98 Fun Facts About Tools

The oldest known stone tools, about 3.3 million years old, were found beside Lake Turkana in which country?

Kenya's Lomekwi site turned up when a survey team took a wrong turn in 2011; its flakes and anvils are about half a million years older than the earliest known fossils of our own genus, Homo.

Which Tanzanian site, where Louis and Mary Leakey dug for decades, gave its name to the earliest widespread stone-tool tradition?

Olduvai Gorge gave the Oldowan its name after Louis Leakey found the simple choppers there in the 1930s; the Leakeys' later finds in the gorge drew public attention and money for a wave of new East African digs.

The modern jigsaw was born in 1946 when a Swiss engineer fitted a saw blade to which household appliance?

A sewing machine belonging to Albert Kaufmann's wife gave up its needle for the blade; his employer Scintilla sold the result as the Lesto jigsaw from 1947, and Bosch later bought the firm.

The Phillips cross-head drive is known for which tendency when the torque gets too high?

Camming out means the driver rides up and out of the recess as torque rises; whether Phillips intended that is disputed, but the later Pozidriv was reshaped to grip harder and resist it.

Which carmaker tried Henry Phillips's new cross-head screws on its 1936 assembly lines, before its rivals followed?

General Motors tried the screws on its 1936 Cadillac because the cross recess centres a power driver by itself; nearly every American carmaker had switched by 1940.

The square-socket Robertson screw is especially common in which country?

Canada kept Peter Robertson's square drive largely to itself: Henry Ford found it saved time on Model Ts built in Windsor, Ontario, but Robertson would not license it, so Ford's American plants went without.

Which screw drive, introduced in 1967, is recognised by its six-pointed star-shaped recess?

Torx was introduced by Camcar Textron in 1967; a tamper-resistant version adds a post in the centre of the star so that an ordinary driver cannot get in.

The hex key is best known by which brand name, trademarked by a Hartford, Connecticut, toolmaker around 1910?

Allen was William G. Allen, whose 1910 patent covered cheap cold-formed set screws with a hexagonal socket, sunk flush so that no head stuck out; his firm sold them as Allen safety set screws.

What do the British, Irish, Australians and New Zealanders call a wrench?

A spanner is what Britons throw 'in the works' where Americans throw a wrench; in American English the word survives only for a special wrench with a hook or pin.

The Swedish toolmaker Bahco credits which inventor with the modern adjustable wrench?

Johan Petter Johansson patented his design in Sweden in the early 1890s and took out over 100 patents in all, yet Americans call the same tool a Crescent wrench, after the firm that later patented it there.

Edward Abbey's 1975 novel about eco-saboteurs in the American Southwest takes its title from which tool?

The monkey wrench of The Monkey Wrench Gang gave sabotage in defence of wild land the name 'monkeywrenching', and the novel openly inspired the founders of the activist group Earth First!

Vise-Grip, patented by a Nebraska blacksmith in 1924, was the first of which kind of tool?

Locking pliers were patented in 1924 by William Petersen, a Danish-born blacksmith in De Witt, Nebraska; an over-centre lever clamps the jaws shut, so they hold without being squeezed.

A precursor of the modern chainsaw was developed around 1830 by Bernhard Heine for what purpose?

Bone surgery came first: Heine's osteotome was a hand-cranked chain of small cutting teeth, and two Scottish doctors had already used a simpler chain saw in the 1780s, decades before anyone felled a tree with one.

Which company patented an electric chainsaw for logging sites in 1926 and a petrol one in 1929?

Stihl was Andreas Stihl's firm, but a rival beat him to petrol power: Emil Lerp's Dolmar built the first petrol chainsaw in 1927, two years before Stihl's own.

The first handheld electric drill was built in 1895 by Fein, a company founded in which country?

Germany's Fein built it in Stuttgart, but without the pistol grip and trigger switch now taken for granted; an American maker patented those in 1917.

Which Baltimore-born company patented the pistol-grip, trigger-switch electric drill in 1917?

Black & Decker, founded in a Baltimore machine shop in 1910, patented the pistol-grip drill in 1917 and later built cordless tools for NASA's Gemini and Apollo programmes.

Which company began making Swiss Army knives in Ibach, Switzerland, in 1891?

Victorinox grew from Karl Elsener's Ibach workshop, which began supplying the army in 1891; the very first Swiss Army knives had come from a German firm in Solingen, because no Swiss maker could produce enough.

Who popularised the English term 'Swiss Army knife' in place of the German Offiziersmesser?

