Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Cresent Wrenches....

In about 1969, I found a LAKESIDE - 10 IN. - 84-4700 - Made In USA - adjustable wrench - with my White's Gold Master metal detector
in a small almost forgotten rural Minnesota church yard & cemetery. I could tell it had been lost there for a very long time.

Dirt, small winding roots, and what-not came out with the wrench. I threw it in my car - and much later, one day at work, I brought
it in to clean it up. Luck would have it, in the garage and the poor light, there was a shallow pan of old diesel fuel or kerosene
and I threw it in there and forgot about it - for about a year. Well, it was still there when I stuck my hand in the pan - so I retrieved it,
rinsed it off, used a wire brush wheel on it and oiled it up good.

My wrench stayed there, hanging on a workbench behind me for almost 50 years - until I retired.
People used my 'crescent' wrench often, every work day - for all that time. Hardly anyone even thought it was mine.

I was going to leave it there when I retired - but It somehow turned up at my home any way
and I've been stuck with it again ever since.

As things turn out, that little picturesque church yard has appealed to my generation of in-laws.
A couple of them sadly are already there, and my loving wife also got us a couple of plots.

I'm thinking of returning it to the cemetery when I go, and bury it alongside my ashes.
But I also think it escaped there once - and deserves better.

I wish I could do pictures - It's got character and strength. It works proper & the old wire brush patina - gives it a warm glow.

Sam,

I'm super drunk and need to get to sleep but I wanted to relay a story to you before I pass out. So if I may...

I took a load of schit I don't need (and one dog) to the Will Creek dump yesterday. This dump is not far from one of my all time favorite gopher spots so I thought I would stop in and thank them for the ten years of hospitality they've granted since I moved here. After the dump drop I make the long drive up the driveway and I was welcomed by about 30 born-n-raised Hi-Liners staring at me like the idiot that I am. They're covered in dirt and smell like burnt cow hair. Yep. Branding day. And I'm the ass-hole in basketball shorts and flip-flops driving a 1980 Boyota. Jesus Fugkin' Christ. I got balls but exiting the vehicle whilst that Busch Light drinking crew stared right through me kinda made me uncomfortable. They of course are all wearing the Wranglers they painted on that morning and hats that convey they actually work for a living.

Thank the fugkin' Lord I knew one guy in the crowd but he took no mercy on me. Didn't say schit. So I called him out by name. "Hi Bobby!" "Hey Travis" was his reply but in a fugk you I like seeing you uncomfortable kinda way. I tell him and another guy I just stopped by to tell the landowner I was moving and just wanted to thank him for letting me shoot on his place all these years. But of course, if you really wanted to thank a guy you'd be helping brand, right? Holy schit I felt like an ass-hole.

So long story short, I end up finding the landowner and thank him for all his years of hospitality. He was beyond smashed and replied "Who the fugk are you?" It was awful. Absolutely awful. One of the most awkward moments you could imagine. The guy standing next to him told me to just come back and talk to him later. I explained I was moving to Florida and his reply was "What the fugk you gonna do in Florida?" Awful. Horrendous. Most awkward encounter you could imagine.

One rancher took pity on me as I was walking away and said "Don't feel bad. He wouldn't even know who I am if I said hello right now."

That made me feel slightly better as I drove on down the road.



Travis

And let me tell you all something... I will fugking drive 40 miles to an appropriate WENCH before I sit around fugkin'.

Sam;
Good afternoon to you sir, I hope the weekend was a good one for you all.

When we started to see metric marked adjustable wrenches up here, we couldn't resist trying to convince the gullible that one needed an older standard measure wrench for the North American stuff and a metric one for the Euro and Japanese made stuff. As I recall I had at least one guy convinced...

Indeed though Sam, no tool kit is complete without a good set of Crescent or adjustable wrenches AND a bunch of different sizes of adjustable water pump pliers!

On my bloody '03 Dodge pickup a guy needs to have a complete set of metric, standard and Torx bit sockets too. Who's brilliant idea to sprinkle the truck with fasteners with all three types I can't say Sam - but they surely did....

I can't say if it's man's greatest invention - the strike anywhere match comes to mind there - but it's up there alright.

All the best to you all this week Sam.

Dwayne

Diamond - because that is what dad used.

Farmers wrench,

every tractor need one in the tool box.
Of course back then, you could fix stuff with a wrench, pliers and a screwdriver.

Good day to you BC, and I couldn't agree more about the insanity of using every style known to mankind on a vehicle! I'm barely a shadetree mechanic-truth to be know I don't wrench on my vehicles much any more unless really necessary, but to work on these "American" made vehicles, you definitely need standard, metric, torx, and whatever else the designers could find to put them together with. Whatever happened to the days when 3/8, 7/16, 1/2, 9/16 and a couple spark plug sockets was all you needed?

Those were in the days when it was all made there, now the parts are made everywhere they can be sourced cheap so you get every type of fastening and thread.

At least all the Japanese manufactured vehicles stay with metric, so you only require one set of tools, thirty-four elbows, three laptops, and two off-siders.

In Australia, we call them a SHIFTER with Sidchrome beings a long time favorite.