You asked for it, the Flarenut Wrench Brands that DON'T slip are these

[Torque Test Channel]

We don't normally post threads. But seeing as though the list of brands in this one was put together here, viola:

Snap-On, even at its price, might just be worth it. You decide.
Others that are nothing to shrug at are S-K and Matco. With a few other surprises as well

We shot nearly 200 clips of over 100 tests to make this one, so yeah recommending more brands for this category here might be overlooked for QUITE some time before picking up another flarenut wrench I'm afraid.

But we're excited about maybe testing some other hand tools types, we've already purchased another category we want to settle a debate on amongst ourselves.

 

[Buckgnarly]

Nice.

 

[71firebird400]

Excellent. Love the content you're putting out.

 

[Steve_P]

Great job. Interesting that the new Craftsman made in China did so well. And that the 9/16 end of the SK broke at a lower value than the 1/2 reached.

 

[rlitman]

...Snap-On, even at its price, might just be worth it...

Well, we did tell you so, but great video nevertheless.

For me, a rounded fastener makes for a bad day, and of any type of fastener, a rounded flare nut is the worst, both because they're so easy to round, and because replacement is so difficult. This is one tool where saving a little money just doesn't make sense.

I wouldn't go out running to replace good flare nut wrenches you already own with Snap On (the Bonney deep crowsfoot flarenut wrenches I have are easily the equals of my Snap Ons, and as you've shown, SK and Matco have competitive products, plus I'll bet that Proto and Wright do too), but do think twice before putting a discount wrench on a flare nut.

 

[n8n]

We don't normally post threads. But seeing as though the list of brands in this one was put together here, viola:

Snap-On, even at its price, might just be worth it. You decide.
Others that are nothing to shrug at are S-K and Matco. With a few other surprises as well

We shot nearly 200 clips of over 100 tests to make this one, so yeah recommending more brands for this category here might be overlooked for QUITE some time before picking up another flarenut wrench I'm afraid.

But we're excited about maybe testing some other hand tools types, we've already purchased another category we want to settle a debate on amongst ourselves.

Thank you for posting this. This was a lesson for me ~20 years ago when I had a Craftsman (old USA) flare wrench just spread like a (insert simile here) while trying to replace the prop valve on my old VW GTI. Currently my SAE flare wrenches are Snap-On and my metric ones are S-K because that was a lesson I didn't need to repeat. However, being able to see this is good because you don't know when a wrench is going to spread until it does, if that makes any sense.

Edit: after watching the video, I'm surprised that the vintage craftsman did as well as it did. My experience was that they were only useful if you could put vice grips on them to keep them from spreading. Of course, "raised panel made in USA" covers a lot of years and probably several suppliers as well.

 

[Odd-job]

Great video. This may have been the best attempt at quantifying garage journal theory on flare wrenches.

Was curious ballpark how many hours it takes to put together this content? Encourage everyone reading this to watch, subscribe and like to help TTC keep putting out great content like this.

This might help folks:




Few observations:

• Seems like SK's 9/16 performance dragged it down. Curious how that impacted the score if it at least equaled the 1/2 performance.
• By the same token it seems that the Snap On's 9/16 performance really carried it away from the pack, wonder how much this was attributable to tolerances and or wrench design. The SK's larger spread in tolerance on the 1/2 vs the 9/16 relative to the snap on seems to point to something other than tolerances driving the spreads. Said another way based solely on tolerances the SK 9/16 should have performed better than the 1/2.
• The new Chinese made Craftsmans seem to be good cheap dark horse
• Would have been interesting to do some sort of rusty fastener test, but I'm not sure how there would be a level of consistency. Maybe soak those Astro hex impact sockets in a vat of salt water for a week? Maybe next time.
• Also glad to see some informal Astro sponsoring of the channel with some product placement!

 

[Torque Test Channel]

Great video. This may have been the best attempt at quantifying garage journal theory on flare wrenches.

Was curious ballpark how many hours it takes to put together this content? Encourage everyone to

This might help folks:




Few observations:

• Seems like SK's 9/16 performance dragged it down. Curious how that impacted the score if it at least equaled the 1/2 performance.
• By the same token it seems that the Snap On's 9/16 performance really carried it away from the pack, wonder how much this was attributable to tolerances and or wrench design. The SK's larger spread in tolerance on the 1/2 vs the 9/16 relative to the snap on seems to point to something other than tolerances driving the spreads. Said another way based solely on tolerances the SK 9/16 should have performed better than the 1/2.
• The new Chinese made Craftsmans seem to be good cheap dark horse
• Would have been interesting to do some sort of rusty fastener test, but I'm not sure how there would be a level of consistency. Maybe soak those Astro hex impact sockets in a vat of salt water for a week? Maybe next time.
• Also glad to see some informal Astro sponsoring of the channel with some product placement!

