Quality small metric spanners

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember32069]

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[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Nicholas Farr on 30/07/2020 15:04:15:

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 30/07/2020 10:16:12:

Apologies in advance, I know it's my Hobby Horse, but can I suggest again that engineers shouldn't use words like 'accurate', 'decent', 'nice' or 'quality' because they are meaningless in the absence of a specification.

Dave

Hi Dave, I can't agree with you, but if you can not understand my statement "very nice to handle" I don't know any other way of describing it to you, but, if you were using 24mm ring spanners almost every day of your working life at some point and having to undo and tighten up say up to a dozen or even more bolts you may be able to understand what I mean.

Regards Nick.

Of course I understand what you mean Nick, and you're exactly the type who needs to choose tools carefully and probably does. I wasn't criticising your post or Tim's question, just making a general point about engineering questions and answers.

My point is it's important to express engineering requirements precisely whenever possible. Otherwise we can only guess and generalise. In this example I can't tell if Tim's innocent call for 'some decent small metric combination spanners' has any relationship to your Britool are 'very nice to handle' answer. Tim might be after value for money utility for occasional work rather than the big money comfort needed by a professional mechanic.

Another silly example, my daughter has a pair of fashionable sunglasses and jolly good they look too. Useless for me. Apart from being too small for my big head, I only need polarising sunglasses in the car for when low sun dazzles by bouncing off wet roads. Her idea of a decent pair of sunglasses is completely different to mine, not least because I'm well past the age of looking cool. Others will disagree with both of us, having good reason for wanting prescription Ray-bans, Reactolites, wrap-arounds or whatever. 'Can anyone recommend a quality pair of sunglasses?' is only useful if the answers explain 'quality'. Advice to buy a massively expensive Brand Name is unlikely to be a good answer unless what constitutes 'quality' is agreed.

Apologies for any offence caused. I mentioned it's a Hobby-horse!

Dave

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember32069]

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[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

My most used spanner is a SNAIL

:0)

Martin

[Raymond AndersonParticipant @raymondanderson34407]

Stahlwille. and, NO… they are not just for the avation industry [ as some folks think ] Pricey though but superb gear.

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember32069]

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[Cabinet EnforcerParticipant @cabinetenforcer]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 30/07/2020 10:16:12:

Otherwise they're not magic and don't tighten and undo ordinary nuts and bolts any better than ordinary spanners.

Dave

It may not be magic but a suitably accurate flank drive ring spanner can, as well as being better for peak torque, reduce bruising of flats in those more aestheticly challenging situations. As Tim Pointed out in his OP, and I agree, you can't get cheap decent small spanners, they are all crap.

Anyone suggesting Britool should be aware that they have been nothing but a branding exercise for quite a while now, and should be treated with appropriate caution.

Also the correct answer to any sunglasses question is invariably Serengeti, I'd pick non-polarised glass lenses in the original drivers tint.

You have to laugh at the snap-on pricing, when you hear of some poor dealership mechanic lamenting about how he had ten grands worth of snap-on tools nicked, I always wonder who is it that nicks half a socket set?

Also thanks to Barrie (and others) for putting those Stahwile 16 spanners on my radar, another expensive addition to my "want" list, thanks a bunch

Edited By Cabinet Enforcer on 30/07/2020 19:26:00

[Oily RagParticipant @oilyrag]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Bergen tools – I have found these to be excellent design and price. I believe they are, or at one time were owned by 'US Pro Tools'. They also sell the very rare 'ratchet-less ratchet' (as did Britool, but I haven't seen one of theirs in ages). Ratchet-less ratchets utilise a sprag clutch system and when using on small thread sizes they have the advantage of not dragging the bolt/nut back and forth on the return stroke – a very annoying habit with even fine tooth ratchets. I have these in 1/4" and 3/8"th drives along with others more common ratchet tools from Snap On and Britool. For small nuts and bolts they are the 'go to' tools for me. The Bergen also has a very short handle 2 1/2" on the 1/4" drive and 3 3/8" on the 3/8th" drive. They are good for getting into tight spots and do not allow abusive over tightening being short handled!

The other 'nice' (sorry SOD!) ratchet I have is a offsetting handle on a Snap On (although I am sure it's a Blue Point – Snap On's lower market brand). I have as far as combination spanners a set of Halfords Pro's, and an assorted bunch of Britool (issued at Lucas in the 80's), Sears Craftsman (very highly recommended), and the odd Stahlwille, Facom, and Elora. Even have an odd 'India' brand spanners that get modified as required (rough as the proverbial dogs rear end but good quality steel but with a rough forging finish)

BTW – SOD tell your daughter the world's best sunglasses are Serengetti without a doubt – used by Arizona Highway Patrol and far better than Ray Bans (they're for the downmarket Californian Highway Patrol!) The 'Blue Blockers' are the eyeshades to have when driving over a dessert terrain.

