Old mechanic at the hangar said something that stuck with me

I was getting coffee last Tuesday and Bob, a guy who's been turning wrenches since the 70s, pointed at my torque wrench and said 'you trust that thing more than your own hand.' Been thinking about it all week. He meant I should double-check with a beam-style wrench on critical fasteners instead of just clicking and walking away. Has anyone else had an old timer make you question a tool you use every day?

2 comments

2 Comments

mia44211d ago

Bob's got a point about not trusting a clicker blindly. I had a Snap-on torque wrench drift way out of spec once and a beam style caught it on a prop flange. Still use the digital one for speed but always backcheck the critical ones with a beam like he said. The beam just feels more honest, no battery or spring to fool you. Plus you can see the scale flexing in real time which is hard to argue with.

wren_jackson11d agoMost Upvoted

Did you ever send that Snap-on in to get checked, or did you just keep using it but double check it? I mean, I've heard mixed things about their calibration service, some people say it's great and others say they got it back worse than before. Idk, maybe it's just me but I'd be paranoid about using a clicker that drifted even if I was backchecking it, like what if I forgot to check it on a critical bolt one day? The beam thing makes sense though, I've got an old Craftsman beam style that's gotta be 40 years old and it still reads dead on when I compare it to a friend's new digital one. There's something about a simple piece of metal bending that just seems harder to mess up than a spring or a circuit board.