Like cumulative hours to put out the video? Around 35-40 hours, but that's also using a new style of live graphing we havent used before and thus is laborsome to fine tune the software for what we need. Our normal impact wrench videos take about 5-10 hours. Lights episodes are 15-20. Other for science videos are also 10-20 hours.

1) S-K would go from 7.88 to 8.5 if you ignore its 9/16" end.
2) It's certainly not JUST tolerance. The 9/16" end on the S-K is also the same neck and jaw thickness of 1/2" despite fighting aginst more leverage and largest fasteners. But that's just conjecture.
3) Agreed. Unsure if what's at Lowes now is as good unfortunately. i don't know.
4) Yeah, have run up against this before. No way to be quantitatively consistent on rust. And rusted S2 tool steel aint going to measure much differently.
5) No sponsorship there. Just needed A LOT of multiples of the same size hex bits, each to be new when tested. And their parts are all there in South El Monte, easy to pick up 10 of each size.

 

[Tools4Me]

Thanks for the flare nut comparison testing OP, it's something that's been absent from the tool testing arena for some time.

A question for you guys. I have full sets of Snap-on flare nut crowfoot wrenches, but I don't own any of their regular flare nut wrenches. If you own both, do you find the Snap-on flare nut crowfoot wrenches to be equal to their double ended flare nut wrenches in terms of their strength and how well they grab fasteners?

 

[KnurledNut]

I think the video needs a few more ads.

 

[Handyandy23]

I think the video needs a few more adds.

You get a free comparison of a bunch of different line wrenches that took 40 hours of work, and you're going to complain about 30 seconds or less of ads? Have you ever watched a YouTube video that didn't have ads?

 

[Handyandy23]

My main takeaway is I'm going to go grab a pair of those 7LW Vise Grips! They look like a good "uh oh" option.

The Snap On results definitely backed up what everyone has said about them. Still not sure I use them enough to justify the cost, but maybe I will start buying them one at a time as jobs come up.

Other US brands did well, but the results are a little more shaky than the score indicates IMO. The Matco 1/2" side didn't test out very well, and the SK 9/16" side didn't either and broke. That seems to point to some inconsistency in their manufacturing processes. The designs might be robust, but they still need to be manufactured well. Value wise though, tough to ignore the SK's are almost 1/3 the price of Snap On.

I almost want to go grab a Craftsman set, but as pointed out they switch out tools so often I'd be afraid of getting a dud made from a different supplier.

 

[rlitman]

...A question for you guys. I have full sets of Snap-on flare nut crowfoot wrenches, but I don't own any of their regular flare nut wrenches. If you own both, do you find the Snap-on flare nut crowfoot wrenches to be equal to their double ended flare nut wrenches in terms of their strength and how well they grab fasteners?

The only crowsfoot flare nut wrenches I own are deep. Most of mine are Bonney, but a few Snap On ones fill in the gaps. They're all of about equal quality.

I would expect the deep style crowsfoot to greatly outperform standard flare nut wrenches on softer nuts, largely because of the greater (almost double) contact area, so long as the flare nuts are taller than the thickness of your standard wrenches. So, no, the legendary Snap On double ended flare nut wrenches may not actually be as good as what you have (if you have the deep style).

The other advantage of deep crowsfoot flare nut wrenches is that they're a little thinner walled. They can get away with this, because their added height adds metal in other places to resist spreading.

For comparison,

deep:


shallow:


That being said, I'll usually reach for the standard Snap On line wrenches, because I hate how crowsfoot wrenches wobble on the handle.

 

[daithi]

I'm more likely to be changing a hydraulic hose than a brake line. I might do one brake job a year and the price of the snapon set is just so much more than I can stomach.

Never really took the Irwins to be a serious alternative to flare nut wrenches... Might have to reconsider that now.

 

[Buckgnarly]

Never thought those Irwins would work that well!

 

[Handyandy23]

Just wondering out loud here, but I wonder about the effectiveness of newer open end wrenches with off-corner engagement vs the cheaper flare nut wrenches? I have Wrightgrip combo wrenches and the open ends really bite. I also have Gearwrench flare nut wrenches, which didn't test so great in this video. I wonder if the Wright's would be a better option biting into the flats of the flare nuts? Or are they too soft to let that kind of tech be effective?

 

[CapriMikeC]

Tool snobs?

 

[Torque Test Channel]

I think the video needs a few more adds.

They place them automatically, I'll go in and edit.

The only crowsfoot flare nut wrenches I own are deep. Most of mine are Bonney, but a few Snap On ones fill in the gaps. They're all of about equal quality.

I would expect the deep style crowsfoot to greatly outperform standard flare nut wrenches on softer nuts, largely because of the greater (almost double) contact area, so long as the flare nuts are taller than the thickness of your standard wrenches. So, no, the legendary Snap On double ended flare nut wrenches may not actually be as good as what you have (if you have the deep style).

