What is this tool used for? (pics)

Hey, Everyone.

I was cleaning out an old roll cab prior to repainting it and found this wrench.

I cleaned it off with a wire wheel and lightly sanded the head to reveal markings.

It is stamped on the upper jaw 'COBS WRENCH CO. WORCHESTER MASS USA' on one side and 'MFG UNDER LCOBS PATS. STEEL'. The stampings are irregular.

The tool is very well made and balanced.

The two jaws forming the head show that it has been used as a hammer at some time in the past.

I believe that the wrench belonged to my Grandfather and was probably made around the turn of the century

Any help would be appreciated.

Brad
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Around here that would be called a "monkey wrench". Kind of the precursor of the "crescent wrench" of today. Just an adjustable wrench.
Zach
 
We always called it a Ford wrench,I think the proper name is a adjustable spanner wrench,it could have been a predecessor to the crescent wrench,very common to find at farm sales.
 
Brad B.,

It is really a neat wrench. Looks like a wall hanger to me. I like the wood on the handle.

I helped my husband remove some small bolts from an F20 at the junkyard...some wood on the crescent wrench handle would have been nice. A little less "ouch".
 
Monkey wrench is what we call it. Great for square headed bolts and nuts. As you can see, it doubled as a hammer when closed. You would have one in your steel wheeled tractor to tighten most of the adjustment bolts on plow or disc.
Monkey Wrench
 
Around my part of the country it was called a monkey wrench. Dad had a 14"-16" inch that he used a lot. Nuts were mostly square when this wrench was around. I can remember Dad using it on iron and wood wheel wagons to loosen the large nut's that held the wheels on, when he would grease the wheels. Was probably one of his most used wrenches back in the day.
 
Brad - if you examine that wrench very closely, I think you'll discover, based on the wear patterns evident in your photos, that you not only have in your possession a monkey wrench, but quite possibly a left handed monkey wrench. A rare find, indeed. Congratulations on your find.

Just kidding, of course - I have two of those, a big one and a little one, and now you've forced me to go out and shine them up to see if they're also made by the Cobs Wrench Company.

Paul
 
Hello Brad Bucknan,

I got the brother of your wrench AND his cousin.
Same markings on mine.
Guido.
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As a small kid I remember dad taking the nut off of the end of the axle on the high wooden wheel box wagon to grease them. He had a wrench like that he called a monkey wrench. Had a little bucket of axle grease that was really black and was very shiny. He smeared the grease on with a wooden shingle. The bucket was black and white checkered and had the name Black Sambo Grease on the side.
 
that"s a monkey wrench--i have a two footer and use it for square head nuts and also to adjust the tracks on my D2
 
I have three that were my grandfather's. He replaced the wooden handles with leather after the wood went away. He very well may have gotten them from the landfill in Des Moines, Iowa. I know that he was afrontrunner in recycling. For years he carried an empty gunny sack and always came back with one man's junk that he turned into shorter hoes, rakes & shovels. I will try to take pics & post.
 
Probably have a dozen or more of that type, some with the wood handle and so all steel, the big ones at around 15 pounds work great for straightening the bars on a hay rake.
 
I was a bit surprised that folks have forgotten what the legendary Monkey Wrench looks like. I guess I shouldn't be, they were long obsolete when I was a kid 45 years ago.

Believe it or not, new monkey (aka Ford) wrenches are still available. Ironically, they're made by Crescent, whose product made the monkey wrench obsolete!
Crescent Tool
 
Hey - the old monkey wrench has been immortalized by none other than Hank Williams Sr.

From "Howlin' At The Moon"

I rode my horse to town today and a gas pump we did pass.

I pulled him up and I hollered "Whoa" and said, "Fill him up with gas".

The man picked up a monkey wrench and wham he changed my tune,

You got me chasin' rabbits, spittin' out teeth and howlin' at the moon.
 
Looking at the second and third pictures from the top, I"m guessing that the owner of that monkey wrench had a teenage son. I think we have all wanted to calibrate our teenagers with one of those, but as you can see, the male teenage head will mushroom tool steel.
 
It was first created by a blacksmith named Charles Moncke in the late 1800's I guess that guy pronounced the "e"
 
I got a couple of those Coes wrenches from my FIL. Oddly enough, they are really handy for holding nuts in hard to reach places. They still work pretty darn good!
 
That brought back memories!

When we were teenagers, two cousins, my sister, and I did jam sessions with my sister on the piano, one cousin playing guitar, the other cousin playing concertina, and me on the fiddle (when nobody stopped me).

We actually made some 78 rpm records. One was "Howlin' At The Moon" with the guitarist cousin doing the vocal.
 
Hey- that's one from my neck of the woods!

And it's Worcester - not Worchester!!! Everybody does that.

It's pronounced Woosta (oo as in book) (or Wistah if you've got the accent real bad) - not at all as it appears.


I now live about 20 minutes away, but I used to live right near this factory and used to swim in Coes pond that it sits on. God only knows what kind of toxic waste lives in that pond...


Here's a picture of the old factory - I lived in one of the houses off to the left (but obviously not so long ago)
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and on a side note - Worcester was once a beautiful bustling city.

As manufacturing in america started to decline, worcester overtaxed all the remaining manufacturers until they left the city.

BUT - they did use the money for noble projects like putting needle exchange boxes for drug addicts everywhere, including the bathrooms of the one shopping mall that's left in the city.

Nothing revives a local economy like healthy drug addicts.
 
I'm not sure if it was intended to be a hammer - but you'd have a tough time finding one that wasn't used that way.

In fact, I think I use mine more as a hammer than anything else.
 
That sounds like a lot of fun Goose! Good memories. Howlin' at the Moon is one of my favorites. Actually, Old Hank Sr. didn't make any bad ones as far as I'm concerned.

Paul
 
Yeah I know that it was possibly intended that it would be used as a hammer. We use to call the adjustable wrench a, "Cresent Hammer". I was having a little fun, but, I suppose it might not have been funny, I guess.
 

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