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I highly recommend to avoid Stanley. There have been a lot of complaints about the quality of their bits plus all their tools are made in China.

I suggest Ambika/Ambitec instead, they're far far better. A 27 piece hex set costs 2401rs shipped, there are coupons to get 100rs off as well.

http://www.industrybuying.com/drive-...?brand_id=1177

Many thanks for the warning !
Once again, many thanks - have ordered the very tool-set you'd recommended :thumbs up
Hoping it reaches me by this weekend...
The web-site also appears to be a treasure trove for tools & such - have been looking for industrial adhesives for quite some time & found this web-site very useful in this regard :D

Once upon a time I might not have looked further than Stanley for the spanner sets. Now I hear that the name is little more than a design feature.

Still, I have some decent Stanley stuff, bought in recent times. I don't think it is all bad.

Hmmm, yes... Interesting! I just hope I don't find it too tempting! :D

I agree. I used to lust after tool catalogs from Stanley and Craftsman, all brought in from USA by my friend's dad. He has a massive collection of Stanley, Craftsman, Gedore sockets and other tools from the 80s. They are so well built, nothing from this era can come close.

A friend who is also a DIYer had bought a set of Stanley sockets similar to what Srini was looking for. two sockets in kit got rounded off very early and the T bar had warped. Hence my recommendation against it.

I would prefer the following Taparia set
http://www.amazon.in/Taparia-S14HXL-...G3R2HSPXP04Z77

Though it is more expensive the Taparia tools are generally of better quality than Stanley. The Taparia has two smaller sizes - 8 and 9 extremely useful at least to me. My Taparia & Gedore tools bought over 40 years ago are still going strong, where as a few inexpensive pieces of dubious origin failed within a year of purchase.

I am not in favour of using pipe or any other extension for ratchets, as you can not only damage the threads by over torquing but also damage the ratchet mechanism.

I'd be loathe to subject a ratchet mechanism to that stress! I don't think I'd do it for tightening either.

I believe that plumbers regularly use steel pipe as an extender when undoing stuff that has been locked in place for years, but hey, they also use blowtorches to ease locked threads. That kind of stuff is best left to professionals.

It is also easier than many people think to take the head off a bolt. I'm a wimp, and I've done it with nothing more than a spanner! With ordinary steel, you can feel that the thing itself is beginning to twist: high-tensile steel just snaps. That can be pretty dangerous to your hand as it flies off with the spanner.

By the way, has anybody ever seen a compound leverage wrench? I understand that it has two parts, one of which acts as pipe vice, and provides a fulcrum for the wrench part to rotate around. There are some good photos on the net, but I can't find any video, and cannot visualise how rotation about that vice peg gets translated to rotation about the pipe axis. They are far too expensive for me to buy one just to find out! ;)

Between Stanley and Taparia, I would say go for Taparia. I had bought a ratchet handle from Taparia with a 14mm socket (or was it 13?) and on occasion I used it on the lug nuts of my Santro, so the handle is pretty strong. I just bought a Stanley set from Amazon and the size of the ratchet handle is smaller but quality does not match up with the Taparia.

It's nice to hear these votes of confidence in the local Indian company. Especially as I just bought some of their stuff.

My socket set dates back to around 1975 and contains Imperial as well as metric sockets. Of course, most have never been used, but it's having them, just in case, that counts

Even mine were bought in the 1970-1974 period. Just as Gedore in India had technical collaboration with Gedore Germany, Taparia had one with Bahco. In fact my Taparia stuff has the Bahco-Taparia stamped on each piece.

One thing one must look for in hand tools is prper material. Gedore, Taparia and other "professional" sockets are made with "Chrome Vanadium" steel with surface heat treatment (that makes them last a long time as their edges do not deform easily, nor do they shatter under impact), where as a lot of inexpensive stuff both local as well as imported is just hardened steel, which wears out fast.

+1000!

Mine go back to late 70's / early 80's, and still there is no rusting or stripping. Even a "Made in China" socket set I had bought in Switzerland in 1987 is in superb condition after years of rough use. Low price today is usually a guarantee of bad tool material.

Need Twist Drills

I did some rough-and-ready woodwork yesterday. I was drilling holes for wood screws, using drills from a Bosch plastic-boxed set which I thought was cheap quality when I first got it (the box is nice, the drills not so much).

I broke two twist bits. Now, with perfect use, I don't suppose they would have broken, but even with imperfect use, I can barely remember the last time I snapped a drill, even working with tiny, tiny ones when making jewellery.

Basically, I need a set of decent quality twist drills. When I last looked, that would be High Speed Steel, but I don't know if technology has moved on since then? They will be used mostly for wood, but I don not want bits advertised as for wood, as they will not be as tough as bits that can take on metal as well.

Any recommendations for a set? And an online source?

Drill flutes are designed to evacuate material as the drill cuts the material. Depending on the material the flute width and flute angle varies.

Drills for wood are quite different from the ones used for steel, so are ones used for Aluminum and so for plastics. Basically HSS for steel have hard material with the narrow flutes as steel shaves into narrow strips. The same drill will jam when used with softer material as the shavings are wider and softer, so the softer the material the wider the drill flutes. Secondly wood need not have HSS which is over kill, a cheaper material works quite well. For larger holes Augers like bits and for even larger ones Hole-Saw is best.

Ha! And I thought I knew a thing or two about drilling holes! Well, I guess I do --- but only a thing or two out of much, much more! I do remember that there is a lot of things that I forgot, like different cutting-edge angles. I also doubt that I could grind a twist drill so that it would actually drill a round hole, although I could once (but not with the ease that real engineers that I knew could: I was just a semi-skilled guy).

You're right, no doubt, but I still never broke a 3mm bit when drilling wood before [Blush]

I have broken quite a few small diameter drills - 2.5 mm, 1.5 mm etc. What happens is that when the bit is stuck slightly due to the shavings jamming the flutes the torque of a normal 10 mm or 13 mm drill is enough to keep twisting it till it breaks. That is why you need dedicated bits for softer material, or else use a very light touch while drilling with HSS bits.

OT. I find that Hole Saw is an ideal tool for drilling large diameter holes in plywood and commercial boards. I have a set which can drill between 1" and 6".

Got two Circlip pliers from Amazon. The old ones had got lost. Will use these to repair all my door handles, where the shaft is secured with an external circlip


The pliers


Close up of the tips