Tension Wrench

[Geek142]

Hey everyone

I am having probs making a tension wrench

I have bent flat head screw drivers but i had no success in using it then i made one out of a hack saw blade but it snapped anyone got an idea of what else i could use that may be stronger?

thanks

[_Ethereal_]

Street sweeper bristle., which is found on the streets or if you happen to find a parked street sweeper, snap a few off of the brush, once you have the materials, i will make a video on making them for you to hve a look at.

[The Wanderer]

Windshield wiper blades have a nice strip of metal in them that can be shaped into a tension wrench.

[CaptHook]

The screwdriver should work, just leave enough length after the bend. Those little cheap screwdrivers that carry promotional messages printed on the side are great for this.
Chuck

[Sanith]

This is probabily overkill but my torsion wrench is made out of a piece of threaded rod that i hardened an bent using a propane torch. I have heard the hex wrenches make good wrenches too, no need to bend .

[digital_blue]

I've just been experimenting for the first time making tension wrenches. This is what I've learned...

Hex or Allan Keys (Allan wrenches... whatever you prefer) are good BUT my first attempt failed. I used a grinder to flatten out the wrench and didn't bother to take the time to quench it as I went along. Long story short, the steel turned blue and that was the end of the strength. As soon as I tried to use it with any kind of tension at all, it started to bend.

Shortly after that, I downloaded Pyro's video on pick making (found the link here somewhere by searching) and watched him make tension wrenches from junior hacksaw blades. Well this was too cool to pass up, so I zipped down to my local "sells everything hardware related" store and bought some of these. My first attempt at bending them failed quite miserably as well. I got the metal good and hot (glowing bright orange) and made the bend, then quenched very quickly in water only to discover that the resulting tool was extremely brittle. After several more failed attempts, I discovered that my problems lay in overheating the metal. It would appear that if I heat the metal strip (after grinding off the teeth and sanding - it's much easier to sand while it's still flat) just to the point where it starts to turn the lightest of orange colors (ie, just hot enough to actually make the bend) and quench immediately, I get a very nice tool that is both hard and stable. I haven't yet successfully put the 90 degree "twist flex" into the tool, though I will keep working on it.

I hope this post saves some of you some scrap metal.

[The Wanderer]

You can get away with bending stainless steel to a 90 degree angle. Spring steel on the other hand will snap if bent to a 90 without the use of heat.
Try making two 45 degree angles instead. Its a bit more rounded looking but it should still do the trick. You don’t have to worry about burning the house down either.
I have made a few spring steel tension wrenches this way, with stock I bought at a hobby shop for very little money.

[raimundo]

when the metal is cold, the temper is what ever it was given the last time it was hot. generally steel made very hot and quenched is very hard and brittle. for most tools, brittle is not a good quality, so the heat treater first hardens the metal, then does another process to draw the hardness back a bit. this is done at a lower temperature and requires time in lower heat during the cooling down process. If you have a self cleaning oven, that burns up the protein crusts, you can put metal in there and start the cleaning cycle, leave it alone until it slowly cools on its own, and you will find the temper of your metal drawn, or even annealed, if it is annealed, you can bend it however you wish, and reharden it to desired quality of temper. I usually make tensors of sweeper bristle, bending them cold, and heating the bend in the flame of a bic lighter or over the stove, occasionally using propane torch, then quenching. I only heat til blue appears on the surface,any more is too much.

[Kigga]

if u have a bike or can get one just take the spokes off the tire and use them...
flatten em out......
they are really strong

[_Ethereal_]

if u have a bike or can get one just take the spokes off the tire and use them...
flatten em out......
they are really strong

they also tear up brass keyways.

[Kigga]

still strong