The Rattlesnake Wrench

[skylab]

Anyone know anything on this one?
Thanks
Skylab

[Lewill2]

My guess is blacksmith made from an old file or rasp. Nice find

[stanley62]

Its "Scales" look pretty large.  Most probably made from a wood rasp like Lewill said. It is kinda cool...
Jim

[anglesmith]

A very well made example of a rasp/file wrench, well worth saving. I have 11 so far! The large shoeing rasps had a file cut on one side and coarse rasp cut on the other and the early ones were very thick.
Blacksmith? farmer? or more likely a class project from a vocation school. Which I gather were popular in in the early 1900s both here and over there. The latter participant is more likely to have hot stamped the date than either of the farmer or blacksmith.  The high carbon shoeing rasp made a better wrench than wrought iron or mild steel and was more readily available than the "new" alloy steels which were probably out of the reach of a vocational school.
Graeme

[Plyerman]

Neat old wrench, that's for sure. Wow, can you imagine a time when folks had to make (or have a blacksmith make) a wrench instead of simply going to the hardware store and buying one?

[rusty]

Not to mention a time when blacksmiths made the nuts and the bolts....

[Plyerman]

Good lord can you imagine how long a simple project would take if you had to make all the fasteners yourself? Yikes!

[john k]

Probably not as long as wiring for the pieces from Chicago or Boston, then waiting for them to arrive by train.  Wasn't no use to be in a hurry, it's gonna be awhile folks.

[strik9]

I enjoy making the wrenches but definately not out of need.  S wrenches are not common in Mexico so I decided to make a pair of them.    These are first pass pics, I have refined them a lot since this.

The black wrench is a 2-1/2"  SOE we needed for a one time job in the shop.  All are torch and grind affairs, nothing fancy at all.

[Branson]

Good lord can you imagine how long a simple project would take if you had to make all the fasteners yourself? Yikes!

That's why God invented apprentices and children.

[Branson]

Smiths have been having fun with rasps for a long time.  Unless I miss my bet, the 1911 stamped into yours is it's birthday.  If you google "tomahawk made from rasp," and hit "image" you'll find 'hawks, knives, and other things made from rasps.  There was a rash of interest in making rasps into decorative items and decorative tools a few years back.  Making snakes was the topic of quite a few workshops.

[skylab]

thanks guys!  I have some other ones.   I may create a display for these. 

also found some pics of similar wrench on website
http://www.mtfca.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?tpc=118802&post=215936

[Plyerman]

Mystery solved then it looks like. (and I do like that snake-rasp........not sure what I would do with it though....ah well, I still like it)



By the way strik9, nice job with the homemade wrenches. You ought to come up with your own "brand" to stamp on them.

[strik9]

I jokingly call them SlagLine tools, these were cut from the rustiest piece of scrap I could find.   When I get letter stamps that is the plan to mark them as such.

But, they do clean up to make really cool fake antiques.