Adjustable Wrench, What's the right way...

Re: Adjustable Wrench, What's the right way...

Larry Marker in Alabama

>I've always done it the way you have been. I can't say that I have noticed any real difference when I've done it the other way, however.

Larry

Re: Adjustable Wrench, What's the right way...

john lucas

>I've had the same 4 crescent brand wrenchs for 20 years or more. Never paid attention to which jaw goes first and I've used the big ones with bar extensions. maybe it has to do more with the quality of the tool than the design.

Re: Adjustable Wrench, What's the right way...

Grant Smith

>I recall seeing textbooks in shop class that said your to turn an adjustable wrench towards the adjustable side.

In accordance with basic engineering, the tool would be stronger in that way because the torque applied is forcing the adjustable part against the body of the tool, instead of pulling it. Since the adjustable part is presumably weaker than the rest of the wrench, that is why they tell you to do it that way.

It wouldn't surprise me these days to find a whole schmear of tools being sold that are marked backwards. Are they the Companion brand, or are they Craftsman, or Sears?

It'd be of no use to go back to Sears with them to ask, there are few tool salesmen at Sears that have a clue these days...

I'm pretty sure your arrows are backwards.

FWIW,

Grant in Iowa

Re: Adjustable Wrench, What's the right way...

C Yawn

>I remember being told to apply the force on the fixed jaw while turning an adjustable wrench. I think the theory back then was that the adjustable jaw was more likely to give or loosen. New technology may have changed the idea. Charles

Re: Adjustable Wrench, What's the right way...

Keith Weber

>I've never even thought of that one before. I usually just use it without consciously thinking about it. A pipe wrench definitely has a direction due to it's design, but that's a different animal. If you look at the physics behind the design, using the adustable jaw on the trailing side makes more sense. It keeps the contact point closer to the handle, where the movement in the jaw should, in theory, be less.

Using it the other way under high torque situtations, moves the contact point further out on the adjustable jaw and makes it more likely that the jaw will spread slightly and round your nut (or bolt.)

Keith

Re: But then I find this: *LINK*

Grant Smith

>It appears to me that the caption is telling you to pull backwards too.

Is this one more thing that has gone the way of the wind? Now OSH thinks its the other way? Did someone do a test finally? Was there a mythbusters episode I missed?

I give up!


OSH on wrenches

And now that I think about it...

Grant Smith

>If you look at the diagram I provided at OSH above, you'll see that there are two points of pressure applied by the corners of the nut upon the adjustable arm of the wrench. On point gets pressure if you go one way, and the other gets pressure if you go the other way. By using the wrench "backwards" from what most of us have been taught, there is less leverage on the adjustable part of the tool.

Wow.. learn something new every day.

Grant in Iowa<---a "backwards crescent wrench user from way back"

Re: But apparently the Brits think thats wrong  *LINK*

Grant Smith

>


Wikipidia on "Adjustable spanners"

Re: Went straight to the horses mouth

Grant Smith

>Crescent Tools has the patent on the original adjustable wrench. I sent them an email. Lets see what they say.

The Right Way, Keith, Is To Use A Box Wrench.

George@Colonel's Workshop-Havertown PA

>

Wait a minute

Stuart Johnson

>"the jaw will spread slightly and round your nut (or bolt.)"

I thought that was purpose of using an adjustable. I've had much better luck with cheap ones. The latest ($5.00 for a set of six) purchased at the dollar store can be used on both standard and metric nuts.

Wikipedia is never a reliable source of info.

Rod Peterson -- Ormond Beach

>In the first place, because anyone can edit an article at any time, the article is only ever as good (as in credible) as the last edit, which could have occurred two minutes ago or two years ago. It might as easily have been written by a twelve year old computer geek who just heard that from daddy as it might have been by a Crescent engineer. No one knows.

Secondly, there is no oversight process to address veracity or accuracy by any competent authority. Although there are hundreds of supervisors on Wikipedia (called administrators), they are selected by the number of edits they've made, their popularity, and by having garnered support through active campaigning. Nowhere is there a test of qualifications, such as leadership, copy-editing, and most particularly, technical competence in the subject at hand. And, believe it or not, that same twelve year old in the previous paragraph might be one of them.

