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This discussion is a great example of, you catch what you’re fishing for. Keep in mind, the internet repeats urban legends like a ham radio repeater. Maybe it is a bed wrench. I don’t know. I would just like to know if people really believe firemen carried a specialized wrench to disassemble beds during a working structure fire…..

Lots of older plug valves on water systems and oil lines and the like had square shaft ends which one would turn to open or close the valve (hmm… I wonder if this is open? Closed? sometimes they had markings on them…) and one carried a key like that to operate them. I have one floating round here somewhere…

Boiler water is clear. Bladder is still in the tank with no degradation, completely collapsed.

Check out the pic, that is inside the tank. Leaning towards some sort of growth, Bacterial,fungal?

No corrosion at pipe joints, air eliminator, checks and so on.

With that much junk if floating through system the air handlers would have been plugged. No complaints on that end.

Antifreeze related 100%

As a plumber I can say that the Whitechapel is a tee wrench and your wrench is a wye. So I am going to double down on it being a gas cock wrench and say it is very similar to the other wrench, but not the same. Bronze would be fairly expensive for a wrench to tighten bed frames.

My back and knees hurt just looking at that! 😒

So many different methods and styles to run a small business.

Does anyone remember Harley-Davidson back in the early days? I'm not a Harley guy (I do ride some MX), but in the early 80s we had a shop here in my little town. It was tiny and unimpressive. Then they went full on 'retail', I suppose some folks at the top got very wealthy during the transition.

Many folks believe that regulation will eventually squeeze out the mom and pop, and the big hitters will take it all over. And they will gladly take your CC for payment, no added fees.

Being bronze it is likely a gas valve wrench. Many gas related tools were bronze to not make sparks like iron tools can

Yes, the whole "fireman" thing could well be a corruption of Firmin as you say. Hard to separate fact from fiction, especially when fiction can spread so fast on the Internet. I always assume that half of what I read on the Internet is wrong (this site excepted, of course!). The problem is knowing which half…