Oxmans surplus store in So-cal.

[agent86]

when I was a kid in the 1970's.My friends and I would ride our bikes to the local military surplus store.It was/still is called Oxmans and is located in either Norwalk or Santa Fe Springs ca. this was when actual military surplus still existed.I used to spend hours digging through mountains of great goodies. Anyway, at one time they had 3 ball turrets, 4 R-3350 engines off of a B-29 , a complete B-17 cockpit including all instruments and panels, rudder pedals,control yokes,seats and I believe the top turret. they even had a complete rocket engine off of a Saturn 5 rocket. I have often whatever became of these bomber bits and what restorations they are now flying on.I sure wanted that Saturn 5 engine.I would have made the 4th of july real memorable in my neighborhood

[Holedigger]

"Surplus" stores of today are mostly the pits. Piles of cheap Chinese made knockoffs, junk, and occasional bits of "real" surplus. I miss the Surplus stores of my youth...and wish I had more money to stockpile the REAL stuff back in the day!

[The Inspector]

Stacks of shearling bib overalls (never any jackets) boxes and boxes of .308 @ a penny a round, my first scouting canteen came from Winters Surplus in Georgetown just South of downtown Seattle. Got one of those flat topped fatigue hats to wear because Elvis was wearing one in 1959.

[Holedigger]

One of my old "Surplus" Store treasures. Have one in brass too that has teeth instead of the slider-bar

[tom d. friedman]

my dad was in the army / navy surplus business from 1946 to 1961. he had 7 stores in northern ohio. he would sell b-3 & a-2 flight jackets for 20.00 & 25.00 dollars respectively as an example!! he closed his stores in 1961 when most of the true ww 2 surplus dried up & he opened our current specialty store which will be 50 years old next month.

[Chris Brame]

Oxman's is still around:

http://www.oxmans-surplus.com/

I remember seeing a TV commercial for them a while back. Maybe someone nearby could look at the B-17 cockpit mockup and see if it's got a radio call tag with a serial number?

Back in 1980, I had a catalog from a Chicago surplus house called Jerryco that showed an illustration of a gunsight "made for fighter use, we think." Showed it to Earl Reinert and he said it looked more like a remote turret sight for a B-36! Probably should have bought one... think it was less than a hundred bucks.

[agent86]

Oxman's is still around:

http://www.oxmans-surplus.com/

I remember seeing a TV commercial for them a while back. Maybe someone nearby could look at the B-17 cockpit mockup and see if it's got a radio call tag with a serial number?

Back in 1980, I had a catalog from a Chicago surplus house called Jerryco that showed an illustration of a gunsight "made for fighter use, we think." Showed it to Earl Reinert and he said it looked more like a remote turret sight for a B-36! Probably should have bought one... think it was less than a hundred bucks.

alas,the b-17 cockpit,like all the bomber bits went away years ago.I still drive by the store every now and then but it aint the same.

[RandolphB]

The best surplus store I've ever been to was Skycraft in Orlando. They are mainly an electronic surplus place, but over the years have had all sorts of high tech surplus. I used to buy military surplus vacuum tubes to re-tube my guitar amps. The higher grade tubes always made them sound awesome.

Best Highlight: Walking in to the store in the late 70's to see about 40 geeks standing in awe of the new stock- about 50 tape drive stoarge units from some place called "NASA". These were the huge things that looked likea cabinet with a reel to reel tape at the top. Everyone stood in silent awe that we mere humans could actually own part of a NASA COMPUTER. I think the units were all sold in less than a month....

http://www.skycraftsurplus.com/

[agent86]

Well I guess I was wrong wasnt I? aint seen it in the store in many years,come to think of it,its been a while since I was inside the store.

[yakdriver]

When I was a boy we would always go to Palley's in L.A. when we went to my grandparents. They had several stores in the Los Angeles area. The one we went to had a Martin turret at the store entrance and rows and rows of really great stuff. Couldn't ever get my dad to buy me a bayonet but did get a 4 man raft that gave years of fun in the ocean. Went to the warehouse in the early 80's just before they liquidated everything. My uncle was looking for TBM stuff. Found a box with over 100 brand new gear/flap control units and a few other TBM items. I remember stacks of B-25 main gear, half dozen Helldiver rear canopy sections, a stack of P-38 rudders in crates, a couple F-84 birdcage canopies and thousands of other misc parts. I hope it all didn't just go into the smelter when it sold. Don

[PinecastleAAF]

The best surplus store I've ever been to was Skycraft in Orlando. They are mainly an electronic surplus place, but over the years have had all sorts of high tech surplus. I used to buy military surplus vacuum tubes to re-tube my guitar amps. The higher grade tubes always made them sound awesome.

