Alligator wrench (Atwood, pocketwrench, aitor, etc)

[DoughDTD]

Hey guys,

If you guys havent seen the post in the General Section, I'm in the process of designing and doing a small production run of a custom Atwood-type prybar/wrench/multitool keychain do-hicky.  I want to make sure I get a good design and cutout of the alligator wrench part of the tool.  At my machine shop, we have an automated DMM which will be able to automatically measure a part and spit out a CAD file, so I can find the measurements for the different steps or bumps in the wrench.  I was wondering if anyone has one of these they'd be willing to part with for a week or so to allow me to get some measurements.  Thanks for the help guys.... and if you are generous enough to help me out maybe I can get you an early prototype of the tool 

-Dough

[J-sews]

Are you wanting one like the Wenger SAK's have Dough? They are rather too small in my opinion. A bit larger would be nice.

[DoughDTD]

Yea ive seen the wengers, they are a bit too small to be useful, especially for my application.  What I'm mostly interested in is being able to DMM it, get a CAD file, and analyize the dimensions of the alligator design, so I can understand it a bit better.  The steps, from what I can tell, are not the same.  It is actually a percentage of the size meant to fit at each step, allowing enough material to grab each size effectively.

So like I said, an Atwood, a Mcfeely Pocket Wrench, or a regular old Alligator Wrench would help me out alot.
Thanks!

-Dough

[Nightshade]

Dough, I have a McFeely Pocket Wrench I will send you. Pm a shipping addy.

[J-sews]

I'd send you one if I had one Dough




Looking at the Atwood cutout, does it really qualify as an "alligator"?  It seems more like a series of overlapping hexagons. (whereas an old alligator seems like just a serrated wedge opening)

The overlapping hexagon style looks like it would easy to figure out dimensions for. Simply make each hex slightly larger than a nominal nut size.

Or is it somehow more complicated than that?

[DoughDTD]

Well...you'd be surprised at how complicated the calculations can be haha.  We wanted to try and do a mcfeely/alligator type with "teeth" built into one side of the wrench.  However, to do this correctly and prevent slippage you need to locate and size the teeth properly.  We wanted to have it fit metric and standard sizes within a large range, but the calculations and small size and spacing of the teeth quickly complicated things.  We decided to go with a step up fixed open end wrench, with several quantified bolt size locations.  The prototype will be ready tomorrow, and then hopefully some ideas for changes or improvements will soon follow 

-Dough