Mill saved my life last night!!!!!!

[dabear3428]

well not my life so much as my night lol.
was replacing the hydroboost hose on my duramax, late at night on a thursday needing to go to work today, and get everything pulled apart only to find that one of the nuts for the compression fittings that is in the worst possible location was an 18mm, you guessed it, not one of my 10 sets of wrenches has an 18mm and it was too tight to get an adjustable in there. After a lot of head scratching, searching, then cussing the light bulb goes off, i have lots of 17mm open end wrenches that would fit in the location so 5 min setting up the swivel base on my vice and a little work with an end mill and there was a nice 18mm open end wrench allowing me to get the job completed.

 

[MyLilMule]

11/16" wrench would have worked, too.

 

[projectnut]

What brand wrenches do you have? Years ago I tried to thin down a Crescent wrench to get into a tight spot. A HHS mill barely touched the surface. It dulled before I had cut 1/4”. Rather than ruin any more end mills I went to the local farm store and bought the correct size wrench.

I considered buying a carbide end mill, but the wrench was cheaper the the end mill I needed

 

[Eddyde]

Indeed, some great satisfaction to be had by modifying or making tools to get the job done, especially in a pinch.
Here's a wrench I modded to get the needed angel.

 

[dabear3428]

11/16" wrench would have worked, too.

negative, i tried that first, the access was just to tight to get that on, I had to open the 17mm up to a little more than 18mm to get it on.

 

[dabear3428]

What brand wrenches do you have? Years ago I tried to thin down a Crescent wrench to get into a tight spot. A HHS mill barely touched the surface. It dulled before I had cut 1/4”. Rather than ruin any more end mills I went to the local farm store and bought the correct size wrench.

I considered buying a carbide end mill, but the wrench was cheaper the the end mill I needed

had some cheap carbide end mills and the wrench was an old craftsmen that i had inherited with lots of rust (removed with evaporust). i had thought that the chrome would have been an issue but it turned out not so much.

 

[SLK001]

I find that the hardest part of making a tool like this, is XXX'ing out the old size stamp and stamping in the new!

 

[Ischgl99]

I’ve used a larger wrench and put a coin in the gap in a pinch before. It worked surprisingly well, and didn’t damage the coin as much as I thought it would.

 

[Batmanacw]

11/16" wrench would have worked, too.

11/16" is a 17mm

 

[dabear3428]

11/16" is a 17mm

Thec11/16 would fit just barely on the bolt but not in the space I had to work with