Old B & D drill

[Scrollon]

Hi
I have an old Black and Decker D720 two speed, 1/2" chuck corded drill. I'm in the process of restoring it but I need some help with paint colours. It appears to have been brown and gold. Does anyone have any idea where I can find paint code, or suppliers?
Thanks in advance

 

[JohnD]

no, but if you go to a motorists toyshop such as Halfords, you will find a rack of hundreds of different car paints. Very likely you will find one to match and can buy it or note the name and code. I've matched the paint for some old locks like that.

You can order jars of paint, mixed to code, from ebay suppliers who have a mixing-machine. Car paint is harder and glossier than ordinary household paint.

You can also order Humbrol model-makers enamel, for brush application, in quite a wide range of colours. It has a special spirit thinners.

You can buy samples of RAL or BS colours, but this will be expensive if you're not sure which colour you need. Places that sell mix-to-order household paints like Dulux have free sample cards with hundreds of options, some of which are "standard" colours.

And of course you could ask Black and Decker. There might be Facebook special interest groups for enthusiasts and restorers.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

I'm with John on this one - get yourself a match done at a car paint shop and you can't go far wrong. I've had good matches that way on Wolf teal blue (apparently not a RAL colour), B&D metallic gold and a few other colours as well in the past

If you are refurbishing it's maybe worth pointing out that tools made in the 1970s and earlier often needed the gearbox grease to be replaced every few years because it dries out (BTW not a difficult task if you've already got the tool in bits). If doing this don't overfill the gearbox (gear grease expands as it gets hotter). Also brushes are cheap as chips and well worth replacing if you want to get the best out of your tool. Finally the armature rear bearing (in the tail of the body) on a lot of B&D drills is only a plain bearing and benefits from a few drops of sewing machine oil from time to time [included for completeness]

The other thing I'd strongly recommend is that you run any metal-bodied tool through an RCD plug - that way if there is an earth fault in the tool you won't electrocute yourself

 

[big-all]

if i remember correctly the different colours represented different modules as in 2 speed one colour hammer another motor another
in other words like lego bricks you plug each choice in and bolt together

 

[Deleted member 174758]

It actually varied year to year, B-A. AFAIK the D720 started out as all gold (top of the line?) and at various times was silver with a gold gearbox, blue with a white gearbox

and orange with a white gearbox not to mention the OP's colour scheme, presumably somewhere in the middle. The only things I know are that the all gold was very early 1960s, followed by the silver/gold combi whilst the last all metal D720s in the 1970s (before they changed the shape of the tool slightly - new gearbox, new motor housing in plastic and angled rear of body cover also plastic - the DN720, etc) were orange and white.

The 2-speed gearboxes on all metal models almost all seem to have been 900/2400rpm - the hammer models, suffixed "H" (as in DNJ72H, DN720H) came in later on, 1970s, didn't they? Can't remember seeing an earlier all-metal one with hammer action. Other than the V-series premium drills in the mid-1970s did they ever exist? I do know that the hammer mechanism was generally turned off by rotating a black serrated or scalloped ring around the chuck shaft at the very front of the gearbox housing (at least on most pre-1980s hammer action models - there was also a gearbox in the late 1970s with a black slider on top of the gearbox).

As it happens before the introduced built-in hammer action there was a hammer accessory which fitted between the chuck and the gearbox which reduced the speed and gave an impact hammer action for masonry drilling. These accessories were offered for quite a few years after the hammer models came in. In fact somebody gave me one of these recently, salvaged from a relative's house clearance, and it still works (one of these is illustrated, below, on an all-gold D720). Not giving up my cordless SDS to go old school B&D quite yet, though

I like a lot of the old B&D all-metal drills - they have reasonable quality chucks in the main (the crimped horror in the photo below was a late cheapened one - note the differences in body cross section and gearbox shape) and seem very long-lived with a modicum of care. Made in the UK, mainly at Harmondsworth in Middlesex, too

Considering that all these T-handle B&D drills started out as descendants of the original U.50 drill made for only a few short years in the USA in the mid-1950s (and out of production before 1960) they were remarkably long lived both here and subsequently in Italy, France and Germany (where many originally British-designed B&D models ended up being manufactured in the 1980s)

 

[Scrollon]

Firstly, thanks to all of you who have taken the trouble to respond.
@JohnD: I was hoping to avoid a trip to Halfords but it looks like that might be the way to go! Thanks too for the tip about Facebook, I'll have a look there.
@big-all: I had no idea that these things were sort of colour coded based on spec. Great stuff.
@JobAndKnock: Thanks for the heads-up on the grease and oil. The gearbox doesn't appear to have any grease in it at present! Thanks too for the fascinating insight into the history of the D720. Mine looks like your all gold one, but without the hammer attachment, and with a brown body.

I will get myself down to an automotive paint shop in the New Year and see what they can do. Thanks again and may I wish you all a very Happy Christmas.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Mine looks like your all gold one, but without the hammer attachment, and with a brown body.

The hammer accessory wasn't that common and I suspect most people finding one and not knowing its' purpose might well toss it in the bin thinking that it had seized (when not in use they seem like they have). BTW the with the photos above I was attempting to show that the colour changed over time, for the entire range, and rarely differentiated the individual models (there were exceptions such as the V-series tools of the 1970s which were always either gold/white or sahara/white whilst most other models in the range at that time were orange white regardless of model). So when your D720 was made (in brown/gold) there would have been other models in the same colour, such as the D520, D820, etc - in the all-gold period the whole lot were all-gold, from D400 up to D720

I think that the best grease for repacking drill gearboxes is something like car wheel bearing grease. This is generally a high temperature grease, sometimes with added molybdenum. I believe that Makita are almost alone amongst tool manufacturers in still supplying gearbox grease (albeit at a high price)

 

[Scrollon]

Thanks for the clarification. I have just had a quick look for gearbox grease and Amazon have Makita P-08361 Gear Grease in a 30g tube for £5.99 - I have no idea how far 30g goes!! Anyway I'll have a proper look and see what wheel bearing grease comes it at. BTW I've pinged a query to B & D re colours so I wait to see what they come up with. Cheers.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Maybe a D520, but are these the same colours? AFAIK main difference is that the D720 is more powerful (375w or 400w?). If you do get the actual colours used I'd be grateful if you'd publish.

 

[Scrollon]

Yes, those are the colours! If I manage to find out the colour details I will certainly publish them.