wrench

6 Articles

One-Size-Fits-All Wrench Points To A Nut Job

January 17, 2023 by 37 Comments

When [Hand Tool Rescue] came across a 1919 patent for a one size fits all wrench, he couldn’t help but recreate it. Described in the patent as “a new, original, ornamental design for a wrench”, the wrench had a slot for possibly every fastener that the inventor could think of. Not only did it have slots for several hexagonal fasteners, but many others for octagonal, square and even a pentagonal fastener.

[Hand Tool Rescue] reckons there are 47 slots for various sizes and types of fasteners, not counting the ones whose purpose he could not fathom. Just in case he missed any fastener sizes, the original designer decided to add an alligator wrench at the other end of the handle, potentially negating the need for any of the other slots. The tool even features a sharp edge along one of the sides, possibly for use as a scraper of some kind.

Why such a crazy design was patented, or what were the functions of some of its slots are questions that will likely remain unanswered. At best, we can all take guesses at solving the mystery of this tool. [Hand Tool Rescue] scales the original drawing such that one of the slots has a width of 1 inch, and then uses that as a template to recreate the wrench. He starts with a slab of 3/8th inch thick, grade 4140 steel, which has a high strength to weight ratio and can be case hardened after machining, making it suitable for this ornamental project.

He then embarks on his journey of excessive milling, drilling, filing, band sawing and shaping (using a slotting attachment), totaling about 11 hours worth of drudgery. Of course, one could argue that it would have been much easier, and accurate, to have used modern machining methods. And we are spoilt for choices here among laser cutting, water jet cutting or even EDM machining, any of which would have done the job faster, cleaner and more precisely. But we guess [Hand Tool Rescue] wanted to stick to traditional methods as would have been available in 1919 to an inventor who wanted to make a prototype of his awesome, all in one wrench.

If you can help explain the overall function of this wrench, or identify some of the more vague slots in it, then [Hand Tool Rescue] would be happy to get the feedback. And talking about less desirable wrenches, check out how this Sliding Wrench Leaves a Little to be Desired.

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Sliding Wrench Leaves A Little To Be Desired

December 21, 2022 by 29 Comments

[Ben Conrad] received an interesting tool as a gift that purported to be a better mousetrap. It was a crescent wrench (made by the Crescent company, even) that didn’t have a tiny adjusting wheel like a traditional wrench. Instead, it had a slide running down the length of the handle. The idea is that you would push the slide to snug the wrench jaws against the bolt or nut, and that would be fast and easy compared to a conventional wrench. As [Ben] notes, though, it doesn’t work very well. Most of us would have just dumped it in the back of the tool chest or regifted it. [Ben] tore his apart to find out what was wrong with it.

A typical adjustable wrench has four parts. This one has 19 parts and looks like a conventional wrench with an extra slide and screw running down the length of the handle. [Ben] found the parts were poorly made, but that wasn’t the main problem.

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Testing A Laser Cut Wrench VS A Forged Wrench

August 13, 2022 by 30 Comments

It is easy to not think much about common tools like screwdrivers and wrenches. But not for [Torque Test Channel]. The channel does a lot of testing of tools and in the video, below, they test a new wrench that is, oddly enough, laser cut instead of forged like the usual wrench.

You would expect a machined wrench to be weaker than a forged wrench. We were impressed, though, that there is so much difference between wrenches when you start making measurements.

Speaking of measurements, we would like to see more details of the test setups shown both in the video and in some of the video clips included. We did enjoy seeing the examination of the internal grain structure of both wrenches.

Be forewarned. Watching this video is likely going to send you to the computer to buy some new wrenches, especially if you don’t have 30/60 head wrenches.

The real question is why laser cut a wrench? It doesn’t seem like it is actually better than the forged variant. It is more expensive, but the setup costs for forging are higher. Particularly for a tool made in the United States, forging is both expensive and it is difficult to find time on the limited number of large-scale forges left in the country.

