measure it to see if it's based on metric or imperial dimensions.

Rik, I had wondered why about the weight and need for an hearth. The swastica has been stamped or punched on as the bit is dished in around that area.

Pete, a 'Google' may have thrown up the answer...Try looking up 'Buffum Tool Company' ....it appears that that they were a US hand tool maker who used the symbol in the earlier part of the 20th Century.

That's all making more sense now Rik. The iron belongs to Tony (with the Commando and ES2, you have met him at Norton rallies, and we will be at the Begonia next week.) He lives in Northampton shire which has many WW2 USA airfield around there which is probably where it came from..
The rest of the story is probably a mixture of forgetfulness or just the spinning of a good story by the man who gave it to Tony

Well done Rik
This is a photo of their white metal bearing scraper you can clearly see the swastika.
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And of course a soldering iron would never have been carried on a plane, or any other tools probably. You couldn't really get out mid flight to fix something

Now there's a lost art...I spent a lot of time learning to be a competent scraper during my apprenticeship...Starting with making all my scrapers from worn out old files and ending up scraping tapered bores etc. and trying to perfect the 'herringbone finish'....

I still have some of those scrapers I made in my toolbox...Essential pieces of kit for any toolmaker/fitter....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Found this engineer's knife edge in Beaulieu a couple of years ago. It was only when I got home that I realised that it had some history... The Heer marking means that it comes from the German army, and the eagle with the little swastica is the equivalent of the British broad arrow.

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Jan

email (option): wd.register@gmail.com

Due to the flashlight reflection it's a bit difficult to see, but the eagle symbol is followed by WaA42. And here's another similar marking, WaA163, on a BMW engine.

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Looks a bit like these British acceptance markings doesn't it? (a broad arrow over a letter M over the number of an inspector).

Jan

email (option): wd.register@gmail.com

Isn't Google wonderful?

WaA Stempel
Auf nahezu allen Ausrüstungsgegenständen, die an die Wehrmacht geliefert wurden, findet man den WaA- Stempel. WaA bedeutet „Waffenabnahme-Amt“. Dies war eine Prüf- und Abnahme Organisation für Waffen und Gerät. Ausrüstung, die überprüft und abgenommen wurde, erhielt einen kleinen Stempel, der neben der Buchstabenkombination „WaA“ einen kleinen Reichsadler zeigt.

Source: http://www.dkw-nz.net/cms/upload/img_pdf_downloads/markings%20on%20DKW%20NZ350-d.pdf

Jan

email (option): wd.register@gmail.com