Mystery tool
Bought this at an estate sale, but no idea what it's for. It looks like an oversized bleeder key for a radiator. Appears to be bronze, no mfr's mark, with words "Boston Mass." cast in. Has three square female wrench ends, 1/2", 9/16", and 5/8." Anybody know what it's for?
Comments
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Underground oil tanks with a flush fill cap used to have something similar but they were not bronze and I don't think what you have is that.
I would think what you have is something to open and close different size valves of some sort.
Maybe gas cocks with square heads?
I don't know if bronze is non sparking which would point to gas.
There is a "Boston" valve company in RI
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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…
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
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Hi, Just a guess, but it could be a wrench for gas valves. The non-sparking bronze construction would fit.
Yours, Larry
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Thanks, Ed. The closest modern analog I can find is a sillcock wrench/key, but those typically have smaller socket sizes. There are also square gas keys, but they also have smaller sockets.
https://www.supplyhouse.com/Pasco-1701-4-Way-Key-Die-Cast-for-Stopcocks-Sillcocks-and-Valves
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Maybe something the gas utilities carried.
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Thanks, Larry. Yes, the bronze non-spark for gas makes sense. I maintain a 100-year-old 4-unit condo building in the Boston area, and we have 5 modern gas meters in the basement with old black iron pipe. I don't see any gas fittings that match the wrench, but maybe outside in the street?
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or just waterworks valves and the manufacturer cast everything else out of bronze too.
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Some fun (and confusion) here:
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-firemans-bed-key-wrench-al-506714707
Yours, Larry
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I'll be dipped. That worthpoint listing led me to a similar worthpoint listing of my exact tool with the same "Boston Mass." casting:
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-bed-key-wrench-firemans-503832991
The worthpoint tool listing says it's nickel-plated iron (maybe they were wrong?) but mine is definitely bronze. Otherwise identical.
So it's an antique "bed" wrench that was carried by firemen and used to disassemble and remove beds in burning houses, because the beds were often the most valuable possession. Here's a blog about fireman's bed wrenches:
The wrenches in that collection aren't 3-ended like mine, and appear to be older versions. But I've found listings for several more 3-ended "bed" wrenches like mine that appear to be later variants.
Maybe no longer useful, but makes a cool paper weight!
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Come to think of it I remember a set of bunk beds that were put together with square head bolts. And those beds were not that old probably 45 years.
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I'm thinking that the whole "fireman's" bed wrench is apocryphal. It probably comes from a corruption of "A L Firman". Yes, it is a wrench for square-headed bolts. Beds and many other things could have been assembled with square-headed lag bolts "back in the day." Hard to imagine every "fireman" being issued one of these and harder yet imagining him fumbling and taking the time to disassemble a burning bed. I thin he'd rather smash the bed frame with a proper "fireman's" AX. By the way a real "bed wrench" is a wooden tool for tightening the rope "grid" strung underneath the mattress (hence the term…."Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite."
https://d3h6k4kfl8m9p0.cloudfront.net/stories/V6dkxx8VZzglp4b.ub7Zcg.jpg
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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…
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they spread much more before the internet. now you have a great chance of finding a good source or finding that every version sounds made up. before it would have been very hard to research. almost every story my grandfather told that wasn't something he actually experienced has turned out to be an urban legend and not true. it passed pretty unchallenged back when challenging it would have involved weeks in numerous libraries.
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It's just a wrench. My grandfather had one. It works for whatever it fits on.
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As rick25s says, it's a wrench. Fit things like a railroad Signal Department lock. Look on any railroad signal equipment case and you'll see a padlock with a triangle, square or many-sided head bolt that unscrews with that tool. Made by RACO from the 1870s and now by Safetran.
There are smaller key versions that fit on on a key chain.
Probably used by other utilities to guard stuff exposed to weather too, like oil fill caps.
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it’s a bung tool. Used for unscrewing the the bung in a barrel, oil barrels, barrels with glycol etc.
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What Long Beach Ed says, is a great example of a use: railroad signaling box. My grandfather used to keep that wrench hidden, and used to take it out to open a steel wall-mounted box he had. He had stuff in there he didn't want us nosey grandkids rifling around through. Thinking back, I remember the box said "BELL" on it, so I'm betting that it was an old telephone connection box he acquired somewhere. The other thing I seen him use it for was taking off old air intake duct plates/doors for his furnace.
