Breech Plug wrench

[Bob Rearley]

Does anyone know where I might find a breechplug wrench like the one seen on the Ron Ehlert video of building a Chambers' kit gun?  I'm doing fine with the crescent wrench.  I would just like to have one of those.  Neat tool.  "The one who dies with the most tools wins".
Thanks, Bob

[Dave B]

I don't know if its the same as Ron's but I picked up a forged breach plug wrench that the owner told me he had gotten from Dixie Gun works. Its double ended for different widths. It was quite a few years ago that he picked it up. I don't know if you can still get them. Any black smith worth his salt could whip one up for you. I don't have it in front of me but its made from 5/8 square steel stock and is about 12" long.

[Stophel]

I just use a big Crescent wrench...

I keep saying I will take a pipe wrench and grind the teeth off the jaws and use that (they're at about the same angle as a tapered breechplug), but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

[J.D.]

I made a wrench similar to the one illustrated in Dixie's catalog and didn't like it.

I found an old monkey wrench, for little of nothing, at a flea market that works better, as a breech plug wrench, than anything else I have tried.

[billd]

Fred Miller once told me the best wrench is the old monkey style that came with Fords years ago.  I don't know if he meant Model T's or what. My memory only goes back to the fifties.

Bill

[Metalshaper]

The Old Stilson Wrench!! I was told,  Ford use to have these in the tool kit of the old Model T's?  ( Give me a break, I'm only 47!!  )  they are kinda like a monkey wrench,
but the jaws are smooth. Depending on what, your doing,, these are first rate for breechplugs and such..

Just used mine to help with the lil Casull style, turret rifle I'm working on.

Respect Always
Metalshaper

[jerrywh]

For you kids, this is an old time monkey wrench like the Mod. T came with .

[Tom Currie]

I've got one of those. Now I know what it is !

[Robert Wolfe]

That's what I use, an old monkey wrench with no teeth. It has enough slop in it that it generally will match the taper in the plug pretty well.

[b bogart]

I've had one for years. Never used it, didn't know why I bought it. Then there was a thread on ALR about it being a very good breech plug wrench. Darned if they weren't correct! Now I know why I bought it It works very well.
Bruce

[Collector]

AKA, 'knuckle buster.'  Not a tool to be used in confined spaces of hard metallic surfaces with sharp threaded and/or squared edges and stubborn parts, such as underneath an automobile or tractor chassis.  Also known to put a bloody notch in the bridge of your nose and stars in your eyes, if used improperly.  Don't ask me how I know...

[Z. Buck]

holy cow i have one of those, i just thought it was a pipe wrench for using on chromed  or finished brass unions, it just sits in with my other pipe wrenches, didnt realize it was actually an old ford wrench, that's pretty cool, thanks for the lesson, (and here when we ask for a ford wrench around my house we get handed a hammer, no i know better )

[Dale Halterman]

Actually, the old Ford wrenches were a simpler, flimsier affair than what Jerry has pictured. If you have the heavier version with a wooden handle, that is in fact a monkey wrench for use on pipe fittings or valves that have hexagonal (or is it octagonal?) ends.

I have a small one and a larger one that I use for breech plugs, depending on how much "persuasion" is required.

I think the actual Ford wrenches are too small for use on a stubborn breechplug.

Dale H

[jerrywh]

True.
 The photo I posted is not an actual old ford wrench. It is a classical monkey wrench. The ford wrench actually had Ford printed on it and was a simpler looking wrench but the same principal. I still have some original old ford wrenches from my great granfather.
 This is an actual ford monkeywrench for a mod. T.
 

[billd]

Yep, that's the one I have. From somewhere in my fathers past.

Bill

[tuffy]

Why am I one of the few on here that can actually remember using these on the old Ford?

[frogwalking]

Jerrywh,

That is a water pump wrench. 

They work great on breach plugs. 

I have one in my plumbing box.

[Blacksmoke]

The first vehicle that I ever drove was a 1923 Ford Model T!  I was 8 yrs. old and on the farm in Minnesota the year was 1948.  My dad had converted the 23 Ford Model T car into a farm truck.   Yes it came with a "monkey wrench".     Hugh