| Author |
Message |
    
Intokyo
Tinkerer
Username: Intokyo
Post Number: 1
Registered: 10-2012
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, October 15, 2012 - 02:51 pm: | 
|
seems to be an adjustable width screwdriver, resembling a crude but heavy duty compass. same as ebay item #251158681075
$30 probably won't break the bank but, being a tightwad, I wondered if readers knew of a naturally occurring alternative? or something quickly thrown together. in this instance, I intend to use the slotted tips, to remove a pair of enormous screws. |
Br1078lum
Tinkerer
Username: Br1078lum
Post Number: 405
Registered: 11-2010
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, October 15, 2012 - 08:23 pm: |
|
Commonly called a spanner. For some applications, you can make them out of industrial knife blades (after removing the sharp edge first), if you really want to be cheap. But a good tool is always the best way to go. You might be able to find less expensive versions of these, but will they work as good, or be worse?
PF |
Marty
Tinkerer
Username: Marty
Post Number: 101
Registered: 11-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - 06:06 pm: |
|
I cobbled a spanner that I'm happy with by regrinding the tips on an old set of heavy duty carpentry dividers, and slightly bending the tips inward to make them more parallel at typical opening distance. It's long enough to reach down into a set of bellows and stiff enough not to jump out of the little slots. |
Rick_oleson
Tinkerer
Username: Rick_oleson
Post Number: 1246
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2012 - 10:11 am: |
|
If you want to cobble your own, I recommend using a pair of long nose pliers as your starting point, as the joint is much stronger than it is in a divider. You can get these now for a couple of bucks thanks to the economies of Chinese manufacturing. |
M_currie
Tinkerer
Username: M_currie
Post Number: 305
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2012 - 03:15 pm: |
|
Another option for spanners in relatively large or medium sizes is a bicycle shop. Park and others make pin spanners that are essentially a single piece of spring steel with prongs at the end, in several different sizes, for both face and edge spanner nuts. Most have round pins, but I have seen at least one that would fit a slotted face nut too. It's possible if necessary to file or grind the pins smaller on one of these, and any one tool will cover a range of diameters. If you're looking for a good starting place for lens-size spanners, this might be worth a look. Most good bike shops have a big Park Tool rack somewhere to browse on.
For specialized small nuts, strong tubing or cheap Asian wrench sockets can be either ground or filed down, leaving just a couple of nubs to fit the face holes in a nut. This may be the best tool for things like shutter dials and wind knobs and the like, if you have time and supplies. The disadvantage is, of course, that each one you make is only a single size. But I made a tiny one using a 4 mm. 1/4 inch drive socket for the knob on my Nikon shifting lens. It worked perfectly where no wire or other home made gadget could get enough purchase, and existing wrenches were too big. |
Marty
Tinkerer
Username: Marty
Post Number: 102
Registered: 11-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2012 - 07:23 pm: |
|
I used to wind up using long nose pliers quite a bit, but there was no way to lock the jaws in place. With the old type of dividers, the points are cast iron or steel, and they lock in place with a wing nut... They turn up quite a bit on ebay. I didn't have it in me to regrind the tips on a pair of my grandfather's old dividers, but picked up a pair with a broken fine adjustment spring, which happened to make them even better for their new life.  |
|