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Ultra Cheap PCB Wrenches Make Perfect Kit Accessory

January 18, 2022 by 43 Comments

Let’s make one thing abundantly clear. We do not, under any circumstances, recommend you replace your existing collection of wrenches with ones made out of PCBs. However, as creator [Ben Nyx] explains, they do make for an extremely cheap and lightweight temporary tool that would be perfect for distributing with DIY kits.

This clever open hardware project was spawned by [Ben]’s desire to pack an M3 wrench in with the kits for an ESP32-based kiln controller he’s developing. He was able to find dirt cheap screwdrivers from the usual import sites, but nobody seemed to stock a similarly affordable wrench. He experimented with 3D printing them, but in the end, found the plastic just wasn’t up to the task. Then he wondered how well a tiny wrench cut from a PCB would fare.

The answer, somewhat surprisingly, is pretty well. We wouldn’t advise you try to crank your lug nuts down with one, but for snugging up a couple nuts that hold down a control board, they work a treat. [Ben] came up with a panelized design in KiCad that allows 18 of the little wrenches to get packed into a 100 x 100 mm PCB suitable for production from popular online board houses. Manufactured from standard 1.6 mm FR4, they come out to approximately 10 cents a pop.

Since [Ben] has been kind enough to release his design under the MIT license, you’re free to spin up some of these wrenches either for your own kits or just to toss in the tool bag for emergencies. We’d love to see somebody adapt the design for additional sizes of nuts, or maybe figure out some way to nest them to sneak out a couple extra wrenches per board.

We’ve seen plenty of folks make cheap tools for themselves in the past, but projects that can produce cheap tools in mass quantities is uniquely exciting for a community like ours.

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Air Wrench Becomes A Milling Machine Power Drawbar

September 3, 2018 by 20 Comments

We sometimes wonder if designers ever actually use their own products, or even put them through some sort of human-factors testing before putting them on the market. Consider the mechanism that secures toolholders to the spindle of a milling machine: the drawbar. Some mills require you to lock the spindle with a spanner wrench, loosen the drawbar with another wrench, and catch the released collet and tool with – what exactly?

Unwilling to have the surgical modifications that would qualify him for the Galactic Presidency, [Physics Anonymous] chose instead to modify his mill with a power drawbar. The parts are cheap and easily available, with the power coming from a small butterfly-style pneumatic wrench. The drawbar on his mill has a nearly 3/8″ square drive – we’d guess it’s really 10 mm – which almost matches up with the 3/8″ drive on the air wrench, so he whipped up a female-to-female adapter from a couple of socket adapters. The wrench mounts to a cover above the drawbar in a 3D-printed holster. Pay close attention to the video below where he goes through the Fusion 360 design; we were intrigued by the way he imported three orthogonal photos on the wrench to design the holster around. That’s a tip to file away for a rainy day.

This is a great modification to a low-cost milling machine. If you’re in the process of buying machine tools, you should really check out our handy buyer’s guides for both milling machines and lathes. It’ll let you know what features to look out for, and which you’ll have to add later.

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First Ever Parts Emailed To Space

December 20, 2014 by 25 Comments

The shocking thing is not that this happened. The shocking thing is how normal it seems. An astronaut inside a space station needed a ratcheting socket wrench. Someone else on Earth drew it up on a computer then e-mailed the astronaut. The astronaut clicked a button and then the tool was squirted out of a nozzle. Then he picked up and used the tool for the job he needed done. No big deal.

The story itself is almost uneventful – of course we can do these things now. Sure, it happens to be the first time in mankind’s history we have done this. Yes, it is revolutionary to be able to create tools on demand rather than wait months for one to be built planet-side and put onto the next resupply rocket. But, amateurs living in places without even widespread electricity or running water have already built these machines from actual garbage.

Every once in a while a story slaps us with how much the future is now.

These particular 3d prints were duplicated on the ground, and both sets preserved for future comparative analysis to see if microgravity has any effect on 3d prints. They have an eye on sending them to Mars, a journey where resupply is more than just a couple-month inconvenience.

See the first link above for more detail and photos of NASA’s 3d printer and the Microgravity Science Glovebox in the Columbus laboratory module.