-----Original Message-----
>From: Richard Knoppow <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Jul 22, 2008 5:31 PM
>To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [rollei_list] Re: : Stillson Wrenches
>
> I little searching with Google Patents finds USP 184,993
>dated 1876, issued to Daniel C. Stillson, of Sommerville
>Mass for "an improvement in wrenches". This is the familiar
>"monkey wrench". Stillson's idea was to articulate the
>movable jaw so that it would grip various shapes equally
>well. The jaw is spring loaded. Stillson may very well have
>started a company but there is no indication of that and I
>did not do any historical research. Stillson appears to have
>held other patents but I did not research them.
> The earliest patent on what most of us would call a pipe
>wrench appears to be USP 765,912 dated 1904, issued to Harry
>L. Bodwell of Chicago.
>
After more searching on a machine with a high speed connection I found two
other patents issued to Daniel Stillson. The oldest is USP 95744 12 Oct 1869,
for what looks like a conventional pipe wrench, the other is USP 126,161, dated
1872, which has the same arrangement of articulated jaw as on modern wrenches.
The oldest patent calls it a pipe wrench. So, evidently, Daniel Stillson
invented both forms of wrench, the rounded top kind and the flat top kind. Have
a look at the patents for illustrations.
The best site for US patents is Google Patents since it allows full text
searches for any date and also has the patents in PDF form for downloading.
--
Richard Knoppow
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Los Angeles, CA, USA
---
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