[Shop-talk] Socket holders

[John Miller]

Kent Sullivan wrote:
> One thing to consider when doing auto work is how many sockets do you really
> need for a given car? Most American cars use very few sizes. Has anyone
> tried organizing their sockets in groups based on what is needed for a given
> project? I know I have a lot of socket sizes I have never used, and probably
> never will...

Different manufacturers seem to have different 'favorite' sizes, it's 
rare to find a nut that needs an 11mm socket but my Taurus SHO is lousy 
with the things.  The Japanese stuff I've run into seems to have a lot 
of 12mm heads on M8 bolts.

I'm finally working on putting together a 'dedicated' junkyard set - 
sockets, wrenches, etc - I figure I need both metric and inch for the 
'middle' stuff - basically 3/8-10mm up through 18mm (can usually 
interchange 13mm and 1/2, of course...) but from 11/32 down you can 
pretty much always find something inch that'll fit any metric hex, and 
from 19mm up there's a lot of 'close enough' crossover.

Minimizing the number of little things to lose and big things to carry 
matters in this application.

John.