[OT - Crescent Wrench] - Re: 8.10b - first impression and questions

[Billie Erin Walsh]

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Thorny wrote:
>
>   
>> Since I'm reading this OT thread I might as well put in my $.02.
>>
>> Not sure where your neck of the woods is but I can certainly understand
>> that there could be regional or local names for some tools.
>>     
>
> In fact, _I'm_ not sure where that neck of the woods is! :-)  A fixed width,
> open ended wrench was what my father called a crescent wrench - and that
> could be prairie Canada, northern England or British Army usage.  I know my
> wife, from Nova Scotia where I now live, always means an adjustable wrench.
>
>   
>> My understanding is that the name Crescent Wrench became a popular name
>> for an adjustable open end wrench (the generic name) presumably because
>> the name of the Crescent Tool Company was so prominently displayed on the
>> handle and most humans like to deal with simple nicknames rather than a
>> generic name which takes longer to say.
>>     
>
> Thanks for the history lesson.
>
>   
>> Another example which you will probably recognise (since your
>> email address ends with .ca) is the "Robertson" screw which is a square
>> socket screw (to differentiate from hex socket screws which use an "Allen
>> key", hex key). 
>>     
>
> Indeed.  One of the great Canadian inventions.  The greatest, if you
> consider that Insulin wasn't so much invented as discovered, and the
> Americans and Scots both claim to have invented the telephone (though we
> invented basketball and curling, so it's even).
>
> A New Jersey man bought the house next door, which has a mysterious second
> story door into space, and since he was renting it out he needed to secure
> the door so that renters wouldn't kill themselves.  He showed us how his
> carpenter had installed "special security screws" fastening the door into
> the jamb.  We laughed ourselves silly before telling him that those were
> Robertson screws, with drivers available at every local hardware store :-)
>   
Did you ever have a "phillips" screwdriver that wasn't any good at 
installing or removing phillips head screws? You know, stripped out the 
head all the time. Take a close look at the very tip of the screwdriver. 
Does it come to a sharp point or is it blunted? If it's pointy it's 
actually a Reed and Prince screw driver. Phillips requires a blunted tip 
to fit into the bottom of the screw head. The vast majority of 
screwdriver manufacturers make the point to pointy to work properly. 
Simply grind down the tip a bit and it will work MUCH better. Reed and 
Prince requires a sharp point to seat properly into the head of the screw.