Neat old "Boos" adjustable wrench

[Tanshanomi]

I was over at my mother-in-law's house doing some repairs earlier this week, and I found myself in need of a metric wrench. My father-in-law passed away last fall at age 82, and typical of men of his era, the only metric tools in his workshop were three box wrenches covering 8-13 mm...and I needed a 15 mm. So I opted for an adjustable wrench and found this Boos Tool Corp wrench hiding in a tin at the back of one of his tool drawers. I tried it out and it worked surprisingly well — better than a Crescent-style, IMHO. Not only was adjusting the jaws easier, but keeping just a little torsional tension on the handle while using it kept the jaws snugged up tight on the nut quite nicely.

Since I have no one to ask about about the history of this particular tool, I did some digging online and found the patent, which was filed in 1939 and approved in 1942. I don't know how common these are, but I found the adjusting mechanism pretty slick and thought it was a neat old find. It's also a nice memento of my wife's dad, who was a great guy and a close friend of mine.

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=y69LAAAAEBAJ

 

[DieselSaves]

Found one of these in a wonder box today. Mine has more rust but still works. The build quality made me think it was more along the lines of a novelty product than a tool for heavy use. The design with the top jaw being serrated should hold better than smooth jaws but when it is set at its smallest, the lower jaw sticks past the upper one about three eights of an inch. This underbite limits it's usefulness for small hexes.