‘War Department’ (arrow) Marking

[Guy LambParticipant @guylamb68056]

Interesting thread. I too have a lot of tools so marked and was lead to believe the 'broad arrow' was used due to the fact that it was easily reproduced with three strokes of a hammer and chisel.

Guy

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Posted by Guy Lamb on 15/04/2019 08:18:02:

Interesting thread. I too have a lot of tools so marked and was lead to believe the 'broad arrow' was used due to the fact that it was easily reproduced with three strokes of a hammer and chisel.

Guy

Some of the marks I have seen look as though they have been produced by exactly that method, I wondered whether that was the case as a chisel can usually be found but a broad arrow punch is a bit harder to find.

Mike

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

A bonus reference, just found at para 10.3 of this: **LINK**

ftp://ftp.iks-jena.de/mitarb/lutz/standards/dstan/81/091/00000100.pdf

MichaelG.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 15/04/2019 09:05:55:

A bonus reference, just found at para 10.3 of this: **LINK**

ftp://ftp.iks-jena.de/mitarb/lutz/standards/dstan/81/091/00000100.pdf

MichaelG.

Another enjoyable breakfast read from Michael. I see requirements for High Pressure Cylinders include:

'Albeit with some damage' reminded me V-Bomber aircrew were issued with eye-patches. These were worn in expectation that nuclear weapons would be exploding over Europe whilst they were en-route to their target in the Soviet Union. If the flash blinded the pilot, he would be able to carry on using his other eye…

The Def Stan also gives the correct name for the Government Broad Arrow – it's a Pheon.

Dave

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

There are recognisable stylistic tendencies of Broad Arrow varying by period.

Victorian may sometimes have recurved barbs, as often visible on C19 firearms.

That style tended to become replaced by 3 converging tapered wedges – you see this on Ordnance Survey benchmarking on summits later topped by trig points, and late Victorian to WW1 military items , tools and instruments.

The 3 chisel-scrape version of the Broad Arrow tends to be more modern – WW2 and later.

Plus there were variants for the Empire – for example, a Broad Arrow surrounded by a 'C' or a 'U', or with an 'I' in subscript indicated Canada, Union of South Africa and India respectively.

I believe it's an offence to fake it, but that doesn't stop (for example) recently-made 'repro' telescopes and binoculars with arrow-like symbols on them appearing regularly on the Bay. I think most of these originate from the prolific brassworks of the northern Indian subcontinent.

[Phil WhitleyParticipant @philwhitley94135]

Lots of history here, it is VERY old! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_arrow

[Brian GParticipant @briang]

I'm always amused by MOD issue 13-amp plugs, which have an arrow on them to show which way up they go

In the workshop I have a set of metric spanners, feeler, screw and radius gauges issued to my father in the 70s. All marked with the crow's foot (the story passed down in legend within the Dockyard was that Samuel Pepys based the mark on a bird's footprint in the snow whilst trying to reduce theft) but accompanied by a letter saying they were issued as his personal property. This was done as part of metrication as fitters had been expected to buy their own tools, and all their BS/UN tools were becoming obsolete.

Brian

[John Hall 7Participant @johnhall7]

Anyone know what the ME stands for?

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Whilst there is much to be said for the index-friendly noun-adjective-adjective system, item names did not like to change too rapidly, either in the MoD or the Post Office Telephones in which I was an apprentice (didn't complete it).

For the example that first alerted me to this nomenclatural caution, a Valve, Electronic 0C71 was what everyone else, including its own manufacturer, called a Transistor, OC71.

'''

In the 1980s I worked for a small electronics company whose customers included the Senior Service. It obtained a contract to service examples of a sizeable lump of ship-borne maintenance kit in a gloss-turquoise, ammunition-box style case. The control-panel bore a label, "Some threads may be Unified" – the rest were all BA – so they were not very old.

The instrument itself was designated Test Set ASDIC Patt. xxx NSN-xxx-99-yyy-zzz etc.

I learnt later that the MoD and Royal Navy had replaced their own acronym ASDIC with the Americanism Sonar many years previously.

'''

I remarked to one of the Inspectors on the obvious ruggedness of the Test Set, ASDIC. An ex-Navy man himself, he explained equipment like that has to withstand shot, shell, storm…. and Jolly Jack Tar.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

All my school pencils and rubbers and rulers had "property of HM Government" stamped on them

courtesy of the GPO

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

I have a combination set marked Ministry of Supply. This CWC army watch with arrow.

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Posted by Ady1 on 10/11/2020 23:44:52:

All my school pencils and rubbers and rulers had "property of HM Government" stamped on them

courtesy of the GPO

all my GPO stuff was marked S O

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

On the naming topic, when I worked at Post Office Research we wanted small coil formers to make some RF filters. No way could we find anything suitable in the "Rate Book" or the Research stores catalogue. Eventually we discovered that when cataloguing they first care across some funny little screws, like grub screws but sintered out of magnetic dust, and intended for use as inductor cores – so they called them "cores, dust". When they later came to the actual coil formers, plastic mouldings into which the cores screwed, they decided to call them "mounting, cores, dust". I doubt they had many people booking them out of stores until we found this out!

