Tools / Drive and fasten

Drive and fasten

Tools that turn or drive a fastener: screwdrivers, wrenches, sockets and keys, and the nailers, staplers and riveters that set fasteners by force.

11 tools written

• Adjustable wrenchA wrench with one fixed jaw and one jaw moved by a screw, so that a single tool fits nuts and bolt heads across a range of sizes. The common modern form sets its jaws at an angle to the handle and moves the jaw with a worm engaging a rack.
• Air compressorA machine that draws in atmospheric air and delivers it at higher pressure, usually into a tank, to run pneumatic tools such as nail guns and impact wrenches. The portable tank compressor made the pneumatic job-site tool practical.
• Combination wrenchA fixed-size wrench with an open-end head at one end and a box (ring) head of the same size at the other. It is the standard single-size hand wrench for hexagonal nuts and bolt heads, in sets by fastener size.
• Hex keyA bar of hexagonal section, usually bent into an L, that fits the hexagonal socket in the head of a screw and turns it. It exists because of one fastener, the hollow-head set screw, and takes its common name from the first company that sold the pair.
• Impact driverA compact power driver, usually cordless, that holds a hex-shank driver bit and adds rapid rotary blows to its turning once a screw or bolt meets resistance, so that it can drive long fasteners with little twisting force on the user’s wrist.
• Impact wrenchA power wrench that turns a nut or bolt with a rapid series of rotary blows from an internal hammer striking an anvil, which lets it tighten and loosen large fasteners with little reaction felt in the operator’s hands. The mechanism was patented by Robert H. Pott in the 1930s and made commercial by Ingersoll-Rand.
• Nail gunA power tool that drives nails from a magazine with a piston, usually powered by compressed air from a hose and compressor, or by a combustion chamber or a battery. It replaced the hammer for most production nailing in framing, sheathing and roofing after the 1950s.
• Pipe wrenchA wrench with serrated jaws that bite into round pipe, one jaw fixed and one jaw held loosely so that pressure on the handle draws the jaws together. It turns threaded pipe and fittings, which a flat-faced nut wrench cannot grip.
• ScrewdriverA shaft with a handle at one end and a tip at the other, shaped to fit the drive recess of a screw, used to turn the screw by hand. It is the only common hand tool that exists to serve a single fastener.
• Socket wrench and ratchetA hollow socket that encloses a nut or bolt head, driven through a square drive by a separate handle, most often a ratchet that turns the fastener on the working stroke and slips on the return. The sockets and handles are interchangeable across fastener sizes.
• Torque wrenchA wrench that measures the turning force applied to a fastener and either indicates it or signals when a set value is reached. It replaces the operator’s feel with a reading, so that every fastener in a joint carries the same tension.