The other advantage of deep crowsfoot flare nut wrenches is that they're a little thinner walled. They can get away with this, because their added height adds metal in other places to resist spreading.

For comparison,

deep:


shallow:


That being said, I'll usually reach for the standard Snap On line wrenches, because I hate how crowsfoot wrenches wobble on the handle.

The Matco ones even are quite thick/deep. But for instance on the 1st nut test, the extra depth wouldn't benefit these more as the nut is quite thin. I'm also interested how they'd do

Tool snobs?

I say that lovingly.... and let's be honest

 

[KnurledNut]

They place them automatically, I'll go in and edit.

I thought maybe. I know YT likes to sneak them in. Thats why i mentioned. Thought you might not be aware there was 5 total.
I know the ads create revenue, which covers your expenses. Well deserved.
I dont mind a couple but there are plenty of channels out there i gave up on because of so many ads.
Especially when they act like "oh poor me", when the YT $.** per view are well known.

Thanks for the production.
Ive found SO to be most likely to succeed, followed by Cornwell. Blackhawk USA fly under the radar and are good too, which at one time wore a Husky label. Since you did SAE, it would have been a great chance to see if there was any difference in outcome between SO and the Williams USA version.

 

[Steve_P]

Other US brands did well, but the results are a little more shaky than the score indicates IMO. The Matco 1/2" side didn't test out very well, and the SK 9/16" side didn't either and broke. That seems to point to some inconsistency in their manufacturing processes. The designs might be robust, but they still need to be manufactured well. Value wise though, tough to ignore the SK's are almost 1/3 the price of Snap On.

I was also very surprised on the SK breaking. But realistically it doesn't really matter; you're not going to break any of the wrenches on tube fittings- the fitting is going to round off well prior to the wrench failing.

Edit- I was also surprised that the finish on the SK didn't look very good. Not horrible, but the Craftsman pro (SK) I have are beautiful, same level of finish as my SO set

 

[Ditchdigger]

I have used some atomically crappy hand tools over the years and the only wrenches I have ever broken in 35 years of professional wrench turning have been SK flare wrenches. 3 times!

Most recently the 7/16" on a brass fitting I was holding in my hand. The jaw that popped off hit me square between the eyes.

Consider me unsurprised at that outcome.

 

[bas157]

Does anyone know if the older (~20 year old or so), full polish Craftsman flarenut wrenches were made by SK? I seem to remember hearing that awhile ago, probably on here. If true wonder how they compare to current ones?

 

[liliysdad]

Since I own a set of the older, US made raised panel Craftsmans....I am quite surprised they scored as well as they did. Why I have not thrown the darned things away, I don't know.

 

[KnurledNut]

Does anyone know if the older (~20 year old or so), full polish Craftsman flarenut wrenches were made by SK? I seem to remember hearing that awhile ago, probably on here. If true wonder how they compare to current ones?

The old Craftsman Professional full polish were made by SK.
They can be identified by the K stamp on the back by the word Professional.

 

[demarpaint]

I was hoping to see Proto tested.

 

[Firebrick43]

Does anyone know if the older (~20 year old or so), full polish Craftsman flarenut wrenches were made by SK? I seem to remember hearing that awhile ago, probably on here. If true wonder how they compare to current ones?

There was a time that sk made them for craftsman. Compare to the current craftsman or sk ones?

I know they are not nearly as good as snap on as I have directly compared them. I have tested proto as well. About the same as the sk.

Flare wrenches is one of the few tools that I recommend to absolutely get in snap on due to their superior design

 

[Fedwrench]

Great work on the Video!!!!

I always enjoy your videos, keep doing what you're doing, and thanks for doing it

 

[Steve_P]

I really enjoyed this test because it gave some data; as opposed to "everything but SO spreads...." And I have SO in metric. So now purchasers can use some data to decide. 99.99% of people are not going to spend the $$$ on SO no matter how great they are; so they can go down the list from there. After seeing this, I wouldn't do the SO again as a home user; I'd either get the Cman (tomorrow) or SK. Yes, they're not as good as SO, but how often does a home user really need the SO level? How often does a home user remove the line from a caliper or wheel cylinder today? Yeah, in the 1980s, leaking cast iron wheel cylinders were common; I've BTDT many times. And after having rusted fittings that rounded off, we realized to just hone it on the car, flush it out, rebuild it, and no need to remove it; and never an issue with failures. As long as it honed out quickly, just flush, install new seals and go. But since then, besides vintage cars, I have only removed wheel cylinders twice on modern cars in 35 years: doing Tacoma rear wheel bearings. And this is a job 99% of DIYers will not tackle. Never needed to remove a line from a caliper on a modern car. And I drove my last DD 313K, so I'm a keep it till it wears out and not selling every 3-4 years. So I'm guessing almost no home user needs the SO. I don't think any of my 25 "neighbors" even change their own oil. The people across the street trade in vehicles so often I doubt they even need the oil changed.

