OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Off Topics sidchrome ratcheting open enders

any good ?

i was doing some repairs today and the access was not enough for my geared ring spanners.

repco has a 50% off sale on sidchrome tools atm, so i thought i might grab a set. $105 for a set of nine metric ROE with the ratcheting open end

but i've been guilty of buying gimmicky stuff before, so like your input

many thanks in advance, johnny

I haven't tried using them, so I have more of a negative prejudice than a negative conclusion. I believe they would work well as a speed aid, but not as a substitute for rigid ring spanners when you need to tighten bolts, because as a practical matter they lack the strength of normal ring spanners. I also think their advantage over sockets with regard to overhead clearance requirements is offset by their disadvantage with regard to radial clearance requirements. So, my tentative opinion is that they have two, fairly specialised applications, both as speed aids. One relevant situation is where you need to tighten a bolt in a confined amount of headroom above the nut or bolthead. The other is where you have enough headroom for a socket ratchet, but socket ratchets pull sideways off the nut when you pull on the handle, so you need to use your other hand to keep them in place. The ratchet-ring is faster because you can operate it ratchet-style with one hand.

I keep quite a range of hand tools to suit unusual circumstances, but I'm never in such a hurry that I can't use either conventional sockets or rings. A practising motor mechanic might find value in the ratchet-rings, but as a hobbyist I don't have a desire for them. (I don't even use half-inch-drive socket ratchet handles for applying any worthwhile torque to bolts, I run them down with the ratchet then change to a breaker bar if I want more than 20 lb ft of torque.)

thank gawd

someone else who KNOWS how to use a ratchet

the perceived use that i found for ratcheting open enders was with the 4 engine mounting bolts on my 2 scott bonners

there's not quite enough room for the l.h. rear mounting bolt to fit my ratcheting ring spanner

so, cracking them all with a normal ring spanner, i couldn't do aforementioned bolt. it looked like the ratcheting open ender might have been just the ticket

or maybe it's just a bit more chrome for my toolbox ;-)

t/y again mr G,another well reasoned reply

There is no end to the nice tools you can get, but I already can't remember what I do or don't have, and for common tools it takes far too long just to find the size I want in a pile of similar tools. Realistically, if I were younger I'd probably buy even more tools as long as they were high quality and theoretically useful. However I've already reached the point where I've begun discussing it with my daughters who will have to deal with it all in 20 or 30 years when I switch from pulling spanners to pushing daisies up. They fully intend to just give everything away to anyone who will take it. In other words, it will then all join the endless list of stuff being sold on ebay by someone who has no idea what it is or what it does. They are even expecting to have to give money to someone to have him take away my nice milling machine, just because it weighs more than a ton, has to be dismantled to take it out of the workshop, and then has to be taken up a driveway with a 26% slope. In this situation you soon start to feel a bit selfish whenever you are tempted to make their task harder.

Realistically, how often do you expect to perform that operation that calls for the special spanner?

About ten years ago, along with two other guys I worked weekends for 18 months getting a deceased relative's collection of antique cars into a condition where we could send them to auction. That was a project that had to be done, not a hobby, so we had to do it differently. A fair number of jobs had to be done with special tools we didn't have, so we made them, in the quickest way we could that would give a good result. In the process, a number of beautiful Stahlwille spanners were reworked with grinder and oxy-torch. It nearly made me ill, but it was a matter of getting the job done without making a career out of it. If you were going to work on those Scott Bonnar mowers for a living, I'd encourage you to buy the tools you need to make the job profitable within the limits of what people are willing to pay - and that means using high-quality special tools. Hobby jobs, though, are a sort of therapy: we do them like some other people do crossword puzzles, to keep their minds busy doing something that makes them feel better rather than worse.

ouch, that hurts

i've worked with blokes who've never even heard of stahlwille. told me it was something you'd find in the sex shop, and how come i knew so much about it

they'd huff n they'd puff about snap on being the be all and end all of quality tools. not a clue about what else was out there

they've got good locks on their trucks though ...

I inherited a full set of Williams sockets, made in the mid-1940s before they changed their name to Blue Point and then later to Snap On. Some of them are worn out now but it is the finest set of sockets I've ever encountered. The Americans have a history of making excellent tools - I think most of my measuring tools are still old Moore & Wright ones. As late as the 1970s, Sears' mainstream Craftsman brand tools were a bit better than Sidchrome ones, back in those days when Sidchrome made good stuff. However, now Craftsman tools are rather ordinary, they've pretty much descended to the level of Sears' cheap brand (Companion). I have had almost nothing to do with Snap On tools since they adopted that branding, and have no opinion on whether they are as good as Stahlwille. It may depend on the particular tool.

If you were going to carry a full set of Snap On tools around in a truck, you'd need more than good locks on the toolbox, you'd need good locks on the truck. The tools would be worth way more than the truck was, and if word got out, both would disappear pretty quickly.

I have had some experience with both Sidchrome and Snap On tools whilst servicing RAAF aircraft many years ago, and had a Sidchrome toolchest myself with a combination of SAE (A/F) and Whitworth sockets and spanners, which, incidentally, was stolen from a shed I had it stored in during a move.
I found the Snap On tools very good quality; in fact excellent....but Sidchrome was also good quality in those days (1967) and had a life-time guarantee. the catch-cry was...You canna hand a man a grander spanner!

Deejay, I even remember the name of the guy who sang the Sidchrome song in TV commercials (Bob Horsfall, who started out as a music hall entertainer in the 1930s).