Best Highlight: Walking in to the store in the late 70's to see about 40 geeks standing in awe of the new stock- about 50 tape drive stoarge units from some place called "NASA". These were the huge things that looked likea cabinet with a reel to reel tape at the top. Everyone stood in silent awe that we mere humans could actually own part of a NASA COMPUTER. I think the units were all sold in less than a month....

Skycraft is still going very strong and the parking lot is usually packed. It's a great store.

[bdk]

I used to buy military surplus vacuum tubes to re-tube my guitar amps. The higher grade tubes always made them sound awesome.

Did you have to re-mark your volume knob with the number 11 after that?

[Taigh Ramey]

Oxmans is a great store and Mr. O is a real nice guy with quite a collection. There is still a lot of good things there but most of the real cool old stuff is not for sale but it is like a museum that is well worth visit.

The last ball turret that Mr. O had was this one:



Mr. O was kind enough to let me purchase the turret a while ago. It was still on its shipping skid and was new old stock. I put hydraulic fluid in it and it fired right up and has run great ever since. There is a video of it in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4GS1PND7pA&feature=player_embedded More information and photos here: http://www.twinbeech.com/sperry_ball_turret.htm

Sadly four of those R3350's that you saw at Oxmans can be found in Greenland:



These images shamelessly stolen from http://www.dhc4and5.org/N124DG_2.html where you can see other shots of the Kee Bird

I have many fond memories and great parts from Oxmans Surplus. Well worth the visit.

Palley's was another great place. I used to visit it regularly in my youth. They used to let me roam around and I would take a shopping cart along with me. Once I came back with a loaded cart and a guy named Vic gave me some prices too high for my the meager allowance I received from my parents at the time. I was 15 or so. I returned the parts I was salivating over back to the storage racks at Palley's and went home with one or two treasures that i could afford. A few months later I returned with a little more saved up money and when I came through the door Vic said I was a thief and that I had stolen the parts I had in the cart the last time I visited. I told him what I thought of his false accusations and said that the parts were likely still where I had left them. I took a cart out in the warehouse and retrieve all of the parts i had supposedly stolen and he apologized. He then asked if he could hire my services to identify all of their aircraft parts as they were going to have an auction to get rid of it all. The bastard called a thief one minute and then he wanted to hire me the next. I agreed and when he asked me how much I would charge I thought for a minute. My favorite TV show at the timne was Rockford Files and when Jim Rockford was asked how much he charged he said $300 per day plus expenses. I figured that this was good enough for me so I told Vic $300 per day plus expenses to which he agreed. Wow! I was making the same money as Jim Rockford and alkl I had to do was to identify old aircraft parts. How cool was that for a 15 year old! It didn't matter that much in the end because I ended up signing over my paycheck back to them for cool parts anyway. They had some amazing stuff too. I found a great stash of Norden Bombsight stabilizers there on top of a pallet rack 20 feet up. There was about 200+ K-3 and K-4 computing gun sights for Sperry upper and ball turrets that were returned from the European theatre and they had painted markings on them from the specific aircraft they were removed from. There was a B-25B/C/D greenhouse complete with the 30 cal sockets in the nose and side. Helldiver parts, P-38 tails, as mentioned, scoops, B-36 turrets and lots more. I found the upper half of a B-25H nose that I sent to the Weary Warriors and it is flying today on Barbie III. sadly a lot of the parts were bought and melted by the scrappers but a lot of parts made it out of there too. I remember seeing crates of sheepskin pants and boots. I got cases of AN6530 goggle lenses from Palley's and I still have a lot of them today of all different shades. Palley's was one of the great surplus stores back then. Ahhhh the good old days....

[agent86]

Well I now know what happened to some of those parts,Thanks.
Greenamayer to crew"we have checked everything,right" Crew to Greenamayer" we ran out of bailing wire and all duct tape before the APU was strapped down" Greenamayer back to crew"its only a little APU ,lets roll" Kee Bird to all"POOF!" RUN AWAY!

[RandolphB]

I used to buy military surplus vacuum tubes to re-tube my guitar amps. The higher grade tubes always made them sound awesome.

Did you have to re-mark your volume knob with the number 11 after that?

Yes, all the amps were remarked. Since the guitars were modded too, they also were remarked to 11. In total that means the whole set-up went to 22....even Hendrix didn't have 22.