Ok - I made some for my wife out of wood, but metal is easy also.

Think of an H the bottom of the H allows the round part of the wind nut
to slip up into. The legs of the H are closer than those of the wings.
In other words, take a square that is larger than the nut - a rod or short one.
Drill a hole down the center of the length - 5 or more ? - or just poke out
the top - you could make a 10" length with a 5 inch bore...
Then slot the end such that the slots are large enough to allow the wings
to enter.

Place over wing and with a hand or wrench - turn in the needed direction.

The ones I made were over size - and allowed my wife to hand twist nuts
without mashing her fingers and being able to tighten with more torque...

Martin

B.B. wrote:

In article ,
Ken Sterling (Ken Sterling) wrote:


Gang,
Other than "home-made", does anyone know of a "wing-nut" wrench that
could be used to go down over about 5" of bolt before fitting down
over the wing nut? I didn't see anything in McM-C, but I have a
situation where a motor belt tension adjustment uses *long* 3/8" bolts
to support a hinged plate on which the motor is mounted - but after a
couple of years, the wingnuts are real tough to turn (if not
impossible) and there really isn't much room for "long handles".
Looking for something with a hole in the center which would drop down
over the bolt, sit on the "wings" of the wing nut and allow turning.
Thanks.
Ken.


I've successfully used a long coil spring--I think it came off a
tractor implement--to unwind a stubborn wingnut. Not exactly home made,
I simply picked it up and used it. Only grabs one wing, though.
You could also look into a spanner socket and used the little pegs
against the wings. Dunno how deep you can get those, though.



--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
I'm probably going to try something like this, Martin. I will want to
machine the bottom end of the "device" so that there is a good fit
around and down over the entire wing nut, shaped so that there is no
"slop". Reason being is that (damn engineers) the motor is mounted to
a flat plate, and the long 3/8 bolts come up through the bottom of the
machine, then a wingnut is placed on both of the long bolts (upside
down, then the plate is set down over the bolts and another wingnut is
installed in the proper direction down to the plate. It's used to
provide belt tension for the machine. Problem is: there is about 4 or
so inches of bolt above the wingnut - and it gets rusted (they
couldn't have used stainless?) and the wingnuts can't be loosened due
to the rust. I'm thinking with some PBBlaster and the proper tool, I
will be able to get them loose. Thanks for the idea. There doesn't
appear to be anything suitable made commercially.
Ken.