Anyways, yesterday I decided that my Draft Lines needed replacing and the tower pieces were due for some much needed maintenance... Well, sadly the lines were attached to the nipples (heh) with ear clamps, which if you have ever worked with, you will understand why they are the bane of my brewing existence... Anyways, this means I had to take everything apart, which is fine cause I really needed to clean everything...
The next step was really frustrating... if you have ever seen inside a draft tower, it looks like this (note this is not my image, but one I found online because my draft tower is not currently put together)
Anyways, after about 40 min of futzing with several types of wrenches and pliars, I gave up, and decided to consult the great oracle that is google. After about 5 min I figured out that there was a special tool that could be used to aid in these efforts called a tower shank wrench... Problem was that it would cost me around 40 bucks to get it shipped! Now... Look at this image more closely and tell me what you see...
Well... If you saw what I saw, you saw a normal 1 1/16 Box end wrench with a small notch cut out of the side... Anyways this could be purchased at Micromatic for 38.50 + shipping...
Being the grad student, I really didn't feel like shelling out 45-50 bucks to pay for this bullshit, so I figured to myself, there had to be a better way...
Anyways, I drove down to ollies bargain outlet (the greatest store ever), got myself a 1 1/16 combination wrench for 7 bucks, took it home, spent about 15 min with the dremmel and cut a hole out of it, and BAM... had my shanks off in about 5 min...
Here is a final picture for reference...
Anyways.... This just goes to show you how retailers just rip you off by making you pay premium for things that if you put a little effort and elbow grease into you can do yourself. I find this especially true about the homebrewing world. Things like pre assembeled mash tuns, prewired temp controllers, have almost a 50% markup...So remember, think before you buy
