My christmas tree stand has four 5/16" (8mm?) threaded rods that you use to adjust the christmas tree in the stand. The back of the rod is free of threads and is bent at a 90 degree angle with about a 1" tail, sort of like an allen wrench. The stand came with little red plastic covers that would go over the end of the rod and make a sort of T so you could tighten them by hand to straighten the tree. Well, of course over the years I lost some of them. And it is really hard to get the stand tight on the tree without them. So I made this X-handle version to replace it.