Replacement Socket

I am well aware of that, which does not alter my central premise. The products made in UK (Southend-on-Sea) are British made and ones not made in UK are not British made. My question was whether the 'trade' sockets were sourced differently, not 'Who owns MK?'.

Pedant mode Progress Road, Leigh on Sea (a couple of railway stations up the line from Southend) and around a couple of hundred metres away from a Toolstation branch that sells MK mains sockets.

Unfortunately the packing from the MK part I purchased today in Southend Toolstation[1] is currently in the trash 10/15 minutes drive away so I cannot say where it was manufactured. However I would say it was a lot better quality than some of the cheaper other brand sockets I've purchased in the past from Screwsatan.

Interestingly, I have encountered this confusion before with one of the banks. Is Southend the Post Town for Leigh?

It could still be a 'grey import'.

I have always liked MK though I believe Crabtree is good too.

SS1, SS2 and SS3 are Southend on Sea post codes and SS9 is Leigh on Sea however the distribution point for letter mail for Leigh is in Southend. I believe letter sorting takes place in Chelmsford.

Progress Road Leigh is only a 5 to 10 minute drive away from the centre of Southend when the roads are empty (more like 30 minutes in the rush hours and currently during the day when they close lanes on the main road)

Many times it'll work, sometimes it'll shear. Solder is much weaker than most realise. Any soldered joint needs support against movement to reliably survive even one pushing back into the box. So twist it repeatedly - what looks like enough turns isn't.

standard practice in the 3rd world

NT

This was common in the 1-star reviews on SF. At a guess, the 'captive' part is done by deforming the thread after the screw is fitted and the screw is backed out too far - bloody automation!

I think part of my initial problem was that I was using a screwdriver with a narrow blade (slotted screw) more suited to tightening the screws on a chock block etc. When initially attempting to tighten the first screw the screwdriver was probably not aligned on the tightening axis nor positioned in the middle of the slot. When using a screwdriver with a blade approx the same width as the screw head the task was a lot easier.

Just checking the other terminal connections by winding the screw in/out by a few turns freed up the any undue tightness.

Possibly if I had used the right tool for the job in the first place I would have experienced the slight problem.

At least with the MK part backing off the screws to allow 2 wires to be fitted in the terminals didn't result in the screws falling out as I've had experience with in the past when fitting a no-name RCD socket.

IMHO MK have always been 2nd best compared to crabtree, ashley etc. Too many of their products have had issues. (I'm told Ashley has gone downmarket since, I've not used their stuff in a long time.)

NT

If Crabtree and Ashley are 1st & 2nd, doesn't that make MK 3rd best? :P

As a matter of interest, is Crabtree manufactured in the UK?

Some of it is.

Crabtree, Wylex and Volex are the same company now owned by Siemens.

Ashley became Hager years ago.

She/he can get a new birth certificate now :-)

Owain

Is it correct that some MK is manufactured abroad (China)?