Because of the utter lack of any real editorial ombudsman, unbelievable battles based on personal biases are rampant in many wikipedia articles—particularly any that deal in controversial subjects such as politics or religion. It is a stated goal of Wikipedia to produce unbiased content, but because of the wiki process, plus anonymity of most of the editors, there is no more guarantee of neutrality in a given article than there is accuracy.

Finally, in this particular case, there is no source cited for the opinion given on the correct use. Frankly, it's no more reliable than in the Canadian government document linked previously. I'd like to see some hard engineering data, or at least the horse's mouth opinion you're awaiting from Crescent. Sadly, since the design is 100 years old, there's a very real possibility that hard empirical data on the correct use either never existed, has been lost in time, and/or has morphed by generations of opinion from a sound engineering foundation to this-sounds-about-right.

Always take with a huge grain of salt anything you see on Wikipedia.

Rod
Embarrassed to admit having spent some wiki-time in the past and am thoroughly conversant in the plusses (few) and minusses (too many) of wiki resources. All of my internet searches include the string “-wikipedia” to sort out the trash.

Some good things can come out

Dan Donaldson

>The Wikipedia can be a good starting point if you are looking up something that you know little about. You cannot necessarily believe what you read, but many times I have used it to get other terms that I can use in searches for more info.

Fair enough, but…

Rod Peterson -- Ormond Beach

>…too many people are unaware of the structure and the huge credibility issues and rely on it as a definitive source as if it were a real encyclopedia with real researchers, real copy editors, real managing editors, real oversight. They have none of that.

Rod

All I know...

Jason Roehl in Mulberry, IN

>...is that I've turned a lot of my own wrenches over the years, and long ago, when I often grabbed an adjustable, I learned real quick to turn it towards the adjustable jaw. Going the other way almost always caused it to slip off, particularly on tight/stuck bolts. Now I've got enough other tools that I rarely use an adjustable, so I got a nice set of Craftsmans (Craftsmen?) adjustables bouncing around in either my truck or my toolbox at home. I've used them maybe once or twice, and they worked quite well without breaking when I turned them toward the adjustable jaw (I'm not opposed to using some brute force, either--I once broke the fork on a cheap 1/2"x12" breaker bar).

I've also noticed that the larger the adjustable wrench, the better it works. It seems that the amound of "slop" is pretty consistant from wrench to wrench within a brand, so while 1/32" slop is bad on a 6" adjustable on a 3/8" bolt, it's insignificant on an 18" adjustable on a 1-1/4" bolt.

I guess the Canadians think it's okay to turn it the wrong way because they have free health care--the gov't will pay for their broken jaws.

Jason

And you had the nerve…

Rod Peterson -- Ormond Beach

>…to cast aspersions on my noble effort of a couple of weeks ago. You've wrenched my heart asunder. My despair is building into a veritable crescent'o from which I can only hope some combination of good turns can keep me out of a six plank box. I pray to never see such a wratched effort again.

Rod

how can you be sure?

Joe Piotrowski - Chicago Burb's

>That these other reference sources are not incomplete as well? there is a great amount of information that goes unwritten because it doesn't fit with certain agendas.

one would like to think that there is a more noble undertaking to creating reference material.

there is a saying that " history is written by the Victors". this is a truth in history and in science as well. many new discoveries take years to adopted by the "establishment". no encyclopedia written is updated as quickly. yes they go through an editorial process but one that fits an agenda of said editorial staff.

a wise man once said something along the lines of believe nothing you read and only half of what you see.

whether an established encyclopedia or the wikipedia site, a quick 1 or 2 hours searching for the background references will give you a greater perspective of the truth.

my .02c from a search addict.

Re: Adjustable Wrench, What's the right way...

awh

>I think I have that same set. On mine the arrow points in the direction of the adjustable jaw. I usually don't make too big a deal about which jaw faces what direction I put the wrench on in a way that is comfortable to hold and tighten. But, if I need to break something loose I have sockets/impact/box/open-end wrenches for that stuff. What I'm try to says is that the times when I use an adjustable wrench I'm not putting a lot of torque on it to matter.

ROFL

Lowell Kinzer

>

Re: how can you be sure?

Rod Peterson -- Ormond Beach

>> how can you be sure that these other reference sources are not incomplete as well? there is a great amount of information that goes unwritten because it doesn't fit with certain agendas.

