rachet spanners

I have a very nice set which came from Halfords about 5 years ago.

IMO it's not worth going for the cheaper sets, since they have quite large heads, and are not much use in tight spaces. Mine have heads which are only slightly larger than a normal ring spanner. They're very useful.

It is open ended spanners I am after and those I have seen are ring spanners.

Why didn't you say so?

I have a set of open ended ratchet spanners too. They're Stanley, and came from B&Q. Toolstation do them:

An open ended ratchet spanner, and just how would they work?...

On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 12:27:55 +0100, ":::Jerry::::" scrawled:

They do because I've got a set. It's not a ratchet as such, it's just the way the head is formed it works like a ratchet with the nut rather than the usual ratchet spanners having a complete ratchet assembly in them, IYSWIM.

It's like a ring ratchet spanner, only open-ended. Line up the gap in the inner rotating bit with the gap in the handle bit, place on nut, loosen/tighten as needed, line up the gaps again and remove.

Sorry, but that statement is insane. Such a device could not work in a Euclidian universe.

Open ended ratchet spanners work very well, but they have no moving parts.

rather

You mean they have an 'escapment', that is not what I would call a ratchet!

Try using one in a tight enclosed area where you can't see what you are doing, only by feel can one place the tool on the nut or bolt and you will see who blood useless they are...

No they don't, see my reply to Lurch.

very

nut,

Are you for real, how does one gat such a device off if the nut is tight when the open parts are 180 deg's to each other, and if you could just lift the spanner off the nut or bolt why would you need an open ended spanner in the first place?!

You can get closed ratchet spanners that open to allow them to be used on pipework. If the original poster was anybody other than yet another Dribble clone I would post a link :-)

That's what I thought a first but I think it could be made to work. It would need some trick machining though.

I think the biggest problem is that they'd not be very strong.

-- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Guy Dawson I.T. Manager Crossflight Ltd snipped-for-privacy@crossflight.co.uk

Clever profile - don't know if they work tho'

In tight situations, were there is little available room to move a non ratchetting spanner (not what some, including the quoted web page, are calling spanners with an escarpment) one often has to resort to moving the nut or bolt one flat at a time, this means using a spanner with a 'cranked' jaw and flipping the spanner over after each movement IYSWIM. Now, by using a true ratchetting spanner there will be no need for any of that, the spanners shown on the web page do not have a 'crank' set and are thus next to blood useless - they don't have a ratchet and don't have any cranked off set...

They might work well in an *assembly* situation, such as a production line, were access is still acceptable - if not perfect.

Andy, stop being a pest. You are making all this up. You know nothing about ratchet spanners. If Makita made one you would.

Andy we prefer you better as Lord Hall, not Matt.

I have a set of open ended ratchet spanners, and they are extremely useful indeed.

mechanism.

The one that Grunff and I are talking about is one that would be like standard ring ratchet but open ended.

Guy

-- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Guy Dawson @ SMTP - snipped-for-privacy@cuillin.org.uk // ICBM - 6.15.16W 57.12.23N 986M