Harbor Freight
I like Harbor Freight, but they have been hit and miss with me, in their quality. Some things have worked really well, while others have literally fallen apart the first time I used them. I love going to their stores and looking and playing with everything, I am just cautious about what I will buy from them. Nice to know that their wrenches can hold up. I may have to take a second look at their stuff.
I used to calibrate torque wrenches for a living... everything from cheap clickers to $10k+ hydraulic heads.
Craftsman are junk... as are Husky, etc. They're the same cheap chinese wrenches. Proto are decent.
The best bang for your buck is CDI... that's the company that Snap-On bought because they wanted more control over their torque wrenches (CDI has made Snap-On's torque wrenches forever)
Armstrong are also CDI wrenches
the cheap/crappy wrenches are actually pretty accurate when they're new, and if you store them indoors and don't use them often, they'll stay fairly accurate.
Two keys to clicker wrenches... 1. store them at ~20% of their max torque... DO NOT back them off to zero and certainly don't back them off below zero!!!!!!!!!!! 2. clickers, especially your cheaper wrenches, will be more accurate if you warm them up 5-10 times at 1/2-3/4 your max torque value...
If you've got a craftsman style that the ring has backed off/slipped or a proto that the bottom has come off of, or damn near any clicker that has lost its indication, THROW IT AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A cheap wrench isn't worth the cost of calibration... you can get a new one for about the cost of a calibration. A high end wrench is worth having recalibrated.
The Snap-On digital wrenches pretty much lose adjustment... I never came across one that was out of cal... But I don't like the way they don't break over when they hit their torque level.
if you've got any questions, hit me up, like I said, I used to make a living doing this stuff... I've done Snap-On (CDI) factory training and seen all kinds of stuff in the field
oh, Blue Point is a cheap way to get CDI/Snap-On also... cracks me up when people overpay for Snap-On... I've been to the factory, there are like 10 brands built at that factory, and they're all exactly the same wrenches with different colors/labels.
The Snap-On's have different ratchet heads (that aren't any better, just more expensive and say "Snap-On"
hint for you Snap-On owners... Snap-On does not warranty ratchet heads on torque wrenches. If you hose a ratchet kit, just swap the guts into a socket wrench and have the Snap-On guy warranty it for ya
Beams are hard to read under stress. I like a clicker.
Craftsman and Harbor Freight are the 2 top picks? That's scary.
CDI makes all of Snap-Ons Torque wrenchs as well as Armstrong and Precision Instruments. So something like this would be a pretty good deal.
http://www.tooltopia.com/precision-instruments-c3fr250f.aspx
At work we have our Torquing tools checked every year and every tech I've talked to says pretty much the same. This little excerpt is from another forum.
I have 3 craftsmans myself, smakk one for inch# and another for ft # both 3/8 and then a big 1/2 inch drive for axles and such but use it mostly for working on the 1 ton dodge no problems yet
Back when I was a professional mechanic (OSSA was a popular brand then) I tested my fancy, high dollar SnapOn torque wrench against one of those cheesy long pointer, flex bar type torque wrenches. The SnapOn dealer had a nifty torque wrench calibration box. The cheesy needle type was just as accurate as the expensive SnapOn. He was not too happy about the results. I still have both. I have to get the SnapOn re-calibrated every now and then. The cheese is always ready to go. The SnapOn does have a cool box.