Tools:
AMPRO T19086 1/4-Inch Drive Finger Ratchet and Bit Driver Aluminum
[ Ссылка ]
S&K 45172 Thumbwheel Ratchet – 3/8” Drive
[ Ссылка ]
Related tools mentioned:
Titan Tools 12091 3/8" (12090 1/4") Drive Finger Ratchet
[ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]
GearWrench 81270 3/8" (81027 1/4") Drive Gimbal Ratchet
[ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]
Alltrade Powerbuilt 941264 3/8" Socket & 1/4" Hex Bit 2-in-1 Thumb Ratchet
[ Ссылка ]
S&K 49270 Thumbwheel Ratchet – 1/4” Drive
[ Ссылка ]
Transcript:
Hi, I'm Sean Michael Ragan for Cool Tools, and today I want to talk about finger ratchets, AKA palmorthumb-ratchets. Now, these guys work a lot like your standard socket wrench, except they've got a knob instead of a lever for a handle. They're great for working in tight spaces (like under the hood of your car), and they don't take up nearly so much room in your toolbox or your pocket. I've got a bunch of products I want to show you, and as always you'll find links to purchase each of those products in the description field below this video. Now let's go check 'em out. OK, we've got four different flavors here on the bench, ranging from bargain to deluxe. On the bargain end, there's this generic made-in-Taiwan model, that's currently ten dollars, if you buy through Amazon. In the middle price range, we've got two models with some unusual features; first of these is the gimbal ratchet, which is twenty dollars, if you buy it through the Big Orange Store, though you can get an almost identical model from Amazon for about half that. Next up in the midrange, this combination tool that weds a three-eighths inch square socket driver toa quarter-inch hex bit driver on the opposite face. Through Amazon, that's also twenty. And finally, this professional grade, made-in-the-USA model from S&K tools. That's forty dollars, through Amazon. The generic import ratchet is pretty straightforward. It's got a steel drive shaft with a ball detent, a plastic handle, and a plastic selector switch that lets you change drive directions. It's all held together with this single Torx screw, which I'll go ahead and remove to show you how it's put together. Here's the quarter-inch drive version, which has a nice bright green handle so you can distinguish it from three-eighths at a glance. I actually really like the handles on these, even though as a rule I don't care for plastic parts on my tools. But this one has a really nice feel. It's got a comfortable diameter, nice deep flutes, and it's also nicely thin. And overall thickness can make all the difference if you're working on a fastener that doesn't have much overhead clearance. Here's the gimbal ratchet. This is a pretty clever design, which mounts the socket driver head inside a pair of rings that pivot about perpendicular axes—these rings are the so-called "gimbals." This arrangement lets you apply torque at all kinds of weird, oblique angles, like so. The only plastic part on this tool is the selector switch; everything else is made of metal.This design has a huge cool factor, in my opinion, but I do have some doubts about how often you're really gonna need to use that gimbal feature, and it does add quite a bit of thickness, which seems like it could be more trouble than it's worth. This particular product is by Husky Tools, which is Home Depot's Store brand, where it's currently priced at twenty dollars. They also sell this quarter-inch drive version, which is completely identical except for the business end. Now, this is a very similar GearWrench-branded tool you can get from Amazon for ten dollars, and if we take them both apart, you can see that they really are almost exactly the same product. The Husky version does have a few more teeth on the ratchet, but I don't think the fineness of the mechanism really matters much. At least not when you're talking about finger ratchets, where you don't have to swing a long handle back and forth. Here's the quarter-inch GearWrench ratchet. And you can see that, thanks to the bright colors on those inner gimbal rings, the less expensive tools are actually easier to tell apart at a glance. And just to prove that Husky and GearWrench are almost certainly buying from the same factory, here's a couple of mash-up ratchets I put together by randomly intermixing parts from both of them. Next up, the combination socket and hex-bit driver which, if nothing else, has a really great handle. It's a lot like the handle on the generic import ratchet, except it's made out of anodized aluminum instead of plastic. Unfortunately, the hex-bit driver opposite the socket face costs a lot in terms ofoverall thickness; in fact, this is the thickest ratchet of the lot. ....
Find more Cool Tool reviews here:
[ Ссылка ]
