KUKKO-Werkzeugfabrik announces new ‘The European’ tool

We produce tools
Find solutions to problems or reinvent them

There are two seemingly easy ways to do this. Either you develop a new way to solve an existing problem or you take an old tool and reinvent it. That is exactly what we have done for Europeans. The old adjusting wrench, known around here in German as the „Frenchman“ [„Franzose“], is a tool that everyone is familiar with, but is hardly used anymore. Once essential in the automotive and industrial sectors, since manufacturers of vehicles and products of all kinds used to set their wrench dimensions themselves, the adjusting wrench has now almost disappeared. The use of metric wrench sizes beyond national borders has almost completely supplanted the adjusting wrench.

So we put this tool up for design in our construction facility and took a close look at its advantages and disadvantages. An advantage is very clearly its adaptability to any wrench size. Whether metric, Imperial, a special size, square, hexagonal or even worn out or painted over, it fits any size. A disadvantage is its mechanism, which is what allows it to be adjusted. If the user has set the wrench at the size he wants and is
working with it, the wrench readjusts itself. This causes slippage and frustration or even injury to the user.

So this disadvantage was seen as the first to be solved constructively. By using a sliding locking device in the handle of the wrench, we solved this problem. Now you can adjust the wrench to the bolt to be loosened or tightened, and when you are screwing or unscrewing, nothing readjusts itself any more. While we had the „Frenchman“ in our construction department, a question came up for us: „Why limit it to only screwing and unscrewing functions?“ So we made another modification – the diamond- shaped jaw.

The diamond-shaped jaw, which is primarily used as water pump pliers, enables form-fitting gripping of workpieces. This function is now also practicable due to the ability to lock the „Frenchman.“ The options that now result from two changes make the „Frenchman“ into a European and once again versatile tool in your tool box. So it can also be used as a clamp to clamp parts, whether they are flat on flat or round on flat.

This type of application always causes problems in practice, but there is no longer any problem with our new/old tool.

It‘s clear that with just a couple of extensions, even the old „Frenchman“ has earned its place as a European in every tool box.

Read the full brochure here:

English

German

More Kukko product information:

K-Cube4Boxx

145-2 Spreader for wheel bearing housing

Europäer 1900