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For the longest time, being on a very tight budget, I've picked up what tools I can when I can. This tradition continues, but for a shift in quality. I'm done grabbing up cheap crap to have on hand. In particular this has been my habit with sockets. I'd get the dirt cheap ones and consider them throwaway.
Picture this: You're on the side of the highway, and need to get a seized bolt off. Traffic's whizzing by at 75, 80 miles an hour. Morons are honking of course and the occasional slushy flies your way, though aggravatingly NEVER landing bottom down and full, nor with a fresh straw. You're torquing on the last bolt you need to pull and CRACK, you fall back down the embankment. You're bruised and scraped, but your climb back isn't too bad though, since you've finally cracked that bolt. You slip the socket back over the head(good thing you didn't drop the ratchet on the way down) and you give it some pressure, but the socket slips off. You try again and of course a third time. Then you realize you didn't break the "seal" on the bolt. You busted your socket. Not a fun situation.
Had this been the case, I wouldn't have had photographs of the offending thingy( a socket it can not be considered), since I'd have hurled it as far as possible. Likely I'd have lost my ratchet as well, since in my agitation, I likely would have forgotten to disconnect it from the offending item before sending it careening through the air.
As it was, this lesson came relatively painlessly. I only gouged up my hand. I can't much complain having been in a comfy, heated, cigar-smoke filled workshop with a Maxim calendar and an Al Hirt record to assuage my grievous aggravation.
The offending item(click to enlarge):
So no more cheap crap for me. Time to grow up I guess. I'm going to start buying Snap-On and Craftsman, like most of the other self-respecting adult gear-heads I know, even though I'm likely going to have to do it one piece at a time.
I think I'll start with a 12mm socket.
-Spider
Picture this: You're on the side of the highway, and need to get a seized bolt off. Traffic's whizzing by at 75, 80 miles an hour. Morons are honking of course and the occasional slushy flies your way, though aggravatingly NEVER landing bottom down and full, nor with a fresh straw. You're torquing on the last bolt you need to pull and CRACK, you fall back down the embankment. You're bruised and scraped, but your climb back isn't too bad though, since you've finally cracked that bolt. You slip the socket back over the head(good thing you didn't drop the ratchet on the way down) and you give it some pressure, but the socket slips off. You try again and of course a third time. Then you realize you didn't break the "seal" on the bolt. You busted your socket. Not a fun situation.
Had this been the case, I wouldn't have had photographs of the offending thingy( a socket it can not be considered), since I'd have hurled it as far as possible. Likely I'd have lost my ratchet as well, since in my agitation, I likely would have forgotten to disconnect it from the offending item before sending it careening through the air.
As it was, this lesson came relatively painlessly. I only gouged up my hand. I can't much complain having been in a comfy, heated, cigar-smoke filled workshop with a Maxim calendar and an Al Hirt record to assuage my grievous aggravation.
The offending item(click to enlarge):
So no more cheap crap for me. Time to grow up I guess. I'm going to start buying Snap-On and Craftsman, like most of the other self-respecting adult gear-heads I know, even though I'm likely going to have to do it one piece at a time.
I think I'll start with a 12mm socket.
-Spider
I buy cheap stuff for home and replace them with quality tools if I break them. It doesn't make sense to have Snap-On tools collecting dust. (speaking for myself) I carry quality tools with me on my job.
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