Archive for the ‘Adjustable / Crescent Wrench’ Category
A Vice Grip Wrench Is Well Adjusted Around the House
When it comes to buying things that have to be assembled when you get home, I am the all time champion of the world. Something that I don’t like to do however, is fumble with a whole bunch hand tools while I’m putting something together.
This is why I like to keep a Vice Grip wrench around the house. There’s no need to go running for a wrench set when when the Vice Grip wrench is around. Because the face adjusts to fit nearly any standard size nut or bolt, it’s good many things require different size wrenches to be assembled. My favorite feature of the Vice Grip wrench is the comfort grip handle. I can really give things a good tightening and my hand is left in tact for the next job.
Crescent Wrench: The Household Wrench
In my house, clutter is something that we all try to avoid. Because everyone lives within the same space, their things can often pile up. And when it comes to hand tools, the same thing tends to happen if you have too many tools than you really need.
This is why we keep a crescent wrench (also known as an adjustable wrench) as our all-around household wrench. Because the face of the crescent wrench adjusts to fit any size nut or bolt, we don’t need to keep entire sets of wrenches around to have something else around to lose or trip over.
With the Cluttered Mess Lies An Adjustable Wrench
If you’re like me, somewhere within your house is a cluttered drawer full of things that family members might find useful some day. If you dig really deep through the mess you’ll usually find the original hand tools that were put there to have close by in case of a quick fix. Not many tools make it to the “drawer full of crap”, and one tool especially should be noted, which is the adjustable wrench.
The reason why the adjustable wrench deserves special acknowledgement, is because it’s the perfect tool if you need a wrench around for times when you don’t know what you’re going to be fixing next, and you don’t have the space for all those combination wrench sets. With a few flicks of the thumb, the face of adjustable wrenches open up to whatever size nut or bolt I need to deal with, saving you time which could be spent fixing something else, because there’s always something else to be fixed. around the house.
Adjustable Wrench: The All-Around Ranch Wrench
While I’m out there on the rolling grass plains of Texas cattle country, worrying if I have the right hand tools is something I definitely don’t want to be doing. This is why I like to keep a lightweight toolbox in the truck with me, so I can just grab it and walk to where the truck can’t go to fix a fence or something, which happens quite often because it can get very muddy due to heavy rains making traveling in any vehicle nearly impossible.
A must-have tool in my toolbox is an adjustable wrench. I like to have the adjustable wrench with me at all times because I don’t have to carry a lot of hand tools like a set of combination wrenches with me for repairs since most the stuff I need a wrench for are things like the hinges on the aluminum cattle gates and the fence around the pavilion. I love the the adjustable wrench because I never know what I’m going to be working on next.
For years now, Irwin Tools, the maker of Vice Grip line hand tools have been well known for there comfortable handle grips. When really tightening down a bolt using my adjustable wrench, sometimes my hand will slip, or I will squeeze the wrench so tightly, that it will begin to hurt.
At times like these I like to call my Vice Grip adjustable wrench in to action. No more gripping the cold handle of a regular adjustable wrench, I’ve got my comfort grips to hold on to now. I can really give the wrench an extra bit of muscle without giving my hand such a beating.
Pass Me The Crescent Wrench, And Please Don’t Throw It
There are million reasons to have a lot of land. One, is to have the necessary space needed to grow a decent amount of food to store to feed the family in the winter. If you want to have cattle or horses, you’ll need a decent amount of land depending on the livestock you rairse. The animals you have grazing on the grass, the more grass, thus land you will need. The best reason to acquire a sizable amount of land, in my my opinion is so that no neighbors will hear your family curse and scream at each other while trying to work together.
My family recently had an adventure installing a windmill that is specially designed to aerate one of the tanks, which are like little ponds on the property to provide water for the cows. If no oxygen gets in the water algae grows rampant, and robs the fish of their oxygen and kills them.
This should have been a simple project that required minimal power tools. In fact, all it required was a cordless drill and a crescent wrench, and should have been a four hour project. This is not the way things worked out though. Since there were so many pieces, and the job was out in the hot Texas sun, combined with the fact that the crescent wrench and cordless drill had to be found in the weeds after throwing them at each other, it wound up taking five days! No matter how much tempers flare though, the job always gets done on the family ranch.
Caught Steeling My Adjustable Wrench, What An Ass!
Out on the family cattle ranch in Texas, I am constantly making repairs. Not to any one specific thing though. On the ranch, every day is a new adventure. You wake up in the morning, and wonder if an animal or falling tree branch destroyed one of the fences, which can lead to the cows running on to someone else’s land, or in to the road. We also have a lovably insane donkey that loves to destroy things such as water spigots, solar panels for the electric fences, or just about anything he can kick or put his mouth around.
So, for many reasons, but mainly the donkey, I like to keep an adjustable wrench in the tool bag in the back of the pick-up truck, or the John Deere gator. I prefer carrying around the adjustable wrench, also called a crescent wrench, because I don’t want to be lugging around a set of combination wrenches or a socket set and have them take up all the space in my tool bag. Also, if my back is turned, donkey, who we call Clem Kadiddlehopper, will grab random tools out of the truck and run off into the tifton fields (grass fields to you city folk), dropping them wherever he pleases, and if the grass is long enough, they are never to be found again. This is another good reason for carrying an adjustable wrench. I’d rather him lose one wrench than a set of wrenches.
A late night with my buddy working on his 454 big block engine on his Cutlass Supreme, he paused for a moment, and asked me to pass him a crescent wrench. I gave him a look like a dog would if you showed it a card trick, because I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.
Little did I know, that the term “Crescent Wrench” was a name coined by the crescent tool company for their brand of what I know to be the adjustable wrench. I had a crescent wrench in my tool box for years before I even knew what it was called. It is however, my favorite wrench to carry around my truck though, because I know when I need a wrench, I won’t have to looking for the right size. I always have the right size with a crescent wrench.
Get a Grip on Old Vehicle Maintenance
I just put the 200,000th mile on my ‘97 Acura RL, and the engine hasn’t shown a single sign of slowing down. Part of that can undoubtedly be attributed to all of the care and maintenance work I’ve had done over the years. The car always gets high-mileage oil as lubrication becomes increasingly important for an aging engine. To be honest, I’ve had more issues with the cosmetic and structural parts of the car than the transmission, engine or anything else.
I’m not afraid to crawl beneath the undercarriage and get my hands dirty; that requires the proper tools, of course, including the Vice Grip adjustable wrench, by Irwin tools. Old nuts and bolts have a tendency to strip over time, and a few of the bolts have recessed to the point that a regular wrench set no longer cuts the mustard. A Vice Grip gives me the solid hold I need to make small repairs in a snap. In addition, I like to use the adjustable wrench when I don’t want to take a whole set with me. A whole set can easily get in the way while I’m working on a simple task under the vehicle.