[Shop-talk] Torque wrenches

[John Innis]

Here are my thoughts on torque wrenches.  I bought my first "clicker"
torque wrench in 1997.  Actually two of them, a 3/8" inch-pond and a 1/2"
foot-pound.  Both Craftsman.  I was in A&P school at the time and we
checked calibration on our torque wrenches at least once a year.  The
duration of my time in school I never needed to adjust the calibration on
these.  There was one thing about these that I always hated.  The lowest
rating on the foot-pound wrench was 20 (240in/lb), and the highest rating
on the inch-pound wrench was 225.  So there was a range of 15 in/lbs
between the two wrenches that I could not reliably measure.  Added to the
fact that I was sceptical of both wrenches at the very ends of their range
(they were always calibrated at midpoint).  That1/2" unit failed in 2015
and I bought a CDI 1/2" 10-100 foot-pound unit to replace it.  I took the
CDI unit to work and checked calibration on it when I bought it, and it was
dead on at center of range.  I have been pretty happy with this unit and it
fits the range of torque values a lot better than the craftsman I had
before.  Aside from a trailer ball I don't think I have ever torqued
anything to more than 100ft/pounds.  I still have that 3/8" craftsman, and
I have checked it on home-made calibration tester and it still seems to be
pretty close to accurate at mid-range.  But I like the CDI a lot better and
if I need another I will probably buy another CDI.  I was told that CDI is
the company that builds wrenches for Snap-On, but I have no way to confirm
this.

On Thu, Feb 4, 2021 at 9:30 AM Scott Hall <scott.hall.personal at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I need a new torque wrench. The last time I bought one was 25 years ago--a
> Snap-On 1/2" dial model.
>
> I don't expect to ever need to buy another one, and I want to like using
> it/them.
>
> What's the current opinion on type and model? I don't think I want
> beam-type, and I never trusted my clicker 3/8" one, but here's my shot to
> buy my last torque wrench(es, I should probably get 1/4 - 1/2").
>
> Scott
>
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