How to use a Crescent Wrench

[Grunff]

Screwfix also sell "Direct Power" drills...

I bought mine from Toolstation, but they don't seem to do them any more. Axminster still do them:

[JohnDW]

But, assuming there is slack, and I agree with you that there normally is, the turning force will be applied to the nut's points. In the way shown in the picture, this force will be closer to the slide so have a lower turning moment as seen by the moving jaw, resulting in less wear to the slide mating parts.

Given the extreme leverage on the handle, you are less likely to snap the thinner moving jaw using the picture's method than the reverse.

[Doctor Drivel]

The Sparky tools are in the pro brand pages not amongst the DIY pages.

[Doctor Drivel]

I have heard this before and was never convinced then, I still don't think there is much in it, if there is. I have just been playing with a screw and a spanner and I am still not convinced.

[JohnDW]

I've only managed to break one in heluva lot of years. That was due to using too large a lump hammer to make it turn a stubborn nut. The failure mode was to bend the adjusting screw and so completely jam the mechanism. I can't remember which way round I was using it though :-) Probably the incorrect way, since it is opposite to that of conventional spanners...

[Doctor Drivel]

Not in the new catalogue they do not. The cheapest is a range called Titan which they have been selling for a while,.

[Grunff]

Ok, but they're still on their website.

Same crap, different name.

[Sylvain VAN DER WALDE]

I'm not surprised. It's _not designed_ to take that sort of punishment. I wonder how big it was. I still have a large, and occasionally very useful (in the past) adjustable spanner, which I bought from a WD (war department) surplus store in the Euston road (in London).