50 Fun Facts About Tools

According to a 2012 find near Kenya's Lake Turkana, the use of simple hammers dates back roughly how far?

Stone hammers and anvils at the Lomekwi 3 site are about 3.3 million years old, older than the earliest known Homo fossils; hafted hammers with handles only appear around 30,000 BCE.

The Oldowan stone tools are named after which site in Tanzania?

Louis Leakey found the first of these simple choppers and flakes at Olduvai Gorge in the 1930s; the industry is the oldest widespread stone-tool tradition, beginning about 2.6 million years ago.

The screwdriver was probably invented in the late 15th century in which two countries?

The first documented screwdrivers appeared in Germany or France around 1475-1500, turning the hand-made screws that held together plate armour and matchlock firearms.

The Phillips cross-head drive is widely criticised for which tendency under high torque?

Camming out, the driver riding up and out of the recess as torque rises, is the Phillips head's notorious flaw; Pozidriv and other later recesses were designed to resist it.

Which carmaker first adopted Henry Phillips's cross-head screws on its assembly lines in 1936?

General Motors put Phillips screws on its 1936 Cadillac line, drawn by a recess that self-centred power drivers; Phillips had bought the design from inventor John P. Thompson.

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

Canada took to Peter Robertson's 1908 square drive so completely that it remains the default there; Henry Ford used them on Canadian-built Model Ts but was refused a licence for his US plants.

The six-pointed star-shaped Torx drive was developed in 1967 by which company?

Camcar Textron, a Rockford, Illinois fastener maker, introduced Torx in 1967; its star recess resists slipping under torque, winning it a place in cars and electronics, and a security version adds a pin.

'Allen', the everyday name for a hex key, is a registered trademark of a company from which US city?

The Allen Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut, trademarked the name around 1910; in Denmark and Norway the tool is often called an Unbrako key after a rival brand.

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

In American English, 'spanner' means a specialised wrench with pins or tabs around its rim.

The Swedish company Bahco credits which inventor with the modern adjustable wrench, patented in 1892?

Johan Petter Johansson patented his adjustable spanner in 1892 and built it at his Enköping works, which became Bahco; Americans know the type as a Crescent wrench after a later US maker.

According to the popular but false story, the monkey wrench was named after an inventor called what?

The Charles Moncky story has no patent or record behind it; 'monkey wrench' was already in print in the 1840s, and the name may simply liken the adjustable jaws to a monkey's face.

The first locking pliers, sold as Vise-Grip, were invented in 1924 by William Petersen in which state?

William Petersen, a Danish immigrant blacksmith in DeWitt, Nebraska, patented the locking pliers in 1924; the toggle action locks the jaws over-centre, and in Britain the tool is a Mole wrench.

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

Heine's osteotome, a hand-cranked chain of cutting teeth, was a bone surgery instrument that cut without splintering; Aitken and Jeffray had used a chain saw for symphysiotomy in the 1780s.

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

Andreas Stihl founded the firm to mass-produce them.

The first portable handheld electric drill was built in 1895 by the Fein brothers in which city?

Wilhelm and Carl Fein built the first portable electric drill at their Stuttgart firm in 1895, a heavy machine braced against the user's chest; the company dates from 1867.

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?

Karl Elsener's Ibach workshop delivered its first soldier's knives in 1891 and took the name Victorinox in 1921, from his mother Victoria and 'inox', stainless steel; rival Wenger was absorbed in 2005.

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

US soldiers after World War II bought the knives in PX stores and, unable to say Offiziersmesser, called them Swiss Army knives; the term stuck worldwide.

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

A Fiat 600 car he and his wife Chau bought in Amsterdam for $300 kept breaking down across Europe; the resulting Pocket Survival Tool first sold in 1983.

Leatherman Tool Group is based in which US city?

Leatherman Tool Group has been based in Portland, Oregon, since its 1983 founding and makes its pliers-based multi-tools there; Tim Leatherman started it with partner Steve Berliner.

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 WWII cloth tape that became duct tape?

It has flown on every NASA mission since Gemini and helped jury-rig the CO2 filters on Apollo 13.

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

An auger bit's screw tip pulls it into the wood while its spiral flutes lift the chips; its square tang fits the chuck of a hand brace.

