![Tweedy and Popp - hand-forged adjustable wrench](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Tweedy_and_Popp_-_hand-forged_adjustable_wrench.jpg)
The monkey wrench is a type of
adjustable wrench, a 19th century American refinement of 18th-century English coach wrenches. It was widely used in the 19th and early 20th century. It is of interest as an
antique among tool collectors and is still occasionally used in maintenance and repair when it happens to be convenient.
The term ''monkey wrench'' is also sometimes used loosely, usually by non-tradesman, to refer to the
pipe wrench
A pipe wrench is any of several types of wrench that are designed to turn threaded pipe and pipe fittings for assembly (tightening) or disassembly (loosening). The Stillson wrench, or Stillson-pattern wrench, is the usual form of pipe wrench, e ...
(owing to their broadly similar shapes).
A wrench with smooth jaws is not used for turning
threaded pipe
A threaded pipe is a pipe with screw-threaded ends for assembly.
Tapered threads
The threaded pipes used in some plumbing installations for the delivery of gases or liquids under pressure have a tapered thread that is slightly conical (in co ...
. The largely US
idiom "to throw a monkey wrench into..." means to
sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...
something. The British English equivalent is "to throw a spanner in the works". The phrase "left handed monkey wrench" is sometimes used as ironic humor, as monkey wrenches are ambidextrously designed.
Etymology and history
The ''World English Dictionary'' gives a
nautical
Seamanship is the art, knowledge and competence of operating a ship, boat or other craft on water. The'' Oxford Dictionary'' states that seamanship is "The skill, techniques, or practice of handling a ship or boat at sea."
It involves topics ...
definition for ''monkey'', as a
modifier
Modifier may refer to:
* Grammatical modifier, a word that modifies the meaning of another word or limits its meaning
** Compound modifier, two or more words that modify a noun
** Dangling modifier, a word or phrase that modifies a clause in an am ...
"denoting a small light structure or piece of equipment contrived to suit an immediate purpose: a ''monkey foresail'' ; a ''monkey bridge''."
Adjustable coach wrenches for the odd-sized nuts of wagon wheels were manufactured in England and exported to North America in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They were set either by sliding a wedge, or later by twisting the handle, which turned a screw, narrowing or widening the jaws. In 1840,
Worcester
Worcester may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England
** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament
* Worcester Park, London, Engla ...
, Massachusetts knife manufacturer
Loring Coes
Loring Coes (April 22, 1812 – July 13, 1906) was an American inventor, industrialist and Republican politician who invented the screw type wrench, commonly known as the monkey wrench and who served as a member of the Worcester, Massachusetts Ci ...
invented a screw-based coach wrench design in which the jaw width was set with a spinning ring fixed under the sliding lower jaw, above the handle. This was patented in 1841 and the tools were advertised and sold in the United States as ''monkey wrenches'', a term which was already in use for the English handle-set coach wrenches.
For the next 87 years a very wide and popular range of monkey wrenches was manufactured by Coes family partnerships, licensees and companies, which filed further wrench patents throughout the 19th century. Some Coes wrenches could be bought with wooden knife handles, harking back to the company's early knife making business. In 1909 the
Coes Wrench Company
Coes Wrench Company was a tool manufacturing company based in Worcester, Massachusetts. The company was originally part of the L. and A. G. Coes & Co.
The Coes Wrench Company was founded April 1, 1888.
Coes Wrench Company manufactured the screw ...
advertised a six-foot-long "key" wrench, shaped like a monkey wrench, for use on
railroad
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
s. The Coes wrench designs were acquired by longtime toolmaker Bemis & Call of
Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1928. After 1939 its successor companies manufactured monkey wrenches from Coes designs until the mid-1960s, yielding a production run of over 120 years.
Monkey wrenches are still manufactured and are used for some heavy tasks, but they have otherwise been mostly replaced by the
shifting adjustable wrench/spanner, which is much lighter and has a smaller head, allowing it to fit more easily into tight spaces, and the tooth-jawed, torque-gripping pipe wrench.
These are also known as a Ford wrench owing to this type of wrench being included in the tool kit supplied with every
Ford Model A. They are still used by aircraft technicians, mainly when large but low-
torque
In physics and mechanics, torque is the rotational equivalent of linear force. It is also referred to as the moment of force (also abbreviated to moment). It represents the capability of a force to produce change in the rotational motion of th ...
fasteners are involved.
False etymologies
Charles Moncky myth
The following story can be found in sundry publications from the late 19th and early 20th centuries:
That handy tool, the "monkey-wrench", is not so named because it is a handy thing to monkey with, or for any kindred reason. "Monkey" is not its name at all, Charles Moncky, the inventor of it, sold his patent for $5000, and invested the money in a house in Williamsburg, Kings County, where he now lives.
Although this story was refuted by historical and patent research in the late 19th century,
it appears to have been inspired by a real person. A Charles Monk (not Moncky) lived in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn in the 1880s where he made and sold moulder's tools, not mechanics' tools like a monkey wrench.
He could not have invented or named the monkey wrench because he was born after the term first appeared in print.
Racial slur hoax
A persistent hoax on social media claims African-American boxer
Jack Johnson invented the wrench while in prison, and the wrench was named "monkey wrench" as a racial slur. The first patent for a monkey wrench was awarded before Johnson was born. Johnson did, however, receive a patent for improvements to it, but after it already had the monkey wrench name.
See also
*
Adjustable spanner
An adjustable spanner (UK and most other English-speaking countries) or adjustable wrench (US and Canada) is any of various styles of spanner (wrench) with a movable jaw, allowing it to be used with different sizes of fastener head ( nut, bol ...
/wrench
*
Pipe wrench
A pipe wrench is any of several types of wrench that are designed to turn threaded pipe and pipe fittings for assembly (tightening) or disassembly (loosening). The Stillson wrench, or Stillson-pattern wrench, is the usual form of pipe wrench, e ...
or Stillson wrench
*
Plumber wrench
A plumber wrench (or plumber's wrench, pipe wrench, Swedish wrench or Swedish pattern wrench) is a form of plier described as a pipe wrench that uses compound leverage to grip and rotate plumbing pipes. Similar to the action of a Vise Grip p ...
*
The Monkey Wrench Gang
''The Monkey Wrench Gang'' is a novel written by American author Edward Abbey (1927–1989), published in 1975.
Abbey's most famous work of fiction, the novel concerns the use of sabotage to protest environmentally damaging activities in the ...
References and notes
{{Use dmy dates, date=November 2017
Wrenches