Grip Tite Sockets

B

BottleBob 18 years ago

To All:

Jim Rowe ( snipped-for-privacy@aol.com) E-mailed me a couple of days ago with the follow I had a guy contact me to design a tool to do cut an undercut into a set of sockets, like Craftsman sockets. The undercut is where a group of cams are held inside the socket. These Grip-Tite sockets are designed so the more you rotate the socket these cams move toward the FLATS on the Hex Bolt or Nut. So a Hex shaped head can be 80% rounded off and the Camming action forces the cams down on to what's left of the flat and you spin the bolt or nut right out.

So the guy doing farmed the undercut process out to a shop that using a High Speed Straight Tooth Key Cutter and was getting 150 pieces per cutter. The tool I designed has 6 Teeth at 50 Degree Helix. This keeps

1 flute IN THE CUT all of the time since just about the time one helix is finishing up the next helix is making contact and eliminated the shock of in and out of the cut such as what the High Speed cutter with the straight flutes was doing. After 15,000 parts I inspected it and it looks like it could cut another 15,000 parts.? I put a new BLUE coating on it? Titanium Silicon Nitride for Hard Milling of steel is working great. This stuff has boron in it so it's very abrasive. Obviously the coating and flute design with the Submicron substrate is working out.

So I bought a set of these sockets. They work great as they won't round off the heads either since they drive on the flats. So I'm re-capping the tooling project with this guy and I asked him if he ever took them to Swap Meets and Large Car Shows. Never has done that.

I'm selling these now, and looking for distributors for the BIG Shows that I would never get to.

Check out the website,

formatting link

and watch the video on there. ===============================================================

BB writes: Back to realtime here, I thought the idea was pretty neat and worth a post to the group since most all of us use sockets from time to time. I also thought his comment about the Titanium Silicon Nitride coating for Hard Milling was a choice little tidbit as well.

Vote

W

Why 18 years ago

That would sell to us old farts, I just bought a 1964 C10 SWB step side with a hot 350, 700R4 , PS, PB, disc on front, 12 bolt with 5 lug wheels. BF goodrich P275/60 R15 on back (new) & all new TT wheels. But the body looks like someone threw bowling balls at it. Doing the body work on it now. And every bolt is rusted but for $4250.00 its good. Think I do it as a Rat Rod, going to spray black lacquer primer on it this weekend, I know Y'all in KookyFornia can't get lacquer .

Vote

J

J. Nielsen 18 years ago

Bob,

Actually, to me, the tidbit about the 50 degree helix cutter was more interesting. We often design tools with less helix to allow for more flutes, but the idea of reducing chatter on behalf of the number of flutes is intriguing.

Vote

P

entropic3.14decay at optonline2.718 dot net; remove pi and e to reply--ie, all d'numbuhs

What J Nielson said. Yo, 150 pcs to 15,000++ pcs?? goddamm, give dat tool designer a raise!!

As far as the socket itself, you pick yer poison. You lose some torque advantage at the flat middle, and the camming action is likely creating fantastic stresses in the tool itself.

In my mind, just too much drama with all these goddamm "new" tools--too effing complicated.

6/12 pt sockets, 3 crescents, boucou vise grips, and channel locks is proly all God really intended....

Oh yeah, and Kroil, and a welder/OA, for when s*it *really* gets stuck....

The one new tool I really did like was "thru sockets", by Armstrong, iirc, where the ratchet goes outside the socket, rather than snapping into the socket with the square drive. Really, really neat design, seemed simple, but no doubt hellishly expensive. Armstrong makes very nice tools, at one time having among the very best finishes of any wrench--seemed like the mirror chrome was .060.

But even this just solves the stud/nut problem, and not remote/deep nuts/heads, like regular sockets/extensions.

Vote

Grip Tite Sockets

Join the Discussion

Didn't find your answer?