Hi all,
Thanks to everyone who gave me their opinion on these sockets. I bought a set and they arrived yesterday. I gave them a pretty good test on the rusted bolts on my air raid siren and also using various scrap bolts clamped firmly in the vice.
They solved the problem with the air raid siren bolts. One bolt came undone and the other broke off, but at least it is disassembled. At first I thought I had damaged one of the sockets, but it turned out to be a piece of flash left inside the socket from the forging process. After use I couldn't see any damage to the lobes, so it looks like they're made from a good, hard tool steel. The piece of flash was surprisingly ductile too, so I don't the sockets would crack.
Overall I'd give them 7 out of 10. I have three reservations:
- Individual extractors only fit one size of hex head. They aren't very forgiving when it comes to size. 1/2" works on 13 mm, but won't work on 12 mm, for example.
- They don't work well on totally round fastener heads. They do what they say on the box well - undoing hex head fasteners - but I tried them on some slotted screws with a domed head and they really struggled to grip.
- They're expensive.
I hope someone else find this information useful when tool hunting!
Best wishes,
Chris