Torque Wrench

[Victor Johnstone]

I need a new torque wrench. Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.

[Groily]

No specific recommendation but I'd guess you'd want a low bottom reading - say from 10 ft lbs (13.6nm) or even less, and 3/8 drive? There are quite a few out there, and it depends how much you feel like paying. 10-80 ft lbs seems to be a popular sort of range, probably starting at about £45 and going up to 'a lot'. There are cheap outliers (as ever!), but quality may be a question mark for items sold at half the typical prices of branded players.
1/2 drive are good for cars etc but not much good for some of our stuff. Lots of them don't kick in until 20 ft lbs . . .

[Mick D]

Hi

In my opinion there's little point in having a torque wrench without the facility to verify it's setting, so my recommendation would be to buy a good spring balance and use it in conjunction with your existing spanners and sockets for applying specific torques. If you feel the need for a torque wrench in the future you can verify it's setting with the spring balance.

Regards Mick

[Ib-Denmark]

I always use a "Fish weight" and a tube. This low technology can easily be veryfied.

[jackstringer]

Norbar, Britool and Gedore are the brands I would recommend.
If you have a Halfords Trade account the professional range or torque wrenches are made by Norbar who is pretty much the author of the new standard for torque wrenches.

Don't do the bar and weight/scale thing, it's not accurate as you might think. Unless you have a pully system setup.

If you buy one it will come with a certificate, if you want to be sure it is good then you can get it recalibrated each year or two but as someone who calibrates torque wrenches as part of my day job, don't bother they rarely drift out of spec unless you use them all the time etc. Though I do find a few test clicks into a vice before using it proper helps as it frees off the mechanism.

Remember its a tool to guide you. If you think its getting a bit tight, double check. Too many times I have seen people use a torque wrench set too high and they snap a bolt.

[Mick D]

Don't do the bar and weight/scale thing, it's not accurate as you might think. Unless you have a pully system setup.

Hmm

Want to expand on that Jack? - not sure what you mean.

Mine are Snap On and Proto - checked against an Acratork before use professionally and with a spring balance at home, (the spring balance is easily calibrated against a dead weight).

Regards Mick

[Groily]

A minefield, of course.
Quite a lot to be said for having sensible sized spanners without scaffoding tubes over the ends, and doing things up firmly with them. Rather as we all had to when snazzy gizmos like torque wrenches were relatively more expensive. Box spanner with a ring spanner over one end for doing cylinder head nuts up anyone?
The old sort, with pointer and scale, work fairly ok too - I use one quite often to get 'even', if not 'accurate', and sometimes prefer it to my more modern clickety one that was umpteen times more expensive.
I am told, and it seems logical, that one should always relax the modern sort to get the pressure off it when stored. I do it, anyway, and I think it is still semi-accurate after a good few years. But using springs etc to check accuracy before stuffing a head on is a bit more of a fiddle than I am usually prepared to do, wise though it woud be!

[SPRIDDLER]

Quite a lot to be said for having sensible sized spanners without scaffolding tubes over the ends,

I guess you mean this sort of thing, Bill.
I reckon my vice would be torn off the bench.

Very tight.jpg

[Andy G]

Won't the reading on a spring balance be entirely dependent on the length of the spanner? How do you calibrate?

[dave16mct]

Mine's a Williams 3/8" drive 10-50lbs/ft. I think it was about £42 a few years ago. It's a nice size to use.
I've also got a 1/2" drive Britool up to about 250Lbs /Ft, Sprid's picture above reminded of when I used it with a 4' length of scaffolding tube to replace the rear shock absorbers on my old van,(and I had to jump on the end before it unscrewed!) I think they were 170 Lbs /ft to retighten.
Dave.