US soldiers after World War II found the knives on sale in their Post Exchange stores, took them home as souvenirs by the thousand, and gave them a plainer English name than Offiziersmesser.

What was Tim Leatherman trying to repair on a 1975 trip when he thought up his multi-tool?

A Fiat 600 car kept breaking down as he and his wife Chau crossed Europe on a budget; with only a scout knife to hand he kept wishing it had pliers, and spent the next eight years getting one made.

Leatherman Tool Group is based in which US city?

Leatherman Tool Group has been in Portland, Oregon, since 1983, the year the outdoor retailer Cabela's ordered 500 tools and ended Tim Leatherman's years of rejection letters.

What does the name WD-40 stand for?

Water Displacement, 40th formula records the 40th attempt at a rust-preventing solvent by San Diego's Rocket Chemical Company in 1953; Convair first used it on Atlas missile skins, and it was never patented.

Which company's Revolite division developed the waterproof cloth tape of World War II that became duct tape?

Johnson & Johnson made the tape for the US military, which wanted a strong waterproof cloth tape to keep moisture out of ammunition cases; peacetime builders later wrapped heating ducts with it.

Which spiral wood-boring bit with a screw point is traditionally turned in a brace?

An auger bit is shaped like a corkscrew for a reason: its long spiral twist carries the shavings up and out of the hole as it bores.

Why is a spirit level called a 'spirit' level?

Its vial is filled with alcohol, long known as spirit, because alcohol will not freeze and crack the glass as water could; the bubble trapped inside does the measuring.

The 'plumb' in plumb bob comes from the Latin word for which metal?

Lead is plumbum in Latin, the root of both 'plumb bob' and 'plumber'; the dense metal makes a compact weight that pulls the line straight down.

Which Greek mathematician is said to have boasted that with a lever and a place to stand he could move the world?

Archimedes' boast comes down through later writers; Plutarch adds that when King Hiero challenged him to prove it, he sat on the shore and hauled a laden three-masted ship towards him with pulleys.

Which kind of wrench lets a mechanic tighten a bolt to a set force and no further?

A torque wrench signals when the chosen force is reached; Conrad Bahr, who patented a ratcheting one in the 1930s, is said to have wanted the flange bolts on water mains tightened evenly.

Pierre Vernier's sliding scale of 1631 is best known today on which tool?

The caliper carries his idea into every workshop, yet Vernier devised it for a quadrant, an instrument for measuring angles.

Tabitha Babbitt, credited with inventing the circular saw in 1813, belonged to which religious group?

The Shakers of Harvard, Massachusetts, counted Babbitt among them; she reputedly attached a circular blade to her spinning wheel after watching men waste half their effort on the pit saw's return stroke.

'Sawzall', the generic American name for a reciprocating saw, was which company's trade name?

Milwaukee Electric Tool rose from the ruins of a firm wrecked by a factory fire, whose assets A. F. Siebert bought in 1924; its Sawzall of 1951 was the first portable hacksaw with a back-and-forth blade.

Raymond DeWalt, who founded his company in Pennsylvania in 1924, invented which machine?

The radial arm saw, which DeWalt invented in 1922 and sold as the Wonder Worker, was the standard machine for cutting boards to length until powered mitre saws displaced it in the 1970s.

Why is the metal hook on the end of a tape measure deliberately loose?

To offset its own thickness: the hook slides in or out by exactly that much, so the reading stays true whether it is hooked over an edge or pushed against a wall.

In the UK and Australia, a retractable box cutter is generically known by which brand name?

A Stanley knife takes its name from Stanley Works, a Connecticut toolmaker, so the everyday British word honours an American brand that Americans themselves just call a box cutter.

Which toolmaker began in 1920 with a set of ten sockets that fitted five interchangeable handles?

Snap-on took its name from sockets that snapped onto the handles; Joseph Johnson and William Seidemann sold the idea as 'Five do the work of fifty' and took it straight to mechanics.

Craftsman tools were originally a house brand of which retailer?

Sears registered Craftsman in 1927 and had outside makers build the tools to its specification; the brand was sold in 2017, leaving Sears with only a licence to keep stocking it.

An early nail gun was designed in the 1940s to speed up work on which Howard Hughes project?

The Spruce Goose's wooden hull was nailed and glued together, and then the nails were pulled out again; engineer Morris Pynoos designed the gun for the job.

The conical projection on the end of an anvil, used for bending, is called what?

The horn tapers so that a smith can bend hot metal round whatever curve the job needs, and it is usually left unhardened, unlike the flat steel face beside it.

