The Thick
& Thin of Hensley & Gibbs 4 Cavity Handles
May 2007
©2007 Thomas
Dugas
I had always thought that there was just one size of Hensley &
Gibbs four cavity handles, until I purchased a #15 George A. Hensley mould off
of eBay. When I received the mould I was delighted to see that it was a
very early, circa 1938 or so, 4 cavity mould that
contained features I had only heard about, but never seen. One of these
features was the very early style “woodscrew” style machine screws used to
secure the blocks to the handles. Here is a photo of this style of
screws:
There are some interesting features of these early style
screws. Note that the edges of the flat head slotted screws protrude past
the edge of the block. The edges of the flats were milled to contour the
screw heads to match the contour of the block, and the screws were marked to
indicate which screw went with which hole. In this case, two dots were
punched on the block, and in the blue circle in the photo inset you can faintly
see two corresponding dots on the screw head. The milling of the screw
edges does not match up in this photo, as in using this mould I discovered that
I need to keep the screws slightly loose to make the blocks close properly as
the handles were not the original handles that came with the mould. Which is how I discovered that thick and thin four cavity Hensley
& Gibbs handles exist. Looking through my spare sets of 4
cavity handles, I was surprised to discover that none of my spare handles fit
this mould, all the handles were too thick. Here
is a comparison photo showing the difference in handle thickness:
Here is another photo showing the measurements:
After this discovery, I examined my collection of 4 cavity moulds
and discovered additional sets of thick and thin handles. After studying
the issue for awhile, I haven’t made any definitive observations as to when
this started, but it appears from my initial observations that the thick 4
cavity handles started about the same time as the thick two cavity handles.
I think Wayne Gibbs was attempting to standardize the two and four cavity
handles, and I’ve long suspected that thick two cavity handles and thick four
cavity handles are interchangeable. This is my next project and another
page will appear to reveal what my research has discovered.
The thick handles appear to have started with the last style of
markings on the moulds, which is the style that has the serial number stamp.
Here is a photo showing the final style of mould markings (these
are thick handles):
As I have stated before, make every attempt to purchase handles
with your blocks, as the odds of finding handles that work is always an
additional risk.