[Oily RagParticipant @oilyrag]

Just found a photo of the Bergen tools mention above:-

[Cabinet EnforcerParticipant @cabinetenforcer]

Bergen seem to have been entirely subsumed into US.pro for the moment, the US.pro mini spanners are the same dreadful ones sold by many others, at least they sell them cheap…

A man of fine taste regarding the the ratchets I see, before the last branding shuffle the better Britool stuff was marketed under "Britool England" and included the clutch ratchets, you can see from my 1/4 drive one here that they probably came out of the same factory as the bergen ones.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 30/07/2020 15:57:02:

My point is it's important to express engineering requirements precisely whenever possible. Otherwise we can only guess and generalise. In this example I can't tell if Tim's innocent call for 'some decent small metric combination spanners' has any relationship to your Britool are 'very nice to handle' answer. […]

'Can anyone recommend a quality pair of sunglasses?' is only useful if the answers explain 'quality'. Advice to buy a massively expensive Brand Name is unlikely to be a good answer unless what constitutes 'quality' is agreed.

.

Permit me please, Dave, to refer you back to my post of 28/01/2020 17:52:13 on a previous thread

**LINK**

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=148841&p=4

Prisig had the concept of ‘quality’ sussed

MichaelG.

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 30/07/2020 21:27:37:

Permit me please, Dave, to refer you back to my post of 28/01/2020 17:52:13 on a previous thread

**LINK**

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=148841&p=4

Prisig had the concept of ‘quality’ sussed

MichaelG.

Quality: when an item is noticeably better than it needs to be.

Discuss……

[DanielParticipant @daniel]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 30/07/2020 10:16:12:

• Pride of Ownership or Bragging rights important?

HI,

Personally, I feel that "Pride of Ownership" is quite separate from "Bragging Rights".

I confess, I love my tools, and probably spend an inordinate amount of

time fondling, caressing and generally caring for them.

They are my friends and we work together.

Of course, like good friends, they are chosen carefully and must be

very capable of fulfilling their side of the relationship.

Leaving aside the extremes (e.g, Holtey planes et al), what a particular tool

costs, is not a primary concern. If I can afford it, or not, is an entirely different

issue.

It's feel, it's ability to perform it's function with relative ease and comfort, it's

accuracy where neccesary (sorry Dave), are all important to me.

If a certain manufacturer then, for whatever reason, chooses to go that extra

mile, and make the tool aesthetically pleasing as well, I think that's wonderful.

On the premise that they have, first, developed a tool that works very well,

why should they not, then, demonstrate their justified pride in their product, by

making it something that is worthy of being on display.

All this costs, however. I for one, am happy to pay the extra (funds of the

moment permitting), for this.

Hoping some of the above makes some sense.

ATB,

Daniel

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember32069]

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[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Branding has become divorced from who actually makes stuff these days, I believe that a factory in Taiwan makes excellent spanner’s and sockets and will customise for whoever the customer is, this leads to well respected brand names who have earned a good name on other tools turning up on spanner’s and sockets. I understand Teng do not make anything but have tools manufactured to their spec. and quality standards. They have earned a positive reputation fairly quickly. Tools have become relatively cheaper I feel, in 1977 I was after a 3/8” drive socket set, I popped into Sarjents in Reading where the Britool set I fancied was £123, I left empty handed, that is probably the equivalent of £500 today. A chap at work was selling Kamasa sets at a price that you wouldn’t cry too much if it didn’t turn out well, that set did a lot of work on my bikes and various cars, you would never kid yourself that it was competing with Snap-On but it was remarkably good for the money, I still have it but it is a reserve set now as better kit has replaced it.

Mike

Edited By Mike Poole on 31/07/2020 09:16:41

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember32069]

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[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Barrie Lever on 31/07/2020 09:06:22:

The same would apply to just about anything, all specifications and requirements have been meet, then you start coming down to select tactile features outside of the specification to make a final purchase decision.

I really don't know why some people do not understand this simple critical point ?

B.

Most people do understand the simple critical point Barry! Remember my argument is words like 'quality' are meaningless without a specification. Blindly buying expensive, or by brand name, or by nationality, or on the recommendations of your instructor in 1958 are all bad. And you agree me. You said, my bold, once 'all specifications and requirements have been met, then you start coming down to select tactile features…'

We agree the engineering characteristics are Mandatory Requirements, whilst everything else is Desirable. What an engineer mustn't do is select tools on hearsay, or because they're tactile, fashionable, pretty, well advertised or because the long dead man who started the company was a genius.

Here's the problem; someone getting started in the hobby who asks the 'what lathe' question is still liable to be told to get an Imperial Myford Super 7. This means buying second-hand with all the risk that entails. And going Imperial in 2020 is poor advice unless the owner is going to build or repair from imperial plans. Otherwise metric is a much better bet. So today, given there is more choice, it pays to engage brain and work out which machine meets your requirements. I'm suggesting size, budget, technical features, availability, purchase risk etc are all likely to outweigh notions of quality. And most Model Engineers absolutely don't need top-quality equipment.

I would hope the danger of emotion leading to bad decisions would be well-known to professional engineers, but it's not. Research in the 1970's showed experienced Grizzled Grey engineers preferentially bought inferior kit from an exhibition stand featuring an attractive young woman in a Bikini. And 'Not Invented Here' remains a major problem when companies merge, because engineers stay loyal to 'their' old team, even when the new guys obviously have much better ideas. Unfortunately people are wired to seek pleasure and form tribal groups. Beware of emotion – it's the devil whispering in your ear!

