HW12 Hammer Head Adjustable Wrench

Best tool I've ever found for checking the hardness of my fingers and fingernails. Bonus ability to smooth out any pesky edges on hardware, as well. I even got bold and whipped this baby out to break open a beer hive for the sweet foamy nectar.I have no idea what I ever did before I found this beautiful girl. I guess I just used whatever was in my pockets (gum wrappers, change, cell phone) and hoped that I could smack something hard enough that it would knock into place. But since I've owned this tool, I haven't taken anything out of my pockets since. Probably need to though, they're getting kinda full...As far as choochability, she does indeed chooch like a champ. If you're worried about the size of your nuts, don't worry. Just look at the size of the chompers on this girl! I mean, we're not gonna have trouble fittin' anything in there with a set of jaws this wide (1.75" see pic). I don't own anything that fills that gap. Plus them jaws is silky smooth, which is good if you don't want teeth marks all over yer bolt and other junk. Myy caliper measured the width at a dead even 1.75 with the usual adjustable nut lathe slop... kinda unreal at this price.The box end of the wrench (bottom of the handle) won't open a beer bottle as is. With a bit of material removal and reshaping, it works great for poppin' bottle caps.It's all sorts of skookum and follows my life motto. "If it ain't broke, fix it until it is. If it's already broke, hit it with a hammer because there's a chance that's just what it needs."

The amount of slop and play in this tool makes it virtually useless. while its convenient as heck to have a hammer end on this, youll end up rounding off any nut or bolt You are trying to remove in the first place. It would have taken such a small amount of effot to tighten up the jaws, i doubt the manufactur even cares. Ive seen better tools come from harbor freights discount bin. Dont waste your money, find a better company

I wasn't expecting too much but was very pleasantly surprised for the price with its one foot length and the additional capacity of its jaws, which my calipers showed opened up to 1-3/4". One could spend $10 - $20 more for a very good adjustable wrench of this type and size. As some have observed, the worm gear thumb wheel is a bit loose compared to other Crescent type adjustable wrenches. The moving jaw, however, has no more play in it; the looseness is in the thumb wheel worm gear. With the addition of a hammer head and 7/8" 12 point box wrench at the end of the handle in place of a smooth hole, it's the typical rack and worm gear adjustable wrench.Beer Bottle Opener Usage Notes:I've heard and read about crescent style adjustable wrench owners modifying the hole in the end of the handle - or in this case the 12-point 7/8" box wrench - to convert it into a beer bottle opener. For shame! Simply rack the jaw out far enough to expose a tooth or two and use the first or second tooth to hook under the edge of the bottle cap. No need to mod this type of adjustable wrench to create a beer bottle opener. They all come with one from the factory! A bit of a learning curve on how far to expose the rack tooth and how to hook it under cap, but with a bit of practice it becomes a skill.Update:I have the Rastall wrench from which this one was clearly copied. Dropped one star off as the Rastall is a higher quality wrench, particularly with the tighter thumb wheel that has less play. Its drop forging is cleaner looking but that's cosmetic and doesn't reflect on the strength of one versus the other. Nevertheless, I seriously doubt the rack on the moving jaw of the Mine Tools wrench would ultimately fail if the wrench is over torqued. It's the fixed side of the jaws that would fracture, or the neck between the head and handle. I've seen various Crescent type wrenches in a variety of sizes tested by torquing them to failure. The most common failure mode is fracture of the fixed jaw, breaking it off of the head. Second most common is fracture of the neck, followed by an occasional stripping of the rack teeth on the moving jaw. The latter is limited mostly to smaller wrenches made of cheap Chinesium steel (in guess where: mainland China). Even with those, they've been clearly over torqued for their size and length. It would take considerably more torque than even a very strong person could exert on this Mine Tools wrench without using a cheater pipe to break it and nearly all rack and worm gear adjustable Crescent type wrenches. All that said, the Rastall is more expensive, and not by just a little, with significant shipping cost. All the current sources I've found as of this review are industrial mining tools and supply firms, with the vast majority of them in Canada, and the Rastall is at least $20 more than this one if not more, plus a shipping cost higher than most folks are accustomed to from (non-Prime) Amazon or its competitors (notably that famous auction site that cannot be named here). The cost of shipping from Canada to the U.S. for a 12" wrench that weighs 2 pounds is quite high (gross weight with the packaging), even by Canada Post.Other Usage Notes:As with all adjustable wrenches, it's not made for high torque applications even though it has a very large jaw width. I wouldn't subject it to much more than about 100-150 ft-lb. Just because the jaws open to 1-3/4" doesn't mean it can be subjected to 800 ft-lb torque, which would be the same as a 200 pound person standing on a cheater pipe four feet from the bolt head, or even 600 ft-lb standing on a three foot cheater pipe. I would expect catastrophic failure in the 200-300 ft-lb range if it's kept snug enough and is turned in the proper direction to keep it from rounding the corners off the fastener. The kinds of fasteners, fittings and the rock drills these are used on in mining are not high torque applications, not the kind a millwright would encounter with fasteners larger than 1". Beating on the handle with a hammer should never be done with any wrench that isn't striking or slugging wrench specifically designed for it (you'll know one when you see one; they are unique looking with an anvil on one end). Get an impact wrench and impact sockets!For normal use by mere mortals without the aid of cheater pipes, or resorting to standing and jumping on the wrench handle, or beating on its handle with a sledge hammer like a slugger (aka striking face) to use it as an impact wrench, it will skookum chooch extremely well. Beware the thumb detector, it is very sensitive and also works quite well! A very worthy and less expensive alternative to the Rastall.

Jaw adjustment is a little sloppy, but I use it mostly for demo and teardown work, so if corners get a little rounded off once in a while, no worries. The steel is decent, and the hammer end gets used frequently on other hard metals without too much wear.

Can confirm that this is "The One" used by dear Uncle B, and whatever picture that is on the listing (at the point of this review) ain't worth a camel's spit.Tiddy bit loose in the hips, but not in any way I haven't ever seen other, sometimes more expensive tools. Drop forged, feels good in the hand, not chintzy a'tall. Lotsa gravity in'er. Give you a tip - just the tip, and only for a minute, mind - don't do what I did and drop the bastard on your foot takin' it out of the package - TIME! - hurts like a hot damn on account of the afffforementioned gravity crapacity.All in all, it's enough to make any fan of a certain Canuckistani enginerd-type Uncle weep out of joy. Looks good on a wall or in the better-three-quarter's bedside table. A beauty, a bonnie and a joy forever. And finally an excuse to tell people to keep their dirty dick beaters offa "Mine Tools!"Stay safe out there. Keep ur dick in a vice.

Sliding jaw is a bit sloppy, when not locked down. Handle has a very slight bow in it. The threads on the adjusting screw could stand to engage more positively with the sliding jaw. But these are purely cosmetic complaints.. Still leaps and bounds higher quality than the typical name-brands, found in hardware stores. the jaws meet symmetrically, when closed, and have nicely ground inside surfaces. And that's rare enough, for these adjustable wrenches! If you can get over the fact that this is a tool, and not meant to be a work of art, you'll love this wrench!