[rollei_list] Re: : Stillson Wrenches

  • From: Don Williams <dwilli10@xxxxxxx>
  • To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:55:14 -0500

At 07:31 PM 7/22/2008, you wrote:


----- Original Message ----- From: "Jerry Laderberg" <jerry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 12:30 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] : Stillson Wrenches



" Monkey wrench"?
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 familar "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. Bordwell of Chicago. 

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Take a look at "Monkey Wrench" in Wikipedia. The examples there are very similar to mine, except mine is a bit less exotic and is all metal. I still use it today because it has a very large jaw opening capability compared to the other adjustable wrenches on the market today.
We (at least this writer) tend to call the ordinary adjustable wrench a "Crescent Wrench" but there are so many improvements on the market that the name can't cover them all. Still, being a bit behind the times, "Monkey Wrench" and "Crescent" (without the added "wrench") are very specific terms to me.
Wikipedia calls the Crescent an "adjustable spanner", which to me, is a British slant on naming wrenches. To me a "spanner" is a tool for turning parts which have holes or indents for gripping or turning them. 

DAW

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