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Halfords are good enough for hobbyists, if your doing it for a living or racing then SnapOn but very expensive
As most of my work is also on motorcycles (I’ve never got into stationary engines (if it doesn’t move, what’s the point?Originally Posted by dickbrowne
), 1/4” and 3/8” are my goto sizes. I tend to pick up 3/8” first though as the 1/4” stuff is a little too dainty for my sausage fingers!
A good electric impact driver is an absolute boon for the really hard to shift stuff; it saves jumping up and down on the end of a long bar; which usually leads to grazed shins.
Halfords are good enough for hobbyists, if your doing it for a living or racing then SnapOn but very expensive
If you're doing it for a living or racing I'd suspect you don't need advice!
To be fair to Halfords stuff I needed a 1/2” set when I moved from a previous employer to Land Rover back in the mid 90s. I still have the same set now albeit somewhat depleted however the ratchet and some sockets are still going strong with only minimal chrome flake.
This week I got new ends for my Thor copper mallet, I bought it in 1976
I didn't know they were replacable ! Mine still going strong since 1986 and an (admittedly rarely used) impact driver (the one you hit) was used last summer and that was bought from Argos in 1985.
I spent a lot of money on a Thor hide mallet in 1980, but I haven't been able to find it since.
I've got half a tin of Castrol grease from the early 80s. Is there a market for vintage grease?
Very good, I assume it’s on Valhalla👍
You have some good ideas and I’ll chip in, having collected top stuff for 45 years
Screwdrivers-Wiha or Wera
Socket set- snap on, stahlwille,bahco ,britool,Teng
Pliers-channel-lock, Knipex
Hammers- William whitehouse (no longer made so eBay etc)
Allen keys/torx-Bondhus or HaFu.
I’d give a big shout out for “prime tools”- no connection but just bought some torque wrenches at good prices and they sell great brands
Choose as carefully as you can, loads of crap about
Def some sound advice, most appreciated.
I’ve got pretty much the other bits covered, screwdrivers are Wera etc... weirdly, I’ve only ever bought cheap socket sets, other bits I’ve always gone by the ‘pay nice pay twice’ attitude.
I have a 1/2" Elora socket set from around 1980 and a 1/4" Draper Professional set from the same era with both still going strong. The Elora stuff is really good and the Draper Professional from 1980ish was top notch too.
More recently, 4 or 5 years ago, I also added the Halfords Advanced trays in 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" when they had a 3 for 2 offer combined with a 20% discount. All 3 cost £60 odd in total (£42+£42-20%). I've also got a handful of the Halfords impact sockets from an eBay seller who obviously was buying the tray sets and splitting them.
The combination of the Elora/Draper and Halfords gives me a comprehensive range of both 6 and 12 point sockets which can be important. Use 6 point where you can, particularly to start on a tight nut.
Last edited by TomGW; 24th February 2021 at 22:09.
2nd Elora, great make, ratchets and spanners
I generally use Koken.
Japanese quality at its best.
Not cheap, but miles less expensive than SnapOn.
Here's an example of what they produce....stupid money....but it's a lovely set.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164348433...kcid=28&chn=ps
You have pretty much named all the brands in my tool boxes lol
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