Brass Stillson

[Matt1245]

The father of a friend of mine used to be a fitter for british gas, and he was supplied with a 24" solid brass stillson wrench. He has long since retired and would like to sell this wrench, but has no idea of what it would be worth.

Anyone any idea?

Matt.

 

[Woody Alan]

Matt

I am guessing it's brass, so as not to cause a spark ?

Cheers Alan

 

[mahking51]

Would love to see a pic.
Martin

 

[Matt1245]

I am guessing it's brass, so as not to cause a spark ?

Yeah, i think thats the idea.

Not seen it myself yet Martin, but i'll see what i can do. I'm pretty sure he said it was a record one, but not able to find anything on google.

Matt.

 

[Adam]

Yes, you would normally use brass spanners (for example), when connecting and disconnecting acetelyene bottles for welding. Spark free!

Adam

 

[Scrit]

I've worked for a company that made cupro-berylium hand tools (harder than brass, same non-sparking properties). They were for gas and oil installations (we supplied the North Sea gas/oil industry at the time), so uncommon, but not rare. Can't remember seeing any in Record catalogues, even the trade ones, but it is possible that the gas board had their own tools made to order, I know Post Office Telephones/BT used to do that a lot.

Scrit

 

[Adam]

The father of a friend of mine used to be a fitter for british gas, and he was supplied with a 24" solid brass stillson wrench. He has long since retired and would like to sell this wrench, but has no idea of what it would be worth.

Anyone any idea?

Matt.

Ebay it. That should find its true market value.

 

[ike]

Yes, you would normally use brass spanners (for example), when connecting and disconnecting acetelyene bottles for welding.

Why, when the fittings are brass? I've never used anything but a standard BOC steel cylinder wrench (with valve key).

The modernday favoured material for spark resistant tools is aluminium bronze alloy, mainly because beryllium copper is exceptionally nasty stuff if the machining produces fine particles which are rather poisonous.

Older, much older S.R. tools are likely to be a more conventional bronze, possibly brass although much softer than bronze. It's fairly easy to distinguish whether the stilson is copper, brass or bronze by its colour, bronze being paler than brass owing to the tin/aluminium content.

cheers,

Ike