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?

That makes the hammer possibly the oldest tool with definite evidence; hafted hammers with handles appear around 30,000 BCE.

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

Louis Leakey found the first ones there in the 1930s; the oldest known examples, from Kenya, are about 2.9 million years old.

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

Early screws held together jousting armour and matchlock guns; gunsmiths still call the tool a turnscrew.

The Phillips cross-head screw was designed to solve which annoying habit of slotted screws?

Ironically it is now criticised for camming out at lower torque than newer cross designs like Pozidriv.

Which carmaker was an early Henry Phillips customer, using his screws on Cadillac lines in 1936?

Phillips bought the design from inventor John P. Thompson, who had failed to interest manufacturers himself.

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

Henry Ford loved them for the Model T, but when Robertson refused to license the design Ford limited them to his Canadian plants.

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

Its resistance to cam-out made it popular in cars and electronics; a security version has a pin in the recess.

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

The trademark dates from around 1910; in Scandinavia the tool is often called an Unbrako key.

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?

Americans call it a Crescent wrench after the company that held the 1915 US patent.

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

Historians say the name most likely began in Britain from a fancied resemblance of the jaws to a monkey's face.

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

They lock with a bistable cam action; in Britain the same tool is called a Mole wrench.

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

Two Scottish doctors had already used a chain saw for symphysiotomy in the 1780s; the first tree-felling patent came in 1905.

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?

Bow drills, the first machine drills, go back about 10,000 years.

Which Baltimore-born company patented the pistol-grip, trigger-switch electric drill in 1917?

Founded in a Baltimore machine shop in 1910, it 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 firm originally made surgical equipment; its logo is a cross in a shield, Wenger's a cross in a rounded square.

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

NASA has flown the knives since the late 1970s, and MoMA in New York holds one in its design collection.

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

He and his wife bought the car in Amsterdam for $300; the first Pocket Survival Tool sold in 1983.

Leatherman Tool Group is based in which US city?

Most of its tools pack up to 21 implements around a pair of pliers.

What does the name WD-40 stand for?

Invented in 1953 for the Rocket Chemical Company, it was first used to protect the skin of Atlas missiles from rust; the formula 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.

In which year did James Chesterman invent the first retractable tape measure?

His spring-loaded cloth strip lived in a compact case, the ancestor of the steel tape.

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

Alcohol beats water because it won't freeze and lets the bubble move with less friction; Melchisédech Thévenot invented it before 1661.

The 'plumb' in plumb bob comes from the Latin word for which metal?

Ancient Egyptians hung plumb lines from an E-shaped tool to check that walls were vertical.

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

The earliest surviving writings on levers date from the third century BC.

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

He was fed up with inconsistently tightened flange bolts; he and George Pfefferle 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's secondary scale lets you read between the marks of the main scale.

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

Founder Albert J. Dremel was an Austrian inventor.

Tabitha Babbitt, credited with inventing the circular saw in 1813, belonged to which religious group?

She got the idea watching her spinning wheel and thinking about wasteful two-man saw pits.

'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?

The company is still headquartered there, in the Greater Hartford area.

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; the firm is now based in Anjō.

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

It has been headquartered in Kenosha, Wisconsin, since 1930 and sells cheaper tools under the Blue-Point name.

Craftsman tools were originally a house brand of which retailer?

Sears never made them itself; the brand now belongs to Stanley Black & Decker.

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

It was built to speed the laying of floor sheathing and sub-floors in house construction.

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

Some European anvils have two, one square and one round.

The Pozidriv screw drive, an improved Phillips, was patented in 1962 by which company?

A Phillips driver will usually turn a Pozidriv screw, but a Pozidriv driver will damage a Phillips head.

In professional wrestling, the sledgehammer is the signature weapon of which star?

The word sledgehammer comes from Old English 'slaegan', to strike violently, a cousin of 'slay' and 'slog'.

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

Fiberglass handles don't rot or soak up water, but they dissipate shock less well than wood.

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?

Pliers probably evolved from tongs for handling hot metal, with wooden versions giving way to bronze before 3000 BCE.

Gunsmiths still use which old name for a screwdriver?

The term mirrors the French tournevis, and the tool was refined by gunsmiths who constantly had to replace the pyrites in wheellock guns.

In Russian an angle grinder is a 'bolgarka', because the first ones in the USSR were made where?

Elsewhere in Europe the tool is a 'flex', after the flexible shaft on the 1954 original by German firm Ackermann + Schmitt, which later renamed itself FLEX.

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

Robinson Crusoe also makes do with 'iron crows' for want of a pickaxe; the word likely comes from the tool's resemblance to a crow's beak or feet.

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

A steel head striking steel can throw a spark capable of igniting methane, which is why the mining and petrochemical trades pay extra for softer metals.

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.

Chesterman made his early flexible tapes from surplus flat wire once used in what?

As the wide-hipped fashion went out of style, the Sheffield metalworker had a cheap stockpile of springy steel to repurpose into his patented steel tape.