The lifetime guarantee was not something Sidchrome invented - it was traditional for Blue Point and Craftsman both to offer it, and probably on less restrictive terms. I once knew an American guy who disassembled and assembled V8 engines frequently - more than once a week - by using a half-inch-drive rattle gun through a Craftsman half inch to three eighths drive adaptor and ordinary Craftsman three eighths, 12 point sockets. I remonstrated with him about it, but he said the three eighths stuff cost less than ordinary 12 point half inch, let alone half inch impact sockets, and since he had a lifetime guarantee on the Craftsman stuff, why would he spend more? Besides, he'd been doing it for several years and hadn't had to replace anything. I still think it was crazy stuff, but he was getting away with it.

Craftsman tools in those days performed even better than the Sidchrome tools of the time as well as having a much higher standard of finish and appearance, highly polished all over before they were chromed. They looked just about as good as Blue Point at a fraction of the price - though I don't think they approached Blue Point strength or durability. Nevertheless for a home mechanic they far exceeded job requirements. Realistically, for the average motor mechanic they at least met job requirements.

My main criticism of 1960s and 1970s Sidchrome tools was that they didn't fit the nuts as well as more expensive brands did. That was a rather irritating feature of them. Their chrome plating was also pretty ordinary: a lot of the old Sidchrome tools you see no longer have much chrome on them, especially if they spent the intervening years getting rattled around in a mobile tool box.

got em !!!!!

so, how do i like them ?

they work REALLY WELL, but only have a limited use by the looks of things

WHYZAT you ask ?

most of the "geared" wrenches are of the ring spanner type, and the best of them are 72 tooth or whatever which gives a minimum swing of only a few degrees, great for confined use

the open ender ratchet must be swung 60 degrees before it can ratchet over the next flat

BUT I LUV 'EM, nice shiney chrome toolbox bling. just begging to be scratched on the floor, drive, files etc ...

Can you post some pictures of them, both in action and as "tool portraits"?

My problem with toolbox bling is that it adds considerably to the time it takes to find the tool you want, in the huge pile of duplicates and/or bling. It can get quite irritating, in fact, to sort through 20 or more tools, to find the one you want. For me, ring or open-end spanners are the worst problem. I keep sockets separate, but there must be well over 100 other spanners in the spanner drawer, even though I keep a number of packets of spanners elsewhere. You grab something that looks about right and check the size. Chances are it turns out to be metric or Whitworth when you want A/F, or the size isn't exactly right and you dive back into the lucky dip. And before you suggest it, do you have any idea what size of shadow-board you'd need? It's bad enough having a rack of a dozen hammers on the wall, despite keeping the claw hammers elsewhere. Then there is the choice of quarter, three-eighths or half inch drive sockets, and whether to use six or twelve point. When you need to work on tiny nuts, do you dig out a set of ignition spanners, and invariably find it's metric when you have grabbed A/F, or it is in a gap in the standard sizes, or you have to use a spintite because there isn't room for open-end.

Help stamp out toolbox bling, I say.

yes grumpy i agree wholeheartedly about your assessment of sidchrome tools. as a motor mechanic in the early 60's i went to nz they did not manufacture tools over there , so there was no protective tarrifs on imports , snap on, sk , blue point, husky, are just a few. i'd never seen the likes so i kitted up good before returning .in those days sidchrome didn't have quarter or three eighth drive in their line up .i've never bought sidchrome since , they had us in the palm of their hands being in a tarrif protected industry giving us what they wanted to , not what we needed , sorry about the rant, ozziejohn.

If it was a rant, it was one among many in this thread ozziejohn, and fitted right in. Obviously I share your view that it was an excellent idea to buy imported tools at world prices back in the old days, if you had the opportunity. Even now, we are stuck with some fairly awesome markups in the importing, distributing and retailing system here - a hangover from the old days that will fairly quickly be "cured" now by direct consumer imports via the internet. In most cases the beneficiaries will not be US producers though, due to most of their sales outlets having extraordinary shipping charges compared with Asian sources. I think the outcome will mostly be a matter of US tool production continuing to be shifted to China, and Chinese tool producers will raise their standards to suit, then set up their own global sales channels with their own brands.

ummm, hate to burst yr bubble re nz boys, but

i was a kiwi until i came here 12 yrs ago

and it had horrific tarrifs, s/taxes, import duties and shortages etc on EVERYTHING. for example to buy a new car in the '60s and early 70s, you needed overseas funds AND a near new trade-in. duty was most favourable on pom bombs at about 26%. american vehicles ran at a whopping 125%. (all in aide of helping "mother england" back on its feet after ww2)

and you needed a doctors prescription to buy margerine. ( i had a milk allery as a kid, so i know this 1st hand )

to add insult to injury, it was like an "old boys club" where you could only get goods, tools, vehicles etc through the import licence holder

so, the sidchrome set pictured here is my first socket set bought in 1975 which cost $60. about 2-3 weeks wages for a 2nd year (19 y/o)apprentice. (eagle eyes will notice that the box is an earlier 1, before even mr siddons cheapened them with plastic tool inserts).

bought the 1/4 - 3/8 drive set at the same time. big 1 is whitworth, a/f and metric, smaller 1 is only a/f and metric

back to the ratcheting open enders.

NO BLOODY GOOD FOR WHITWORTH WHICH SO MANY OF THESE RELICS USE

shiney though ...

re pics,

sorry unable to go from computer to this reply. VERY FRUSTRATING. got some good shots. be great if i could just txt them to this reply like i can to another phone. oh well ...