I found this wrench in Grandad's old tool chest.  There isn't much question as to what it is (obviously lol), but has anyone seen anything like it before?  I sure haven't.  It seems to be in remarkable shape, with only the 1/2" end showing any signs of use.     Thanks for taking a look guys!     

RCAF = Royal Canadian Air force

note the whitworth sizes


sarah?? I dunno

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SARAH - Search And Rescue And Homing Equipment ...

Hmm.  That says to me that the Brits would/could call ANY open-end wrench a "spanner."  Looks like yer standard DOE to me.  I'd learned when young that a "spanner" has an open arc (on one end of a straight handle) with a "hook" at one end of the arc to snag one of the ears on, say, a fire hose fitting.  No "tight/smooth fit" required, like is needed on battery cable nuts.

We would call that a spanner, but Europeans use spanner for wrenches. Crescent types are called "shifting spanners".

We have open ended, ring and combination spanners - as well as adjustable spanners (also called monkey wrenches) - pipe spanners are often called by maker's names, e.g. Stilson or Footprint (c.f. Hoover for a vacuum cleaner)...

Mind you, you call the boot of a car the trunk, and the bonnet the hood - and you have gear shifts instead of gear levers...

And mis-spell theatre, metre, colour, flavour and lots of other words... see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-our.2C_-or

QuoteAnd mis-spell theatre, metre, colour, flavour and lots of other words.

Ah, the different English we use!

Can't come up with a list of them, but a number of spelling differences come early in American English (plow vs plough is one, jail vs gaol is another) and were deliberately done, just to be different from the English.

Quote from: Branson on June 22, 2014, 07:47:58 AM
Can't come up with a list of them, but a number of spelling differences come early in American English (plow vs plough is one, jail vs gaol is another) and were deliberately done, just to be different from the English.

We showed them!

yes, I agree that we/they have strange words.

back in my younger days, I had a 1953 MG-TD and the manual drove me nuts.

their use of the word earth took a while to sink in that they were referring to what
we call GROUND.  as in electrical wire ground.

they were right, as they built that car.

And it was POSITIVE to earth, not negative!!!!

Are you positive?

Several Triumph and BSA motorcycles and a couple of MGAs- Yes I'm positive, and the battery on the MGA was under the floorboard in the back seat area.

All wiring by LUCAS- The Prince of Darkness!

Yeah, positive ground.  I remember back in the day that you were supposed to check the battery terminals for positive and negative before putting on jumper cables, since some vehicles used positive ground, and a mistake was a bad idea.