New spanner set & socket - recommendations please?

[Poignard]

I have Halfords Pro spanners and sockets at home. Watch out for sets as they often only have eight point sockets in them and they don't last. Better to get pure Hex sockets. Eight point rings are OK. Om board I have a cheapo Draper set. Fine for use in emergencies but not for long term mainstream use. Non metric are a real pain to get hold of, Autojumbles, boat jumbles and markets are reasonable sources.

Try this place:

 

[pandos]

I have 2 sets of Silverline spanners which have put up with a fair amount of abuse at reasonable cost. 1/2 and 1/4 " socket sets from Halfords. I find it better to have full sets in a case rather than odd ones kicking around in the tool bag eVen though most of the sockets remain unused. I've had to replace the ratchet which broke when I was jumping up and down on it with a 5' scaffold tube attached for leverage.

I have different ratchet handles of many sizes. .but the one thing that gets most abuse is a teng breaker bar.

With this I have a few pieces of thick walled aluminium tube, of varying lenghs and diameter which slip on over the power bar and thereby give me great leverage. The Halford tools are great for this also with their slender steel handles (I have tennis elbow and golfers elbow so at times I really need the ability to apply power without much effort.)

Also worth considering a torque wrench if you anticipate much work, very easy to put too much torque into a bolt with nice new tools. Better to calibrate your hands rather than to shear off bolts...

 

[doug748]

I think I'll be treating to my wee boat to a new set of spanners. Our toolset seems to now be reduced to only holding ring spanners that don't fit any bolts / all the normally useful ones have been lost... plus ça change!

I don't want to buy cheap tools which are made of cheese and will either round off on first use or rust out in the first season, equally I'm not going to buy premium snap on ones as they will invariably be lost.

So what's the good happy medium between "good enough" and not going to make me cry when it get dropped overboard? Preferably a set that comes in a wee briefcase type holder to keep them all together / easy to see what one is missing.

Thanks

I think some of the others may be shooting a bit high. I have a Kamasa set that was a modest price and is ok, I'd recommend a Metric/Imperial set unless you are 100 certain that your boat is fully metricated.

Possibly like this:

Metric / Imperial combination spanner set 6mm-22mm / 1/4"-1" by Kamasa LSR1 | eBay

Note that many of the combination sets omit the 15 and 16 mm spanners. If you buy them separately it will probably guarantee you will never need them, OTOH if you leave it, you will probably be stuffed the first season out.

You can buy a cheap metric socket set of the same brand - buying old/used means you could get hold of a quality Japanese made set.

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[Momac]

Halfords professional/advanced are good quality and are often on sale.

I agree tools from Halfords are good quality.

 

[Kukri]

I’ve got a big Bahco set. Bought to deal with the actual nut on the wheel, which is a very odd size (thank you Whitlock), but I haven’t regretted it.

 

[Martin_J]

Try this place:

View attachment 126088

Ref. Leeside Tool Shop in Yapton.

I had bought a number of 1" drive extensions from them years ago.

Great for random second hand tools but unfortunately they closed a few years ago.

 

[bluerm166]

No-one has mentioned Stanley if a Metric set of spanners is required .
Good quality 11 piece chrome combination set in a clip for £20 .Currently showing on Amazon .