Then there was the thing with screw terminals, usually two to a small metal block, with several moulded into a bit of plastic. Of course everyone called them "terminal blocks" so they were catalogued as "block, terminal" and came to be universally known as "block terminals" to the puzzlement of every new recruit. Of course they should them have been reclassified as "terminal, block"….

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by BOB BLACKSHAW on 11/11/2020 10:10:49:

I have a combination set marked Ministry of Supply. This CWC army watch with arrow.

An expert in military supply could date that watch fairly accurately.

Pre-ww2 items have pattern numbers, where a physical pattern was kept for manufacturers to copy. Later actual patterns became rare, so the numbers became stock numbers, used to identify types of item, not necessarily made to a pattern.

MoS numbers run from WW2 into the 1960s and are broadly tri-service. When the MoS was shutdown, most items were transferred to the MoD and reclassified with NATO numbers by one of the 3 services.

0555 is a Naval Class Group, indicating the watch was ordered by Naval Logistics rather than the Army or RAF. Later, the leading zero of 0555 was changed to an alphabetic 'O' to be consistent with the alpha classes used by the RAF and Army. But the watch also has a full NATO stock number, indicating it comes from the time when military logistics were going tri-service, but the three services were still semi-independent. It's an Army watch bought by the Navy, and probably used by the RAF as well. 99 means it's British.

I suspect a watch bought by the Defence Procurement Agency today would only have a NATO stock number on it, or maybe nothing at all. The US DoD discovered it cost them $140 to have a $10 toilet seat marked up with its NATO stock number!

The need to mark items was a painful wartime lesson, and saving money by removing them may be an unwise peacetime economy. Unmarked items cause chaos when work needs to be done in a hurry, as in the middle of military operation. Serious problem when assets can't be repaired quickly because fittings can't be identified.

Dave

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

The "Rate Book". Now that brings back memories. I wonder if they still use it, although it's probably been computerised by now.

And what about "81's". What were they?

Peter G. Shaw

[John Hall 7Participant @johnhall7]

81s…they were snipe or long nosed pliers used for wiiring…A GPO…part number…I still have mine..👍

[John Hall 7Participant @johnhall7]

Posted by John Hall 7 on 10/11/2020 21:31:10:

Anyone know what the ME stands for with an arrow in between?

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 15:55:45:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 10/11/2020 21:31:10:

Anyone know what the ME stands for with an arrow in between?

.

Sorry, John, I don’t understand the reference

… I guess there should be an image attached to your post

MichaelG.

[BOB BLACKSHAW 1Participant @bobblackshaw1]

Thanks for the information on the watch Dave, interesting.

Bob

[John Hall 7Participant @johnhall7]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 11/11/2020 16:23:28:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 15:55:45:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 10/11/2020 21:31:10:

Anyone know what the ME stands for with an arrow in between?

it’s on an Eclipse angle plate

.

Sorry, John, I don’t understand the reference

… I guess there should be an image attached to your post

MichaelG.

[John Hall 7Participant @johnhall7]

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 18:55:16:

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 11/11/2020 16:23:28:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 15:55:45:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 10/11/2020 21:31:10:

Anyone know what the ME stands for with an arrow in between?

it’s on an Eclipse angle plate

.

Sorry, John, I don’t understand the reference

… I guess there should be an image attached to your post

MichaelG.

[John Hall 7Participant @johnhall7]

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 18:57:35:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 18:55:16:

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 11/11/2020 16:23:28:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 15:55:45:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 10/11/2020 21:31:10:

Anyone know what the ME stands for with an arrow in between?

it’s on an Eclipse angle plate

.

Sorry, John, I don’t understand the reference

… I guess there should be an image attached to your post

MichaelG.

My first attempt didn’t accept the picture..

[John Hall 7Participant @johnhall7]

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 18:58:54:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 18:57:35:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 18:55:16:

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 11/11/2020 16:23:28:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 15:55:45:

Posted by John Hall 7 on 10/11/2020 21:31:10:

Anyone know what the ME stands for with an arrow in between?

it’s on an Eclipse angle plate

.

Sorry, John, I don’t understand the reference

… I guess there should be an image attached to your post

MichaelG.

My first attempt didn’t accept the picture..

Dont understand..I put a pic of the angle plate on, but now it’s gone….Again??

[Mike Woods 1Participant @mikewoods1]

Calling it a Pheon is a bit too top drawer for my liking, broad arrow is a more appropriate (militaristic) description. In my circles it was always known as a crows foot.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by John Hall 7 on 11/11/2020 19:26:52:

.

Dont understand..I put a pic of the angle plate on, but now it’s gone….Again??

.

You may need to read this, John

**LINK**

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=103028&p=1

… it’s a sort of initiation rite

MichaelG.

[Author]

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