pcm81

So, I just bought a 63 peace Craftsman wrench set from sears. Lo and behold, its the chinese made version with like 20% more metal than the craftsman US made tools to compensate for weaker alloy. At work we use snap-on tools, so clearly no comparison there. What i gathered from online research is that these chinese wrenches are good enough for a weekend warrior but are crap for everyday professional use.

My question is: doing what types of things with these wrenches should i expect to fail? I realize the obvious differences of the advantages that pro tools like snapon have over these chinese wrenches: lighter, better balanced, more ergonomic, stronger, higher tolerances etc.

But where should i expect these chinese tools to fail even for a weekend warrior use? For example: if i am using a 1/2 inch wrench, can i expect its strength to be higher than a fastener with 1/2 inch head or should i be prepared to see wrench fail before a good quality fastener would? Usually holes are not drilled closer than 1.5xDiameter of a hole, am i likely to see situations where fasteners are close enough that higher quality snapon wrench would fit between them, but these low quality chinese wrenches would simply be too bulky to secure such fastener? etc...

Thanks ahead

Mike

I've always bought cheap wrenches and they've taken my abuse well enough. Don't lose sleep over it. Ratchets are a different story, as are sockets. Those will break. But wrenches I wouldn't worry.

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pcm81

Thanks