The Most Used Tool in the
Tool Box: Open End Wrenches
Today we are going to talk a little about the most used tool
in your tool box, the wrench. Specifically I am going to focus
on the open end side. Open end wrenches come in many different
shapes and styles. Go to any swap meet and you will find
wrenches with as many different names as in a small town
telephone book. You can even find many with makes like Ford
and IH. Cars and tractors at one time actually shipped with a
tool kit for fixing them. Today’s cars come with a dealer
installed cling sticker on the front window with their service
and collision centers numbers. That way you are covered for
every occasion.
I always try and start these off with a blast from the past.
But until about an hour before starting this blog I had no
idea of what to use. I was going to have to use a simple Ford
wrench and try to make the hard sell that it was something
special. Thankfully I dug around in an old tool box and found
this gem from the auto maker Peugeot. It is stamped 17 & 19.
Now I have to take this wrench home with me and see how it
works. This may explain why the exotic imports shop rates are
$30 an hour higher than the domestic ones. I would want more
money if I had to look at this in my box yet alone use it all
day.
This is the standard open end wrench. Some manufactures vary
the head angle by a few degrees and they think re-invented the
wheel. It is still an open end wrench. This is by far the most
popular style of wrench on the market. I am going to make up
stats here, but this design is easily 90% of all wrenches
produced in the world.
After saying nasty things about a few degrees of angle. Change
the angle a whole bunch and this wrench comes in real handy in
tight situations.
Before the invention of the ratcheting box wrench, Craftsman
came up with this ratcheting open ended wrench. It actually
does work once you get the hang of it and do not try and apply
too much torque.
This is another attempt to make the open end wrench better by
Mac Tools. I like the concept for 6 point bolts but I have to
say I am not sold on the idea of having to keep the wrench
completely seated against the bolt/nut.
Now I will admit that when Snap-On came out with this open
ended drive called the flank drive plus I was intrigued. Its
revolutionary design of different spaced teeth made slipping
off the bolt/nut a thing of the past. Everyone I have talked
to that has these wrenches love them.
A major word of
caution: If you are in the aviation business or work on
concourse automobiles, you might want to pass on these as they
do severely mark up the fastener.
One item that I personally have in my tool box and love is a
good set of thin wrenches.
Just about everyone should
recognize the wrench on the bottom of this picture. This is a
stamped wrench that often ships with die grinders or just
about any hipster has a stack of them from
last week’s
adventure to IKEA. The wrench pictured on top is your standard
forged thin wrench. The one in the photo is actually a proto
off our governor test bench. So if you own an Apex High Idle
Governor, this wrench tightened the adjusting nut and end cap
of every governor we have produced.
You can find all kinds of specialty open end wrenches. This
one is a fuel line wrench. I am not even going to try and
cover all of them on the market.
The wrench has to be on my list of tools that everyone needs
to own. Well maybe not the Peugeot variety. I know many times
I have heard it asked are you still turning wrenches. No other
tool is so closely associated with being a mechanic or
automotive/diesel technician if you prefer. So be proud of
your wrenches and know that they truly never can be replaced
by a mere ratchet. Plus a ratchet can never give that crisp
clear ring of a good wrench hitting the concrete floor right
before the slew of profanities.
Fred