If you don't care about manufacturing processes, you can delete. We're about to speculate on the all-imporant question of how peanut butter wrenches are made...
Starting early has left me with a legacy of four peanut butter wrenches: Campy, TA, Park, and Artisan Tool & Die. Of these, only the Campy shows what I regard as clear signs of forging: fairly deep bas relief work on the handle with the classic Campy "speckle" background. My others clearly have stamped handles, with maker's logos stamped in. But, on the other hand, all of them were sheared to shape (then coined, I think, but not ground smooth).
I think the sockets were formed by first punching and then broaching to form the final hex; then face was then ground to flat. At least one might have been assembled from two pieces: it shows a bit of a ridge at the contact, on the outside. It still seems to have been finished the same way.
Now, wasn't that fun?
harvey "I don't do manufacture in real life" sachs mcLean va
Fred Rednor wrote:
> Friends,
>
> I went to my basement and measured 5/8" and 16mm tools. I
> have an assortment of 6 point wrenches and sockets from
> Craftsman, Snap-On and Stahlwillie (German made), as well as a
> Park 16mm "peanut butter" wrench. I have a really accurate set
> of metric calipers with which to perform my measurements. To
> my amazement (and chagrin) the 5/8" tools were all closer to
> 16mm than any of the 16mm tools. We're not talking about big
> differences here - something like .05mm. But it was
> illuminating. The Park "16mm" wrench was the furthest from a
> true 16mm - it was actually something like 16.3mm.
>
> I'm now convinced that tool manufacturers (even Snap-On) use
> the same pieces for both 5/8" and 16mm - they simply mark them
> differently. I'll probably never use that Park 16mm wrench,
> since I can get a tighter fit with a Snap-On 5/8" socket. But
> I'm keeping it as a collector's item. By the way, Park no
> longer makes 15mm and 16mm "peanut butter" wrenches. Luckily,
> you can still find them at those bike shops which still have a
> supply of older, unsold parts and tools.
>
> This reminds me that when I'm working on 8mm or 13mm
> nuts/bolts, I always first try 5/16" and 1/2" wrenches, for the
> tighter fit. If the wrench is just too tight, then I revert to
> the proper metric size. Conversely, for 5/16" Allen screws, I
> first try the slightly larger 8mm hex key, and revert to 5/16"
> when the 8mm key is just too big. The only Allen head bolts
> I've encountered that were truly too accurate for this sort of
> substitution were the original Phil Wood axle bolts. Those
> were devious. The shaft was something like 8mm with 1mm
> threads, but the heads would only accept a 5/16" hex key.
>
> There also seem to be a few 6mm fasteners that are actually
> either 1/4" or 7/32". It's a wild world sometimes...
> Cheers,
> Fred "sono eguale" Rednor - Arlington, Virginia (USA)
>
>
>
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