The Pozidriv screw drive, an improved Phillips, was developed in 1962 by which company?

GKN Screws and Fasteners developed Pozidriv in 1962, adding small radial ribs so the driver seats deeper and slips less under torque; a Phillips driver fits a Pozidriv screw only loosely.

In professional wrestling, the sledgehammer is the signature weapon of which star?

Triple H, WWE's 'Cerebral Assassin', made the sledgehammer his calling card; after losing a street fight to Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam 2002 he struck him with one, and Michaels left on a stretcher.

Wooden hammer handles are traditionally made from ash or which other shock-absorbing wood?

Hickory is among the hardest and strongest of American woods yet soaks up shock, a blend of toughness and stiffness that no other commercial timber is said to match.

A dead blow hammer barely bounces back because its hollow head is filled with what?

Sand or lead shot, or steel shot in many modern heads, lags behind the face and lands a moment later, spreading the blow over a longer instant and cancelling the bounce that could mar precision work.

Some of the oldest illustrations of pliers show which Greek god?

Hephaestus, smith of the gods, is drawn at his forge gripping hot metal with tongs, the tool pliers probably grew out of; hammer and tongs were his standing emblems in Greek art.

Gunsmiths traditionally call a screwdriver by which old name?

Turnscrew matches the French tournevis; early guns pushed the tool's refinement, since the screws clamping the pyrites in a wheellock had to be undone again and again.

The Russian nickname for an angle grinder honours which Balkan country, which supplied the USSR's first ones?

Bulgaria supplied the Soviet Union's first angle grinders in the 1970s, from a factory in the town of Lovech, so Russians still call the tool a 'bolgarka', literally a Bulgarian woman.

Which Shakespeare play has a friar call 'Get me an iron crow', meaning a crowbar, to open a tomb?

Romeo and Juliet turns on that crowbar: Friar Laurence must break into Juliet's tomb himself because a plague quarantine stopped his letter from ever reaching Romeo.

Non-sparking hammers for coal mines and refineries are made of aluminium or which alloy?

Beryllium copper is soft enough that a blow throws only weak, cool sparks, unlikely to light methane or fuel vapour; the price is a head that wears down faster than steel.

Why are precision surveying tapes made of the alloy Invar?

Invar barely expands with heat, so a long tape reads the same at noon as at dawn; the name is short for 'invariable', and the discovery won Charles Édouard Guillaume the 1920 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Which small plane, held in one hand with its blade bevel-up, was designed for trimming end grain?

A block plane beds its blade at 20 degrees or less with the bevel facing up and no chip breaker; the low-angle versions, bedded near 12 degrees, slice across the fibre ends most cleanly.

Which bathroom tool did confectioner John Hawley invent in 1874, naming it a 'vent-clearer'?

Plunger sales began under the name 'force cup', and the flattened rim that seals against a drain was added two years after the original design.

Which primatologist proved animals make tools by watching a chimpanzee fish for termites with grass?

Jane Goodall's report led her mentor Louis Leakey to reply that science would have to rethink its definitions of both 'tool' and 'man', or else count chimpanzees as human.

Which small hole-boring hand tool for wood shares its name with a cocktail of gin and lime?

Gimlet may have reached the bar because the drink was thought as piercing as the tool, though a rival story credits a Royal Navy surgeon named Gimlette.

Which DIY retail giant was founded in 1978 by two executives newly fired from the Handy Dan chain?

The Home Depot was the comeback of Bernard Marcus and Arthur Blank, Handy Dan's chief executive and vice president, who lost their jobs in a corporate power struggle.

Which ceremonial hammer of American judges and auctioneers has never been used by judges in Britain?

Gavel-banging British judges exist only on screen: across the Commonwealth and Ireland the bench has never used one, an error spread by American-influenced TV dramas.

Which sharpening stone is named after an old verb for sharpening, not after water as many assume?

Whetstone comes from the verb 'whet', to sharpen a blade, not from 'wet', even though many of the stones are lubricated with water or oil.

Which self-locking nylon fastener was invented in 1958 to bundle the wiring inside aircraft?

Cable ties were dreamed up by Maurus Logan after a 1956 tour of a Boeing plant, and first went on sale under the brand name Ty-Rap.

Which household adhesive was stumbled upon in 1942 by chemists seeking clear plastic for gunsights?

Super glue was rejected at first because it stuck to everything it touched; Harry Coover's team rediscovered it in 1951 and it went on sale in 1958.

Which one-handed axe gave English a peacemaking idiom, after a custom attributed to the Iroquois?

