Hi all,
Thought I might share a wrench mod I did.
When doing lighting, I normally carried an adjustable wrench in my pants pocket attached to an elastic (bundgee type) safety lanyard. But a wrench in my pocket is not comfortable, and I would leave it out when I thought I would not need it. Of course, I would always need a C wrench when I didn't have one on me! And the elastic retaining lanyard would snag on stuff, so I would have to push that into my pocket as well, making my pocket bulge at the seams.
Years ago I switched from using standard sized adjustable wrenches and went to a smaller, more compact wrench from Stanley. It still has a 1" jaw opening, but is less than 7" in overall length, compared to a traditional 8" wrench. I have a bunch of the Stanley wrenches, and while they are smaller and lighter than a standard adjustable wrench they are still a little big to carry all the time.
I always have a Pock-Its pouch on me full of tools, and it has a rear compartment that would be perfect for a slightly shorter wrench. Last week I decided to strip away the plastic handle of one of the Stanley wrenches and see if it made it easier to carry in my pouch. A utility knife easily cut away the handle, leaving a bare wrench.
Without the plastic handle the wrench is 5 3/4" long, but felt a little small in my hand because it has short straight sides without the factory handle in place. It fit well in the rear section of the pouch, but slipped down so far that it was hard to remove. In addition, while the wrench without the plastic handle had a hole for a lanyard, I needed to fit the wrench inside the pouch "handle down" and the lanyard made it hard to insert or remove the wrench.
My solution was to replace the long safety lanyard with a wrist lanyard made from trick line. While it solved the storage and use issue, the wrench still felt uncomfortable in my hand.
My final solution was to wrap the grip with 550 paracord giving the wrench a beter grip and use the tails of the paracord to make a short wrist lanyard so when working at heights I won't drop the wrench. Now I have a wrench I can carry everyday. The paracord is softer than trick line and seemed to be the better choice for wrapping the handle.
Here is a picture of the my final result. The wrench on the left is a standard 8" size and the one in the middle is a Stanley with the plastic grip intact. The one on the right is the Stanley without the factory plastic grip. wrapped with 550 paracord. The sliding stop was purchased from eBay for a few cents and allows me to adjust the loop securely on my wrist when working at heights.