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

Its vial is filled with alcohol, which has a lower freezing point and viscosity than water so the bubble moves freely; Melchisédech Thévenot devised the instrument by 1661.

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 said that with a long enough lever and a place to stand he could move the world?

Archimedes, who set out the law of the lever in On the Equilibrium of Planes, is quoted by Pappus of Alexandria: 'Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth.'

Conrad Bahr, who claimed to invent the first torque-limiting tool in 1918, worked for which employer?

At the New York City Water Department, Bahr wanted flange bolts on water mains tightened evenly; he and George Pfefferle later patented an adjustable ratcheting torque wrench in 1935.

The vernier scale on a caliper is named after a French mathematician who invented it in which year?

Pierre Vernier described his secondary scale in a 1631 treatise on a new quadrant; the offset graduations let a reader interpolate between the main scale's marks.

The Dremel rotary tool company was founded in 1932 in which Wisconsin city?

Albert J. Dremel, an Austrian-born inventor, set up the Dremel Manufacturing Company in Racine, on Wisconsin's Lake Michigan shore, in 1932; the firm later passed to Emerson Electric and then Bosch.

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 first produced one in 1951.

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

Black & Decker bought DeWalt in 1960 and sold off the radial arm saw business in 1989.

The Stanley Works traces back to a bolt factory founded in 1843 in which Connecticut city?

New Britain was where Frederick T. Stanley opened his bolt and hinge shop in 1843; the company stayed in the city through its growth into a global toolmaker and its 2010 merger.

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

The name comes from Stanley Works' prominent brand; Americans say box cutter.

Makita, the Japanese power-tool giant founded in 1915, began by selling and repairing what?

Mosaburo Makita opened Makita Electric Works in Nagoya in 1915 to sell and repair lighting gear, motors and transformers; its first power tool, a portable electric planer, came in 1958.

Snap-on, the professional tool company, was founded in 1920 in which city?

Joseph Johnson and William Seidemann started Snap-on in Milwaukee in 1920 with interchangeable sockets that snapped onto five handles; the company moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 1930.

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.

The first nail gun, introduced in 1950, was powered by what?

Air pressure drove the 1950 pneumatic gun, which could sink 40 to 60 nails a minute into floor sheathing and sub-floors in house construction.

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

The horn, the tapering round end, gives the smith a curved surface for bending and drawing out; continental anvils often carry two, one round and one square.

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 made the sledgehammer his trademark weapon in WWE from the turn of the century, swinging it in feuds with Mick Foley, The Undertaker and Batista.

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

Hickory, dense yet springy, absorbs shock and resists splitting, which is why it shares handle duty with ash; fibreglass handles resist rot but transmit more vibration.

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

The loose filling keeps moving after the face stops, spreading the impact over a longer moment and killing the rebound.

Some of the oldest illustrations of pliers show which Greek god at work in his forge?

Hephaestus, the Greek smith god, appears in ancient vase paintings gripping hot metal with tongs, the ancestors of pliers, which developed from the Bronze Age onward.

Gunsmiths traditionally call a screwdriver by which old name?

Turnscrew mirrors the French tournevis; gunsmiths kept the word because the tool was refined by armourers who constantly needed to replace the pyrites in wheellock guns.

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

Bulgaria supplied the Soviet Union's first mass-market angle grinders in the 1970s, so Russian speakers call the tool a 'bolgarka'; Germans say 'Flex', after the firm Ackermann + Schmitt, which built the 1954 original.

Which Shakespeare play includes the line 'Get me an iron crow', meaning a crowbar?

Romeo and Juliet has Friar Laurence demand 'Get me an iron crow' to break into the Capulet tomb; the tool's name likely comes from its beak-like or claw-like end.

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

Beryllium copper and aluminium bronze heads are too soft and low in iron to strike a spark that could ignite methane or fuel vapour, which is why mines and refineries pay extra for them.

Surveyors' measuring tapes may be made of which alloy for its very low thermal expansion?

Invar is a nickel-iron alloy that barely changes length with temperature, so a long tape reads the same on a hot afternoon as at dawn.

Which hand plane, with a low-angle bevel-up blade, is the standard choice for end grain?

A block plane carries a single bevel-up iron at a low angle, typically 12 to 20 degrees, so it shears end grain cleanly; jack and jointer planes are for long faces.