Bill Edwards
Member
- Messages
- 4,959
- Location
- Scarborough, North Yorkshire
I do suspect that a lot of those who say that SO are rubbish, or not worth the money etc don't own many, if any, of them. Many of those people may not use tools as part of their career either.
I used to think SO tools were way over the top, taking the view that I can have a few different sets of tools (e.g sockets of all sizes) for the same cost as one set from SO. Not that I went around slating them mind you, but I couldn't see the benefit.
A few years later and there isn't all that much in the way of my hand tools which aren't SO. A lot of the cheap stuff has broken in some way (despite a gentle life in some cases) or it just doesn't do the job anywhere near as well.
Some say that a spanner is a spanner. But a SO one is not only very hard to break but the jaws don't splay when hanging off it, and they're a good fit. They're twice the thickness of some cheap spanners which can be prohibitive at times but for the majority of the work mine do they make the difference between rounding off a nut/bolt and undoing the nut/bolt.
I use cheap tools at work, when the cheap spanners/sockets/screwdrivers etc slip I go get my decent ones, and usually undo the same thing without a struggle.
How much does a rounded fastener cost you?
Anybody care to put a price on skinned knuckles?
Twice recently I have broken cheap spanners, both a ring and an open end (no I didn't have a lever on it). Twice I consider myself lucky that none of my delicate parts were in the way of the sharp piece of metal which flew off. What price do you put on that?
I used to think SO tools were way over the top, taking the view that I can have a few different sets of tools (e.g sockets of all sizes) for the same cost as one set from SO. Not that I went around slating them mind you, but I couldn't see the benefit.
A few years later and there isn't all that much in the way of my hand tools which aren't SO. A lot of the cheap stuff has broken in some way (despite a gentle life in some cases) or it just doesn't do the job anywhere near as well.
Some say that a spanner is a spanner. But a SO one is not only very hard to break but the jaws don't splay when hanging off it, and they're a good fit. They're twice the thickness of some cheap spanners which can be prohibitive at times but for the majority of the work mine do they make the difference between rounding off a nut/bolt and undoing the nut/bolt.
I use cheap tools at work, when the cheap spanners/sockets/screwdrivers etc slip I go get my decent ones, and usually undo the same thing without a struggle.
How much does a rounded fastener cost you?
Anybody care to put a price on skinned knuckles?
Twice recently I have broken cheap spanners, both a ring and an open end (no I didn't have a lever on it). Twice I consider myself lucky that none of my delicate parts were in the way of the sharp piece of metal which flew off. What price do you put on that?