Adjustable Pipe Wrench Patent Model
date: label: date made
content: 1861
name: label: maker
content: Ripley, Ezra
notes: label: Description
content: Inventor Ezra Ripley patented this wrench in 1861 with improvements specifically for turning pipes, round bolts, and other items. The wrench had a traditional clawed “gripper,” but notably features an adjustable rotating faced jaw that was adjusted by loosening or tightening its screw. The adjustable jaw face was circular, moderately convex, and had ridged concentric circles to provide the tool sufficicent grip on the article to be wrenched. Since the diameters of items to be turned or wrench vary, such contact on the revolving jaw’s face was said to provide adjustability, durability, and efficiency in operation.
label: Description
content: Ezra Ripley was an inventor living in Troy, New York, upon the patenting of this wrench. Ripley invented other wrenches along with an early form of a machine gun, stoves, a faucet, and other items. Troy was a major center for industry during the nineteenth century; the city was a leading manufacturer of steel and iron and featured innovative minds like Ripley. Ripley’s 1861 wrench demonstrates the emerging need for innovative, multi-use hand tools for the growing variety of items to be worked with during the second half of the nineteenth century as the metalworking industry expanded, notably, in this case, in the city of Troy.
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Troy
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: ER.316036
label: accession number
content: 89797
label: catalog number
content: 316036
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Model, Patent