When using sockets and a ratchet with nuts and bolts, it’s common to at some point just grip the socket itself with your hand and turn it that way. But that is made more difficult by the fact that the outside of the socket is smooth and slippery chrome. If there is any resistance, your fingers will slip and not be able to turn it. This is made worse if your hands have any sort of grease on them, which is common when working on things like engines. It seems like it would be so much more useful to have the outside surface of the socket be something rough and grippy so you could really get a good hold of it. The ratchet handle itself may even have such a texture, like a cross-hatch imprinting, so your hand doesn’t slip. Is there a reason that tool manufactures don’t also texture the sockets?
I assume it would just cost more. It would make more sense to add a non-slip coating than to try to form the socket that way. Sockets seem and wrenches seem to always be ‘drop-forged’ which I think in this case means formed with a die and mold. Removing the tool from a mold would be more difficult that way. I suppose instead of cross-hatching like you find on some tools just a few small protrusions or indentations would be possible. From what I’ve seen having a non-slip interior for a socket so it doesn’t slip off the fastener is a more popular idea.
If you’re industrious enough make a set of heat shrink tubes to place on all your sockets and then start selling them for a ridiculous (yet small) profit.
Because you’re using cheap sockets. Look for ones that advertise knurled finishes on the sockets and all your dreams will come true.
- It would be several extra manufacturing steps.
- the sockets would get dirty. Not a problem for me, but a lot of mechanics like to keep all their tools clean.
- Turning the socket by hand is not considered a typical (or at least critical) use.
- Finding a place to label the socket would be difficult. Labeling is a bigger issue (at least it is for me).
Excellent point. I have a lot of trouble reading silver on silver. Slightly less silvery on silver hasn’t helped either.
While I don’t doubt that cost is an issue, I would think it would be trivial overall. Sockets–cheap or not–already have an imprinting on the side which says the size of the socket. It seems like part of the process which stamps the size could also stamp a texture at the same time.
I have a few socket sets and they are all smooth sockets. Even the Craftsman socket set is smooth. Ironically, my cheapo socket set has grippier sockets because they don’t have a nice, chrome coating. The steel is not polished and has a naturally rougher surface.
I had to look at a picture of that. I have a few sets around like that, but they’re probably 30-40 year old Craftsman and 50+ year old Husky sets.
Regarding the size being hard to read, the last socket set I picked up had the sizes marked on them really large and either etched or lasered in. Much easier to read. They look kinda like this.
I have some of those. It takes as much time for me to turn them to where the light is right for reading as it does to keep grabbing sockets until I find one that fits. But I’m losing a lot of focus at short distances and having difficulty with contrast. An embossed size can be made readable by just rubbing a black grease pencil over it to fill in the hollow.
For a simple reason: demand for such sockets isn’t so great that it makes financial sense for tool-makers to provide copious amounts of them.
Are you asking what advantages there are to smooth-finish sockets as opposed to something more textured? Or are you asking why basic economics works the way it does?
Pretty much every socket works about the same. From a marketing standpoint, I would expect tool manufacturers to look for ways to make their sockets stand out from the rest to gain a competitive advantage. Grippy sockets provide a useful advantage, so I would have though tool manufacturers would look for ways to implement that. Even if it’s for nothing else than to be able to slap a “NOW WITH MORE GRIP!” slogan on the packaging, it would provide an advantage over all the other generic, chrome, slippery sockets. I’m assuming that there have been design discussions in the tool companies and they have made this a conscious decision to go with smooth sockets. I would think it would just add a minuscule cost increase to texture the outside, so it seems odd to me that cost is the reason they don’t do it compared to the advantage I think it would bring.
In my Home Depot, they don’t have any sockets on the shelves that have a textured surface, so it’s not clear that there isn’t demand when they are not being presented to the consumer. If I had the choice, I would pick textured sockets over smooth. For my situation, I bought a socket set that had a little hand-held socket driver. It’s a scalloped-edged disc about 2" around and the socket attaches to it. I use that when I need extra grip to turn the socket.
How long have socket-wrench sets been made and sold to the public? Are you presuming that you are the first person to ever think of the idea of texturing the surface?
I have an idea for you: you think this is something that should be sold. Round up some investors, get someone in China to make them and ship them to you, and sell them online. You may be right. If so, you may end up doing quite well financially. I have a friend who does exactly this with cooling racks for baked goods; he’s making a high-five-figure income off of selling just ONE item online.
But I wouldn’t go banco on it. If it’s not being mass-produced and sold, there is probably a reason for it, most likely an economic one.
At my job, we use sockets from Snap-On that have a black finish, they are not chrome. These types would probably meet the OP’s needs. Over my 50 or so years of working on things using sockets wrenches, I don’t recall any time that I could grip a socket with enough force to turn a loosened nut or bolts.
I can’t see that turning the socket by hand would give you much advantage (if any) over turning the bolt itself by hand. The external diameter of the socket is generally not very much greater than the internal one (and therefore of the bolt), and the bolt is hexagonal instead of round, which gives you more grip.
Personally, I don’t really see how a knurled socket would help that much. And as another said, it would be much harder to clean.
I wish I could just buy Snap-On tools. Can I do that somehow? The OP is just talking about holding the socket while turning back the wrench because the ratchet is providing sufficient torque to turn the socket back with it. But at that point I just pull of the wrench and turn the bolt of nut with my fingers. Sometimes it’ll tighten up again and I have to put the wrench back on, but it’s getting ever more difficult to get my fat stiff fingers into a tight space along with a wrench also. I end up using box end wrenches more than ever now.
Well yeah. They have an e-commerce site.
This cross-hatching is called knurling (**friedo **used the word but didn’t define it). I have never worked in a machine shop and don’t know how knurling is done today, but I can tell you that in metal shop as a teenager I made a tack hammer and we knurled the handle with a knurl cutter on a lathe. I don’t think parts are knurled in a mold.
They also appear to be a very price-sensitive item, so it’s not clear that unique characteristics would be enough to justify a difference in price.
Now if a manufacturer produced a titanium socket and labeled it GOOD FOR UP TO 10,000,000 ft-lb TORQUE that might be worth a premium price.
Well, my Home Depot does stock them, so at least you can order them online. But the fact that every Home Depot *doesn’t *stock them is a pretty strong indicator that there isn’t enough demand to give them shelf space over something else.
Here is an example of what the OP wants.
http://www.sears.com/craftsman-19-piece-3-8inch-dr-inch-and-metric/p-00924963000P?plpSellerId=Sears&prdNo=16&blockNo=16&blockType=G16#
Make that another example, now that I see kunilou’s post.
This.
I prefer a smooth, chrome finish because it makes them super simple to clean. And I am still able to grip the socket when the situation calls for it.
I just wish there was a good way to clean the inside surface of a socket…