There were surely multiple duplicates of the Original Tools (differentiated from tooling) that could have been sold off as excess. That does not exclude the possibility that they kept originals. Oh, and BTW, a lot of those tools found their way out of the plant in sticky fingered workers lunchboxes. That could be why they are showing up in yard and estate sales. Now of course, that wouldn’t include a five axis milling machine. For many years Boeing in Kent, WA had a surplus store that anyone could pick up tools, tooling and many other items. It is now online since they closed the store. Maybe NAA had one also. Please don’t shoot the messenger. 🙁

You’re wrong…;)

A few years back some local white power skinhead type firebombed the local gay bar. The cops arrest the guy & go to his house to search for evidence etc… When they get there they discover the garage is crammed full of mills, lathes, drill presses, sheet metal brakes, slip rollers & all manner of other industrial tools… & it all has USAF & Govt tags… FBI get involved…
Turned out the firebomber lived with his dad…. who was comptroller at the main machine shop on Edwards AFB. He had been stealing & selling this stuff for years.
Dad got a longer jail sentence than the son…

We have a current FAA Production Certificate and all the original North American data and tools. (according to Alan Harris a representative for Saberliner.)

http://www.aerofiles.com/noram-co.html

I know they can’t possibly have *all the original tools* because tooling from NAA (& other local aviation companies) shows up at yard & estate sales in the LA area all the time. Neighbor picked up some NAA tooling just a few weeks back which I’ve been meaning to take photos of.

Found part of a 1938 newspaper in hangar ,

I was unpacking some aircraft parts a few years back & they were wrapped in newspaper. It turned out to be a Chicago newspaper & the front page headline was the German collapse at Stalingrad.
It was very brittle & falling apart, but I managed to save some parts of it that I put in a photo album.
The classified ad’s for *war work* were worded a lot differently than they would be today…

For Jim & the other Brits:

http://www.mrconservative.com/2013/02/5026-debunking-gun-myths-in-the-media/

I could believe it, did you see the Arado Blitz’s i Posted a link to in the buried Spitfire thread, you can see them on the riverbank where the soil has gone.

No, I barely read 2% of that thread.

Can’t remember which RAF base it was in Germany, but the O Club had the furniture left over from the previous residents. HUGE dining table & solid oak chairs complete with eagle/swastika etc… Wonder if they came back to the UK when the base closed…

What about the various twin engined Luftwaffe aircraft under resto in Scandanavia?.. or are they all doomed to be static?