It doesn't matter if hobby tools are bought as toys, or for pride of ownership, bragging rights, sentimental reasons or to make matching sets provided the purchaser is open and honest about why he bought them. Then the reader can judge if the reason suits him, or not! Barry's delight in quality might appeal more than SOD-style utility or vice versa. Go with whatever makes you happy, not me. I suspect most cheerfully mix inexpensive and better tools as the fancy takes us.

Several posts in this thread give good reasons for selecting a particular spanner. All worth thinking about, even though they won't pull everybody's chain.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 31/07/2020 12:11:38

[Oily RagParticipant @oilyrag]

Barrie,

As I mentioned in a previous posting, I had the dubious pleasure of working in a certain country for 9 years as a 'Localisation Engineer'. My job was to keep the locals on the righteous path to quality as they took over our design of a vehicle and produced it for their market. Some of the instances of their approach to quality can be gauged by what we came across. Pistons that broke in testing after 5,000km because they were full of slag and debris and the copper 'seeding' of the casting metal had not fully dissolved due to the main furnace not running at optimum temperature. The debris consisted of bits of tungsten carbide and something akin to EN16 swarf (chipped inserts and previous debris no doubt out of lathe swarf).

Then we had the first batch of pre-production engines which, during the acceptance test bed running, burnt all the exhaust valves out. This was a puzzle as the engines had in pre-production phase performed acceptably. I contacted the valve supplier to ask if they had changed anything – only to be told that they had not got the contract for the production engines because another company had under bid them on the production quote. Then they let the cat out of the bag with the statement that the quote that had won the contract had been lower than they could buy the metal stock for! Sure enough the valves were poor quality material well below the 21/4N specification (21% Chrome/ 4% Nickel) at 10/2N! The Buying department were complicit in this fraud and blandly exclaimed that the parts in question 'were to drawing' – they were completely oblivious to the fact that the material specification was part of the drawing.

The other problem we found was that whenever we introduced a process which could be construed as our 'IP' it did not take long for the suppliers to embrace our 'IP' and to apply it to other customers products.

Finally,we also had problems with our test procedures which the host company took and amended to their needs – this in many cases, in fact in all cases, substantially destroyed the objectives of the test procedures. An example of this was that the vehicles were required to perform tests in a sequence – such as a cycle that covered test track running at V.Max for 5km followed by decelerating down to walking pace in first gear for 1 km, then stopping and reversing for 50 metres, stopping and accelerating through the gears to 100kph, stopping and then repeating the V.Max to end of cycle. This was to be repeated for 1000 cycles. We found that the host company had lumped all the reversing cycles into one continuous cycle, all the 100kph into one continuous cycle and all the V.Max into one cycle! They just did not understand the need for the intermediate parts like the accels and stops.

This is one of the reasons why I fight shy of anything made in that country!

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember32069]

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[Ady1Participant @ady1]

I got lucky with a bargain set of these 4 in 1 ratchets from Britool, so 3 spanners do from 8-19mm

They are surprisingly small too, not at all bulky

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61QRD8T2+1L._AC_SS350_.jpg

So they're great bla-bla-bla whatever, but the big surprise is there wasn't a single nut on my imperial-nuts acorn shaper they couldn't grab properly and undo, and this is a really small set to carry about

These are well worth grabbing if the price is right

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

Just be careful where you buy them. Lots of counterfeit tools out there.

Steve.

[Maurice TaylorParticipant @mauricetaylor82093]

Hi,Can’t see how 6 ends fit 12 sizes.

Maurice

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

4 on each, each end has 2 sizes

a ratchet reversing switch on each end so you can change direction

Edited By Ady1 on 20/11/2020 18:52:34

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

I recently picked up these snap on combination spanners, they go down to 6mm with the dual 80 ratchet mechanism in all, not cheap though, £270 for the 10mm to 19mm set, £60 for the 4 add on set 6 to 9mm

[Nigel McBurney 1Participant @nigelmcburney1]

Barrie Where did get the info that IBM made their mainframe screws,all the mainframes that I was involved with were purchased from screw suppliiers ,I know I was there from 1967, Getting back to spanners I have owned a set of metric combination spanners,which have the silent ratchets,came in a box as a gift with no manufacturers marks.They have proved very usefull. Most of my BA spanners are 1950s King Dick ex WD I also have a set of BA ring spanners by Gordon tools circa 1960,purchased via works apprentice tool club 50% discount, so most of spanners purchased at that time,were Gordon, boss did not mind if the tools he got for us apprentices were used at home for our motor cycles,still got all of them ,the Gordon tools stood up well to week end use,they were as good as the most poular brand at the time ie KIng Dick,later when I got a Spanish Bultaco I bought Elora ring ,O/E and sockets and have lasted well , The first far east spanners and tools that came inti this country were rubbish ,nowadays ,even the cheap spanners and sockets bought from stalls on autojumble will stand to amateur use,and are relatively cheap so it does not matter if a tool needs to be modified (butchered).

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