Your Eyes Aren't Ready For This Giant Allen Key

If you've ever bought a piece of flatpack furniture before, you probably have a couple of Allen keys lying around in your toolbox. You've probably also misplaced the tiny tool a couple of times, leaving you to scramble around to try and find an alternative to wrench apart your bookshelf in a pinch. However, some specialist Allen keys are just too big for you to miss them, and this post on Reddit is a perfect example of when that would be the case.

Redditor lotsofbitz took to r/Tools to share a photo of a gigantic Allen key found at the user's work. In a sharp contrast to the smaller, more common Allen keys you might have kicking around at home, the wrench is a 1.5" hex and needs an entire hand to be held up. The wrench also looks to be around forearm-length. 

In the post's comments section, the original poster also shared a look at the key's corresponding socket. It's a huge Sunex 3-1/8 5100 socket with a hexagonal section to slot the key into. This type of socket is generally designed for heavy machinery maintenance and other large mechanical systems, or for completing automotive work on large vehicles.

Allen keys, which are also known as hex keys or Allen wrenches, are used on screws and bolts with hexagonal-shaped sockets. The hexagonal head on the wrench makes the tool fit into the bolt securely, so it can easily turn it in or out of place. Larger Allen keys and sockets, like the one in the Reddit post, are built for specialist purposes, like automotive work and heavy machinery. You wouldn't expect to use one for putting a new desk or coffee table together, that's for sure.

Allen keys are generally measured by their hex, which is the flat part of the wrench that you slot into the socket. So, keys with a hex of even an inch or so can end up being colossal in size. An Allen wrench with a 1" hex, similar to the one photographed in the Reddit post, could be used for heavy machinery maintenance, adjusting pulleys, screwing together bearing housings, securing brackets, and more. This is because this type of work will sometimes make use of fixtures with larger sockets, which in turn require larger Allen keys.