IMO, if you're a pro, then the SO probably makes sense- time is $ and they might save you at some point. If you're a home user and have the $ and want the best, then sure, SO. If you have a Matco dealer, then that's a great budget option- they're a bargain for a tool truck product and performed really well. For home users, that will most likely never need the SO level, and whose wife will kill them if they spend $300+ on a set of wrenches you can hold in your hand, you better get Cman or SK

 

[sparky 1971]

Watching the video made me feel better about ordering SK. Now, if they would just show up. I have late 1980's vintage Craftsman raised panels and they are junk.

 

[Mgdoug3]

I figured Snap-on would be the top spot and I was hopeful SK would be near the top. I am pleased that both did well. The ratcheting GW ones did as poorly as I thought. I saw them on sale and thought they would be handy. Even on sale they're overpriced junk.

 

[Odd-job]

Like cumulative hours to put out the video? Around 35-40 hours, but that's also using a new style of live graphing we havent used before and thus is laborsome to fine tune the software for what we need. Our normal impact wrench videos take about 5-10 hours. Lights episodes are 15-20. Other for science videos are also 10-20 hours.

1) S-K would go from 7.88 to 8.5 if you ignore its 9/16" end.
2) It's certainly not JUST tolerance. The 9/16" end on the S-K is also the same neck and jaw thickness of 1/2" despite fighting aginst more leverage and largest fasteners. But that's just conjecture.
3) Agreed. Unsure if what's at Lowes now is as good unfortunately. i don't know.
4) Yeah, have run up against this before. No way to be quantitatively consistent on rust. And rusted S2 tool steel aint going to measure much differently.
5) No sponsorship there. Just needed A LOT of multiples of the same size hex bits, each to be new when tested. And their parts are all there in South El Monte, easy to pick up 10 of each size.

Appreciate all the human capital invested in these tests.

 

[ItsNemo]

You guys are doing outstanding, keep up the testing!

 

[ItsNemo]

Never thought those Irwins would work that well!

Can confirm, I bought one size and right away went out and bought the other 2 sizes...they are extremely impressive.

 

[Dakotadadv8]

Thank you for posting this. This was a lesson for me ~20 years ago when I had a Craftsman (old USA) flare wrench just spread like a (insert simile here) while trying to replace the prop valve on my old VW GTI. Currently my SAE flare wrenches are Snap-On and my metric ones are S-K because that was a lesson I didn't need to repeat. However, being able to see this is good because you don't know when a wrench is going to spread until it does, if that makes any sense.

Edit: after watching the video, I'm surprised that the vintage craftsman did as well as it did. My experience was that they were only useful if you could put vice grips on them to keep them from spreading. Of course, "raised panel made in USA" covers a lot of years and probably several suppliers as well.

I got lucky with the cheap Chinese Craftsman 18mm on power steering line but don’t have confidence with them. Bought Snapon wrenches over time to replace brake lines on 15 year old truck in rust state, $ well spent.

 

[Qualitytools]

Good test, great information. Thanks for sharing

 

[VolvoRyan]

For home users, that will most likely never need the SO level, and whose wife will kill them if they spend $300+ on a set of wrenches you can hold in your hand, you better get Cman or SK

Depends on what you're doing.... and you don't need to buy the whole set. For example, one DIY brake jobs saves you loads of money. Take some of that money and buy Snap-On for the just size(s) you need.... or at least for the really small size(s).

I have Snap-On in just one or two sizes.... SK in all the other sizes that I see. It'll be curious to see what SK looks like going forward. I'm under the impression that SK was made by Western Forge.

-Ryan

 

[p0rkchop]

My Grandpa has an old set of Proto. I wonder how they’d match up

 

[vavet]

Very nicely done video. if cable TV would offer some decent content like this, you would not have a YT channel. All those shows are so heavily sponsored that I can’t believe anything they say. There is obviously an audience for this type of objective, unbiased content.

 

[n8n]

I got lucky with the cheap Chinese Craftsman 18mm on power steering line but don’t have confidence with them. Bought Snapon wrenches over time to replace brake lines on 15 year old truck in rust state, $ well spent.

The big sizes are probably less critical, I want to say the fitting I was working on had a 10mm hex, for those you need a tight fit and good metal or tears will result.

 

[Hiball]

Appreciate the thread and resources required to put it all together. I personally would have liked to see if there was any change with the open end measurements after the test. In theory, unless it’s just the butter the wrench hardness should supersede the fitting. With that said.. I’ve junked or put in the warranty box my fair share of line wrenches due to visible spread.

Just a thought..