Six versus 12 point sockets

Tom

I'd be interested in opinions on this myself.... Im sure there is a good reason, but I've owned plenty of socket sets over the years and used plenty more but never found a good reason for the 12's. 12's are great as you mentioned for spanners, but i can see no advantage to having them in a socket, and I'd even go further to say that i would take a mid-level 6 point socket over a top shelf 12 pointer any day of the week... and doubly so if im using a cheater bar on them or the fasteners are old automotive ones!!!

There are those metricnh universal style sockets that are rounded rather than pointed, but i cant say i think too much of them... Ive owned a couple of odd pieces of the sockets and spanners mainly in sizes that are common double standards in aus (12mm 1/2 inch etc) but they dont give that satisfying 'snugged up' feel of the right size.

on an unrelated note; Ivew owned a few different sets of gear wrenches, from the top of the line down to the cheap and nasties, and i've broken most of them by using them with cheater bars. I have one particular wrench in my toolkit though that ive had for 7 or 8 years now and its the best Ive ever had. Its double sided and double ended, giving four sizes; 17mm/14mm on one end, and 13mm/15mm on the other. The brand is 'TOP' which Id never heard of before and never have heard of since. It's marked'made in japan' and i bought it in korea for about $15 when i was in a hardware store chasing up something else. If absolutely yarded on this gear wrench; its been in the dirt, the grease, the muck... Ive put 3 to 4 foot cheater bars in it, then jumped on those cheater bars when it wasnt quite enough. Its never slipped and is still in excellent condition. The gears are exposed, with a wratchet style clicker to reverse direction and they are *chunky* gears... you dont get real fine movement on this one. All the attention Ive given it is a squirt of oil once a year and a degreasing every other year to get out all the muck thats jammed in the gears. It's one of the first things i reach for in my toolkit and is rarely out of my pocket when im spannering. Id gladly pay hundreds for a full set of these if i could find them again! to give this some relevence; they are 12 pointed~

Shaun

Quality 12 point wrenches have thinner walls than six point- this can be a huge advantage if you have to sneak around a part to get to a fastener or remove a fastener that is in a deep bore.. Auto mechanics (I used to be one) prefer 12 point tools because they take less time to fit onto a fastener- since most mechanics are paid by the job, every second counts.

-Carl

Carl Byrns wrote in article ...

That's an overly broad, somewhat inaccurate statement.

I have worked in motorsports, and automotive service and repair for more than 40 years.

The ONLY place I prefer a 12-point socket is on a 12-point fastener.

Other than that, six-point sockets have a much lower tendency to round off stubborn fasteners........

.....and, rounded-off fasteners can easily chew up a LOT of precious time.

One minor point is that in a pinch some a 12 points of some size will fit a square nut of some size.

Cheers Trevor Jones

I've never had issues with the motorsports engines/transmissions using

• wrote:

On Sun, 27 May 2007 20:58:51 +1200, with neither quill nor qualm, Tom quickly quoth:

I've bought only 6-pointers since my parents gave me a Crapsman set (with all 12-pointers) back in 1970 and have never seen any use for a

The only place I've ever seen those was holding connecting rod caps in an automotive engine eons ago. I can't recall the make, either.

------------------------------------------- Jack Kevorkian for Congressional physician! ===========================================

I haven't heard the term "gear wrench", but it sounds like a ratcheting box wrench, correct?

I'm having a hard time imagining how it could have 2 sizes on each end. How does it do that?

Thanks, Bob

On Sun, 27 May 2007 14:14:59 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, RoyJ quickly quoth:

Um, if you guys were in _that_ much of a hurry...

LJ--a slower, get-it-right ex-wrench.

Exactly this is *not* true. They all have only contact at the edge and not at all the surface. Have a closer look at modern nuts and the manufacturers sales-buzzing. The sides of the hex (or 12) aren't straight but curved (they all have different names) just because of the fact of the linear contact.

So get a 12-nut, they slip on faster. They are neither weaker nor stronger.

Nick

A six point socket will grab a rusted or mangled nut a lot better. It will take more torque before it rounds off the corners of the nut.

A twelve point socket has a thinner wall and will get on a recessed nut where a six point will not. A twelve point gives you more angles to pick when using it in tight places. A twelve point will work on a square nut, but again the chance of rounding the corners goes up. An eight point should be used when the nut needs a lot of torque.

John

Fits everything, easier to get on a nasty painted bolt or nut and if using a breaker bar gives more combinations to get on fastener.

If one took a 6pt and milled away the portion that a 12pt contacts the fastener you would find the remaining amount to have a fairly small ability to transmit torque.

I've never stripped a head in good shape with a 12 point. Wes

They work on square nuts. My Farmall Tractor has them.

You're definitely mistaken there -- I've done it more times than I care to count, which is why I *never* use 12-pt. sockets for any high-torque applications any more.

You said the magic words a head in good shape... one that never saw an adjustble wrench, pipe wrench, pliers, vice grips or channel locks.

John

On Sun, 27 May 2007 16:51:59 +0000, with neither quill nor qualm, Christopher Tidy quickly quoth:

As usual, Mr. MULEler is wrong. 12-points ARE weaker.

The problem comes in several forms, first of which is that the 12-pt sockets round off themselves, creating more of a problem. They wear quickly, or at least the Crapsman sockets did.

Their thinner walls also broke more quickly when subjected to higher torques. I absolutely hated them from a daily-use standpoint as a mechanic. Almost everything Snap-On sold at the time were 6 points. That says a lot, doesn't it?

But, I didn't like Snap-ON tools all that well, either. They were pretty and all-- with their bright and shiny chrome--but that made them more slippery. And the good tool steel they used allowed them to be made thinner. On a wrench, that made for an uncomfortably thin edge which cut into your fingers when you cranked something down. I usually opted for the equally good--but not as shiny--MAC, Cornwall, or Matco tools which were also selling for half the price of Snap-On. The thinner-walled sockets were great for those super-tight spaces, so their sockets couldn't be beat. To this day, I've never broken a Snap-On socket.