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Went to grainger today, mega wrench

shoturtle

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Went to pick up a PO of a tool order from work. And I was looking at this bad boy. Proto 4" mega combo wrench. Love going to graingers, they have so many proto stuff in stock.
 

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shoturtle

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It takes at least 2 guys to work that wrench. That is a 48" inch level ontop to give reference as how long the wrench is.
 
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shoturtle

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It is heavy, is putting it mildly. I have always seen 4 guys working this wrench, 2 on each side, 2 pushing 2 pulling, as it is a 4". The smaller 3" stuff, 2 guys can work the wrench.
 

Roots

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It is heavy, is putting it mildly. I have always seen 4 guys working this wrench, 2 on each side, 2 pushing 2 pulling, as it is a 4". The smaller 3" stuff, 2 guys can work the wrench.

I'm kind of surprised they're not primarily using hydraulic wrenches or even hammer wrenches for those sizes. I'm pretty sure we have combination wrenches upwards of 4" or so in our Tool Crib, but can't possibly see using that as your first choice. That'd be a workout!
 
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shoturtle

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they do, but normally you have guys run ahead to seat the bolt, then the hydraulic unit comes in to set the bolt. The hydraulic units takes time to set up, and are really expensive. So you do not have allot on each floor of the construction.

It just get thing done faster to get guys to seat the bolts, and let the heavy work get done a bit late, so they stay a step ahead hydraulic unit.
 
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shoturtle

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It is about 40lbs. The reason for the 4 guys is to get the bolts seated. It takes allot to get a 4" just seat so that when the bit boy hydraulic comes in not to spine the nut and bolt.
 
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shoturtle

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It really does not matter, some like spline others don't. I like that they do not strip a fastener like a 12pt when used on 6pt. It is allot hard to strip a 4" fastener then a 10mm. There is allot of metal that you need to crack off to round them.

Not a fan of 12pt combo wrenches at all. Much prefer spline. And when working with 3+ inch fastener, you pretty much always finish with a hydraulic nut driver. So you really use a 40lb wrench to seat the darn thing, you will not be able to put enough force on the wrench to strip it by hand.
 
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TwoInch

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It really does not matter, some like spline others don't. I like that they do not strip a fastener like a 12pt when used on 6pt. It is allot hard to strip a 4" fastener then a 10mm. There is allot of metal that you need to crack off to round them.

i think he meant the large impact tool called a spline drive, not a spline type wrench or socket.

like this
images


uses sockets with a hex on one side and a spline drive, instead of a square drive like this

images
 

Roots

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they do, but normally you have guys run ahead to seat the bolt, then the hydraulic unit comes in to set the bolt. The hydraulic units takes time to set up, and are really expensive. So you do not have allot on each floor of the construction.

It just get thing done faster to get guys to seat the bolts, and let the heavy work get done a bit late, so they stay a step ahead hydraulic unit.

Ah, that makes sense in a production-construction setting. Thanks for explaining!
 

Terry454

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Saw the use of this kind of wrench on "Build it Bigger" the other day. They had a turnbuckle that took this kind of open end wrench to move a 100 ton piece of an aircraft carrier they were building; the George HW Bush -- the last of the Nimitz class carriers. They build modules and then move them into place for welding. They had to inch the module over to close the gap to welding distance and four guys were turning the wrench and a hoist took the weight of it.
 
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shoturtle

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easy killer... just a conversation.


I know why proto uses a spline drive vs 4pt. And the spline is way better for the high torque needed to drive those larger fastener with the socket. But I do not see how it has to really do with the mega wrench. That is all.
 
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shoturtle

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It is about 1" to 1 1/2" in the oval, so it is pretty thick. But this is not really ment to finish a fastener. The hydronic unit does that job. It is design so people can hold on. They have the ones with just the box end, with a much thicker center section. It is for a different application.
 
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