One Scrench to Screw Them All

     I’ve been clearing paths through the woods so I can fence off a few acres of oaks and hickories for finishing the hogs on tree nuts. I’ve cut legions of Boxelder and Buckthorn saplings and a couple inconveniently-located dead-fall trees so far. There’s plenty more to do. Part of the challenge is carrying tools into the woods. Taking everything I think I need becomes too much of a burden. Leaving out one critical item could leave me handicapped in the middle of the job. It’s the age-old infantryman’s conundrum come to the farm.
    I’m a tool guy. I couldn’t make it though a day around here without my tools. Loosen, tighten, pound, pull, pry, clamp, cut, drill, drive: all the actions of building, maintaining, and repairing require the right tool for the task. I’m in regular conflict with myself over having the just-right tools wherever I need them versus the desire for simplicity whether it’s for carpentry, metal fabrication, mechanic work, or farm machines.
     I deliberated a long time about getting a pole pruner attachment for my medium-duty string trimmer last year. I bought it to limb all the overgrown stuff around the yard and driveway, but I quickly discovered that the 12” chainsaw pruner on a trimmer beats a chainsaw for about 80% of my path cutting. I can cut Boxelder and Buckthorn saplings off at ground level without having to squat under them the way cutting with a chainsaw requires. The pruner attachment cuts more slowly, but the whole unit weights much less than the chainsaw so I can work longer. Thing is, I still need the chainsaw for bigger stuff. I carry both tools into the woods, leapfrogging between the small stuff and the larger trees. I don’t mind going in with two saws, it’s all the smaller items. I’m trying to simplify the smaller items that are easily lost—like screnches.
     A scrench is a screwdriver/wrench combination tool used with chainsaws. The flat blade screwdriver end sets the chain tension on the bar and the wrench end tightens the nuts that keep the bar in place. The chainsaw and pole pruner attachment use the same scrench, but all the other adjustment on the trimmer require a torx bit, which is on the end of the trimmer’s special scrench instead of the usual flat blade. Carrying both annoyed me, and I don’t have a spare torx scrench if I lose this one, so I welded a spare torx bit on the side of a garage sale scrench.  
   It works so far. The ugly blaze orange paint? I hate that on tools, but I hate losing stuff even more. Anything with a respectable brown patina of age and use disappears when you set in down in the woods. Ask me how I know.
     It’s not really a major weight saver, but it is simpler. Or did I just complicate a simple tool with something it didn’t need? Not sure yet, but now I have one scrench to screw them all.

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