3/8" Ratchet For Weaklings

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Of course I had to take a trip this week and spend all my mad-money on a cardiologist trek. This baby looks like a winner. Long long flex handle, and 90 tooth gears for minimum clearance requirement.

Regardless, I'll wipe my tears and post this for someone else that can use it. For laughs I looked at a 3/8" drive Snap On flex handle a foot-long, and when I saw the price it wiped the smile right off my face.



Well SHOOT! I did the best I could with a hyper zoomy image!

https://tools.woot.com/offers/steelman-pro-18-inch-3-8-flexhead-cobra-ratchet?utm_source=version2&ut...

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Sure works for "Buyouts"

[Hank_MI]

Farmerjon wrote:
...Leverage is the old mans friend.

An impact wrench or pneumatic ratchet are even better friends. You are right though. I watch my son struggling with something then say wait a minute then show him the easy way. Which usually does involve leverage.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Pipeman wrote:
MEXICOWANDERER get one of these for your jar lids. Doesn't damage the lids and my wife uses it all the time.https://www.wdrake.com/buy-jar-pop-opener-305021

Wonderful! Thank you. For me this is a must.



I would love inexpensive sealed-cap bottle aids that I can keep one in the rig, one in the toad, and one in my pocket. I bet my face flushes when I ask "Can you open this for me?" It's just not dignified...

[Pipeman]

MEXICOWANDERER get one of these for your jar lids. Doesn't damage the lids and my wife uses it all the time.https://www.wdrake.com/buy-jar-pop-opener-305021

[T18skyguy]

Forty five years ago Craftsman tools were wonderful. They weren't polished but they were thin walled and tempered. A joy to use and no Snap on was any better. My set got stolen all except for one wrench. I show it to people now and then so they see what Craftsman use to be. I got tools from most of the big names. I have a beautiful set of Bonny wrenches. Bonny use to have the contract to provide tools for the Air Force years back. I'm 65 now and I need to start selling tools. If I croak my wife has no idea of the worth of what I got. But getting back on topic, that is a beautiful ratchet. A flex head is almost a must in my opinion.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Craftsman, K-Mart and Sears are all damned near on Life-Support. When me, an opposite of Arnold Schwarzenegger, started snapping box end wrenches loosening factory transmission crossmembers, I began to get suspicious.

I never did care for the way a Craftsman wrench felt in my hands. Way back when I was doing serious wrenching, I had a quagmire of Snap On, Mac, Craftsman, Power Craft, Stanley and even Plumb tools. Plumb is the only brand of tool I have never broken. The name Plumb followed by a triangle symbol. Just before this was the era of snuff and bitters (a joke).

Hah! Try and find a chrome-vanadium-molybdenum tool. Good luck. It's not the metal that costs, it's the machinery needed to make the tool. I remember trying Un-Break-o (sic?) allen wrenches the first time. Incredibly hard to remove set screw but it must have been high quality. With a cheater I flexed that 3/16" wrench almost 90 degrees. With a snap that sounded like a tree branch breaking the thing gave way. The wrench went flying. I knew I had snapped it. Wrong! It was intact and the set screw was broken loose. This is the kind of quality that makes me smile.

OTC Owatonna Tool Company used to make the best gear pullers on the market. I have no idea if they still do. Nothing in the world as miserable as extracting an alternator drive end bearing off a shaft laden with polyurea grease. It gets under the bearing inner race and makes green Loc Tite look like a joke. The OTC pullers were the only brand that could stand up to tough extractions.

Yank on a Craftsman ratchet replete with cheater extension, and you'd better have a mattress strapped to your ---

[fj12ryder]

Well, they don't replace so much anymore, just give you a repair kit most of the time.

[Edd505]

Craftsman and a cheater bar, it breaks they replace, way cheaper than Snap-on.

[fj12ryder]

Snap-On tools have never been favorites of mine. Too much chrome, too much polish, too sharp edges, too slippery to hang on to with greasy oily hands. They have some nice specialty tools, but their hand tools aren't anything I would buy over some others even if they were the same price.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Criminy I can't even lift a 5 gallon bottle of water anymore. I have to use a small pair of Channelocks to unscrew sealed lids. My granddaughters bust the caps on fizzy water for me.

As far as warranty goes, I don't think I would have the strength to harm this ratchet. And $160.00 for a Snap-On just ain't in the budget.

Thank god for newton, sharp blades, and magnesium anything.

[fj12ryder]

Looks nice, but what kind of warranty are we looking at? You'll need it when you plan on using that full 18" handle on a frozen/very tight bolt/nut. That small rotation ratchet means small teeth and minimal strength. But it would definitely have it's uses.

It looks like a nice Dirty Harry ratchet: "A man's got to know his limitations." 🙂

[romore]

I could bust a lot of 1/4" and 5/16" bolts with that thing. Seriously, I would be nervous putting much pressure on it although it would be handy reaching deep into the engine compartment.

[Dutch_12078]

Comparing regular retail prices with Woot's closeout/overstock pricing is apples and oranges. Amazon's regular price on this tool is about $65, so it looks like either Amazon or importer JS Products is dumping some stock through Woot at about 60% off. A search of the JS site does not find this model number, so it may be a discontinued item. It is a good limited time price on an apparently quality tool from Taiwan or China.

[Farmerjon]

That looks pretty good. Maybe with that I could remove and replace bolts I used to be able to turn with a 6 or 8in ratchet. My tool boxes are full of cheater bars of one sort or another.
Leverage is the old mans friend.