The main difference in product (and confidence in same) between Wikipedia and a mainstream, academic quality, hard cover encyclopedia (let's keep to well knowns, such as Brittanica, Colliers, even World Book, etc.) is this: the hard-covers have paid staff who write articles. Presumably, they are hired based on at least some demonstrated skill in research and writing. But before their output gets anywhere near publication stage, their work is reviewed at least once (one more than Wikipedia), probably more than once. There are at least two levels of accountability (two more than Wikipedia), because those supervisory editors have bosses.

Sure, there are agendas and biases. There is no such thing as an unbiased publication. Even if there were, there are plenty of people who would think it wasn't, which induces a bias all its own. The difference with the hard-covers is they have to work very hard to keep the biases and agenda from being too flagrant or extreme, or they lose their market share. Britannica (among others) has been around for over 100 years, I believe. They can't be too out of the mainstream of neutrality to have accomplished that.

I go back to the experience I had, seeing teenage administrators making what were effectively personnel management decisions as well as editorial decisions who couldn't possibly have sufficient knowledge or experience, particularly in an esoteric subject, to be in that position. I further go back to my position that since a Wikipedia article can be edited at any time by anyone, that any one of them can only be as good as the last revision. One simply doesn't know what level of veracity, accuracy, or neutrality is represented in any iteration. Irrespective of the neutrality aspect, becuase of editor experience and editorial oversight no hard cover encyclopedia is anywhere near so vulnerable to significant error or abuse as is Wikipedia.

Yes, I learned long ago to take with a grain (sometimes larger) of salt anything I read or hear. In fact, I've gotten so good at it, and with the advancement of age, acquired so much more knowledge than I had in my combative yout', that I'm often found shouting at the TV as I watch a documentary on such outlets as History Channel where you would think they, at least, would get their facts right.

And, yes, I mine the web thoroughly and regularly when I'm interested in finding out something. And I've learned that the very first thing I have to do when I read on a topic is who is the source and what their particular ax-to-grind is. Then I can implement an offset or at least a filter to get it more right than if I had followed along blindly.

Anyway, I've said enough. I will continue to do my searches with -wikipedia in the search string. I don't much care to buy what they're selling.

Rod

Wrong, wrong, wrong

Ken Garlock Collin County Texas

>This is not even a point of contention, your OSH people are flatly WRONG?

And I don't have a strong opinion either,

Ken

Counterfeit Crescent� Wrenches?

Mark Goodall - ATL - tooljunkie

>I've read this thread debating the proper directional use of Cresent Wrenches with delight!

But what hasn't been fully address is these strange Cresent Wrenches that RobV seems to have.

I have a set of Crescent� wrenches. Not a set actually, but 4 individually packaged wrenches bought at (close to) the same time.

Holding it horizontally, with the open end to the LEFT and the adjustable part towards the bottom and the handle pointing to the RIGHT, I have the words:

10 IN. Crescent� U.S.A with an arrow to the right of the "A" in U.S.A point DOWN.

Turn it around and on the other side:

Holding it horizontally, with the open end to the RIGHT and the adjustable part towards the bottom and the handle pointing to the LEFT, I have the words written UPSIDE DOWN:

ALLOY Crestoloy� STEEL with an arrow again pointing down.

Both these arrows point in a direction that puts the adjustable part of the wrench on the leading edge, not trailing.

If I undestand correctly, RobV has a set of wrenches that have the arrow pointing in the wrong direction. How could this be? Are they non-Crescent brand tools?

My Made in USA Genuine Crescent� wrenches have the arrows in the right, errr... correct direction. Are there counterfeit wrenches in distribution? ;)

Is there a conspiracy afoot? ;) ;) ;)

Happy Woodworking!

no conspiracy

Steve Strickland

>China has never signed either of to two major international treaties covering patents, copyrights and trademarks. It is perfectly legal for them to rip off American inventions, music, movies, software, designs, you name it.

Blame our politicians for this idiocy.

Maybe they're metric!

John in New Mexico

>I love that joke. Tried it once at work with one of the Australian engineers. He replied "whats a crescent wrench?". When I showed him one, he said "that's just an adjustable spanner".

Somehow "metric adjustable spanner" just isn't as funny.

John