SMKS
Well-known member
I had an SK 45170 ratchet that had really bad peeling chrome. It was relatively new, but was clearly defective. The chrome was coming off in big, sharp chips.
I mailed it to SK on November 30 and three weeks later this ratchet arrived directly from the “new” SK. The ratchet works great in both directions.
The chrome on the new ratchet is flawless. I can’t find any scratches or rough spots under the chrome. I recently had a wrench set from right before the old SK went under and there were quite a few flaws under the chrome. Here's a link to a thread showing those wrenches.
This ratchet had some storage oil on it from the factory. After cleaning that off with some solvent, the chrome is very bright and mirror like. You may see some streaks from my cleaning. Those aren't scratches.
Here are some pics comparing the new ratchet to an older SK ratchet. It appears SK is now using date codes. You’ll see the new ratchet has an “AA” marking. I assume this is a date code mark where A = 1. So AA is 11, meaning 2011. I’ve never seen another SK ratchet with a date code, and I’ve owned a lot of SK ratchets.
The only other obvious difference is the knurling. The old ratchet has sharper knurling. The newer ratchet uses knurling that is flatter.
The new ratchet has well-machined teeth in the head. I’ve seen some older SK ratchets where the teeth were poorly formed.
The mechanisms are interchangeable. I swapped them and both ratchets worked well with the other mechanism. You’ll see there has been a design update on the mechanism. The newer mechanism has a two-piece lever for changing direction. The old lever is machined from a single piece. I don’t know if this change was made before Ideal purchased SK or not.
I mailed it to SK on November 30 and three weeks later this ratchet arrived directly from the “new” SK. The ratchet works great in both directions.
The chrome on the new ratchet is flawless. I can’t find any scratches or rough spots under the chrome. I recently had a wrench set from right before the old SK went under and there were quite a few flaws under the chrome. Here's a link to a thread showing those wrenches.
This ratchet had some storage oil on it from the factory. After cleaning that off with some solvent, the chrome is very bright and mirror like. You may see some streaks from my cleaning. Those aren't scratches.
Here are some pics comparing the new ratchet to an older SK ratchet. It appears SK is now using date codes. You’ll see the new ratchet has an “AA” marking. I assume this is a date code mark where A = 1. So AA is 11, meaning 2011. I’ve never seen another SK ratchet with a date code, and I’ve owned a lot of SK ratchets.
The only other obvious difference is the knurling. The old ratchet has sharper knurling. The newer ratchet uses knurling that is flatter.
The new ratchet has well-machined teeth in the head. I’ve seen some older SK ratchets where the teeth were poorly formed.
The mechanisms are interchangeable. I swapped them and both ratchets worked well with the other mechanism. You’ll see there has been a design update on the mechanism. The newer mechanism has a two-piece lever for changing direction. The old lever is machined from a single piece. I don’t know if this change was made before Ideal purchased SK or not.
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I wire wheeled it and painted it with silver steel wheel paint (seems to be holding up so far). Maybe I should have just sent it to them and not bothered contacting them first (but I was afraid they would lose it and I'd be out a ratchet!).