Hatchet heads differ from a plain axe by carrying a hammerhead on the back, and the peace idiom recalls an Iroquois tradition of putting weapons away after a treaty.

Ron Hickman, who invented the Workmate workbench, designed the Elan sports car for which marque?

Lotus designer Hickman got the Workmate idea in 1961, when he used an expensive Swedish chair as a sawhorse while building a wardrobe and sawed its leg off.

Which nail-driving tool with a forked prying end appears in Albrecht Dürer's print Melencolia I?

Claw hammer leverage grows with a longer handle and a deeper curve, while its heavier cousin for house framing has a checkered face that stops it skidding off the nail.

Which American folk hero beat a steam-powered drill with his hammer, then died from the effort?

John Henry may have been real: records traced by one historian point to a contest at Virginia's Lewis Tunnel, where prisoners worked beside steam drills night and day.

Which workshop abrasive was first recorded in 13th-century China, made of crushed shells and seeds?

Sandpaper that can be used wet came much later: an ink maker from Philadelphia, Francis Okie, invented the waterproof kind, which 3M released in 1921.

Plumber's tape, wound around threaded joints to seal them, is a film of which material?

Teflon tape is usually white, but in some countries coloured versions match what the plumbing carries: yellow for natural gas and green for oxygen.

Which handheld device locates hidden wall framing by sensing nails or changes in density?

Stud finder models were purely magnetic until 1977, when Robert Franklin's capacitor-based design began sensing density changes inside the wall.

Which car tool for loosening wheel nuts is known in the UK and Australia as a wheel brace?

Lug wrench designs kept in car boots are often L-shaped with a flat prying tip, which is there to lever off the hubcap hiding the nuts.

Which marking tool has a flat, rectangular body that helps stop it rolling away?

Carpenter's pencil makers have used the flat shape since about 1560, when graphite was pushed into hollowed juniper sticks; most users sharpen one with a knife.

Which marking tool leaves a straight guide when its dye-coated string is pulled taut and snapped?

Chalk line reels can mark guides far longer than any straightedge, and they work even on rough timber that has no squared edge to measure from.

Which Finnish company, founded as an ironworks in 1649, is best known for orange-handled scissors?

Fiskars settled on orange by an internal vote in 1967, after making prototype scissors with handles in three other colours.

Which psychologist is linked to the adage that someone with only a hammer sees every task as a nail?

Abraham Maslow put the idea in a 1966 book, though philosopher Abraham Kaplan had said much the same two years earlier about a small boy given a hammer.

Which mechanism lets a socket driver turn a nut with back-and-forth swings, without lifting off?

Ratchet handles with swappable sockets go back to 1863, when J. J. Richardson of Woodstock, Vermont, patented the idea.

Which plumber's tool with hardened, serrated jaws was patented in 1869 by Daniel Stillson?

Pipe wrench teeth are harder than the metal they grip, so they bite into a round surface instead of slipping; Stillson licensed the design to several makers.

Which brand of adjustable hand tool did Lindbergh carry, with pliers, on his 1927 Atlantic flight?

Crescent was only twenty years old as a tool company, founded in 1907, when its wrench joined sandwiches and a bottle of water on Lindbergh's very short packing list.

An axe blade and a chisel tip are both examples of which of the six classical simple machines?

Wedge-shaped edges trade distance for force: a long push on the blunt end becomes a short, powerful shove sideways, which is what splits wood fibres apart.

Which decorating aid did 3M's Richard Drew create in 1925 after watching frustrated car painters?

Masking tape came from Drew seeing body-shop workers fume as they peeled off butcher paper stuck to cars they were painting; he saw the need for a gentler adhesive.

Which part of a drill grips the bit in its jaws and is traditionally tightened with a small key?

Chuck designs that tighten by hand need no key at all, a convenience that is bought at the cost of some gripping force.

Which long-jawed gripping tool do jewellers and electricians use to bend and cut wire?

Needle-nose pliers are also known as snipe-nose pliers, and a cutting edge near the joint lets them sever wire as well as bend it.

Which long-handled tool uses compound hinges to slice through padlocks, chains and steel rebar?

Bolt cutters pair long handles with short blades, and the compound hinges multiply the leverage; the tool is also known as a bolt cropper.

Which early human species, long linked with stone tools, has a Latin name meaning 'handy man'?

Homo habilis was placed in our own genus partly because its fossils lay with stone tools, which were then taken as proof of advanced thinking.

Which hand tool, once just a metal bit heated in a fire, melts filler metal to join wires?