I actually remember, like 50 years ago, when I first saw that thing, I asked my already annoyed grandfather what's that for, and he grumbled back "whatever it fits on, go see if grandma needs you for anything….." The ole' common "I'm busy, get out of my face" response. :-)0 -
That is an antique bed key wrench for assembling and disassembling antique beds.
My research shows they're from the 19th century.
It was known that firefighters would often carry them to dismantle a family's bed in an effort to save them from a fire, as they were often a family's most expensive possession.
You can purchase these on eBay for about 10 bucks.
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Being bronze it is likely a gas valve wrench. Many gas related tools were bronze to not make sparks like iron tools can
Cost is what you spend , value is what you get.
cell # 413-841-6726
https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/charles-garrity-plumbing-and-heating1 -
I seem to remember gas cocks with "Boston" imprinted on them but after a search I found nothing so I am probably wrong.
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Single pipe 392sqft system with an EG-40 rated for 325sqft and it's silent and balanced at all times.
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Iit’s absolutely a bed bolt wrench. I have a couple. This is recasting of an “antique” sold in the Whitechapel antique brass hardware catalog. The reproductions are actually quite expensive.
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If I had to bet, I would say it's a gas cock, curb cock wrench. The Fireman's Bed Wrench may be what it was called and probably used for that as well. I know some old Boston Gas guys that had these hanging from their head cage in their service van. So, it's a 20th century multi-tool
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Thanks. I hadn't heard of the Whitechapel catalog, which is apparently chock-full of reproduction vintage hardware for doors, cabinets, beds, etc. As a woodworker who maintains and restores old houses, furniture, etc, I love that stuff. This seems to be the Whitechapel bed wrench you're referring to.
Evidently many people over the years have found different uses for these. The only thing it fits in my 100-year-old house is a plug fitting on an old 3/4" brass water pipe tee where our water service comes into the house off the meter.
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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.
Cost is what you spend , value is what you get.
cell # 413-841-6726
https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/charles-garrity-plumbing-and-heating2 -
Hi, I was curious to see what the bed bolts looked like that this wrench would fit, so did a search. Here's what I got. Looks like a good fit 😉
Yours, Larry
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As a regular person I can say it looks like a bed wrench.
Single pipe 392sqft system with an EG-40 rated for 325sqft and it's silent and balanced at all times.
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Thanks, Chris. Where did you find that listing? Your pic shows my exact wrench, with identical lettering in the casting. Also my wrench is shiny bronze, so fairly new with no patina. All of which suggests it is a modern casting that was probably cast from that same mold. Only difference is mine is bronze, not brass. Where did you find that?
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Must be for a gas bed 😈
Yours, Larry
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Meanwhile, here is an eBay listing for an old iron "bed wrench" marked "A L Firmin", which was a Boston cabinet company. As Firmin was a maker of cabinet hardware, not gas fittings or plumbing supplies, the bed wrench seems a more likely intended use.
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I found the listing by googling the part number B-7994 in Chris's jpeg:
Also found another brass listing:
And finally a bronze one:
Forum Moderator
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Thanks everyone! Talk about crowd-sourced knowledge. Even better than AI!
So I'm going with "It's a bronze bed bolt wrench that can also be used safely on gas lines due to the inherent safety of non-sparking bronze, and can also be used on anything that happens to have a square-head bolt of 7/16", 1/2", or 5/8" size."
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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…..
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Even now they can't do a lot more than watch a big fire if they don't have a municipal supply to pump from.
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I saw one set of bunk beds with exactly the same bolts that @Larry Weingarten posted. Only one I ever saw and it wasn't an old bed.
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The Whitechapel catalog that @sean_thorndalefarm mentioned above also sells square-head bed bolts along with their bronze bed wrench.
The Whitechapel site also has a short explanation of bed bolts and how they're used:
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pretty sure that nut is the wrong way, the rounded corners are to keep them from digging in.
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I've looked at some pics of bed bolt installation on professional woodworking sites. If the nut mortise has a flat surface where the nut sits, the nut is typically installed with the rounded corners facing towards the end of the bolt, as shown in the Whitechapel pic above. If the nut mortise has a curved surface where the nut sits (if the mortise is drilled out with a round Forstner bit), the nut is installed with the rounded corners facing into the curve of the of the round mortise hole. So it can go either way depending on how you cut the mortise.
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