Soldering iron production went electric on a large scale in Detroit in 1894; before that the bit had to be reheated over a fire or a charcoal brazier whenever it cooled.

Which DIY insert, letting screws grip brick or plaster, first won fame at the British Museum?

Wall plug sales took off after the First World War, when fitting electric lights into old buildings coincided with a labour shortage; John Rawlings had launched it in 1911 as the Rawlplug.

Which cone-shaped cutter lets a flat-head screw sit flush by widening the mouth of a drilled hole?

Countersink cuts are conical, unlike a counterbore, which leaves a flat-bottomed hole of the kind used for socket-head cap screws.

Which pointed steel tool is struck to leave a dimple in metal, so that a drill bit will not wander?

Center punch tips are ground to between 60 and 90 degrees, and automatic versions do the job without any hammer blow at all.

Which coarse filing tool with individually cut teeth do farriers use to trim a horse's hoof?

Rasp grades run from the finest, called 'cabinet', to the coarsest, called 'wood', and the tool comes in rectangular, round and half-round shapes.

Which machinist's striking tool has one flat face and one domed face for rounding off rivets?

Ball-peen hammer blows from the rounded face harden a metal surface by impact, a process called peening, while the flat face is the one for striking chisels.

Which pair of architect's tools forms the single most recognisable emblem of Freemasonry?

Square and compasses have no single official meaning in Freemasonry; one 1866 manual says they teach members to act squarely and to keep within bounds.

Which hand-squeezed tool, also called a trigger tacker, fastens carpet, insulation and house wrap?

Staple gun springs store the energy of each squeeze, whereas the related hammer tacker is swung so that its own momentum does the driving.

Which slotted woodworking guide holds a hand saw at a fixed angle, usually 45 degrees?

Miter box slots are cut into the sides at the exact angle needed; wooden versions are fixed, while metal ones can be set anywhere between 45 and 90 degrees.

Which thread-cutting tool works inside a drilled hole, while its partner, the die, threads a rod?

Tap threads are the 'female' half of a pair, like those in a nut, and medieval builders cut the same kind of thread in huge wooden nuts for windmills and winches.

What is the term for the slot a saw leaves, whose width woodworkers must allow for when measuring?

Kerf adds up: cut an eight-foot board into one-foot lengths with a blade an eighth of an inch thick and the last piece comes out seven-eighths of an inch short.

What is the name for the tail of a file, chisel or knife blade that extends into the handle?

Tang length matters to knife buyers: a 'full' one runs the whole length of the handle, with the two halves of the grip pinned or glued on either side of it.

Which metal band binds a paintbrush's bristles to the handle and holds a chisel blade in place?

Ferrule is a corruption of the Latin for 'small bracelet', with its spelling pulled towards ferrum, the Latin word for iron.

Which small nail-pulling pry bar takes its name from the shape of its notched head?

Cat's paw heads are driven into the timber around a sunken nail to lever it out, which tears up the surface, so the tool suits demolition far better than finish work.

Which sheet-metal cutters have red, green or yellow grips showing which way they cut?

Aviation snips were first developed to cut aluminium for aircraft; red grips cut curves to the left, green to the right, and yellow in a straight line.

Which small woodworking tool is named after the cart-wheel rods that it shapes and smooths?

Spokeshave blades also shape chair legs, paddles, bows and arrows, and the name goes back at least to the 16th century, when the body of the tool was still made of wood.

Which wildfire hand tool, an axe backed by a digging blade, is named after a US forest ranger?

Pulaski heads pair an axe with an adze for cutting firebreaks; ranger Ed Pulaski, credited with the design in 1911, was famous for saving his crew in Idaho's Great Fire of 1910.

Which Pennsylvania plier maker renamed itself in 1963 after its best-known tongue-and-groove design?

Channellock began as the trademark for one design of pliers, and the name grew so synonymous with the product that the Champion–DeArment Tool Company adopted it.

Which lightweight tool has a magnetised face that upholsterers spit small nails onto from the mouth?

Tack hammer makers were patenting magnetised versions as early as 1861, and some split the magnetic face in two to strengthen its hold.

Which long-shafted plumbing tool has a pivoting jaw for reaching the nuts behind a kitchen faucet?

Basin wrench jaws tighten their grip as the shaft is turned harder, and the head swivels so the tool can work in recesses that no ordinary wrench can reach.

Britons call locking pliers after which UK toolmaker, which began producing them in 1955?

Mole grips followed an American invention closely: M.K. Mole and Son, managed by Tom Coughtrie, began making nearly identical pliers some three decades after the original.