Van Steele
Well-known member
Reading the Bought several different socket rails. What do you want to know? thread started by PCMusicGuy made me remember the differences between the aluminium magnetic socket rails I have.
There basically seems to be two different versions of these, one available from brands like Ko·ken, Sealey, Ares, S+K and others. I'll refer to these as Ko·ken style.
For those interested, these seem to be made in Taiwan - at least according to what's on the packaging from the Ares rails.
The other style is available from brands like Heyco, Alkan, Performance Tools and likely others too. I'll refer to these as Heyco style.
I don't know where these are made.
According to the guys from Extruded Solutions this is a pretty common profile, made by a large number of aluminium extruders. Whilst the profiles are similar they are not the same. The same goes for the clips and the end caps.
The Heyco style is on the left, the Ko·ken style on the right.
As you can see the end caps on the Heyco style rails need to be removed to add or remove clips, where there's no need to on the Ko·ken style rails. The end caps on the Heyco style come off quite easily (just be careful not to rip the cushioning on the bottom of the rail). The ones on the Ko·ken style are not that easy to remove.
As for the clips, on the Heyco style rails there seems to be a little more wobble than on the Ko·ken style. The clips can be interchanged between the two styles, however where as the Heyco style clips on the Ko·ken style rails will make for an even looser fit, the other way around will be a pretty tight fit having almost no wobble.
Ko·ken style rail with matching clip.
Ko·ken style rail with Heyco style clip.
Heyco style rail with matching clip.
Heyco style rail with Ko·ken style clip.
Both the clips and end caps on the Ko·ken style rails have "PAT." moulded in them.
The magnets seem to hold equally well on either style.
Seeing as I couldn't get on with the black on black on the Ko-Ken rails I looked at getting some different coloured clips. I ended up getting this Sealey socket tray which has 80 clips for just little more than 20 loose clips. Again there's two different versions of this kind of tray matching either the Ko-Ken or Heyco style clips. A good value option if you want extra clips or different drive size/colour clips.
Much easier on my eyes.
There basically seems to be two different versions of these, one available from brands like Ko·ken, Sealey, Ares, S+K and others. I'll refer to these as Ko·ken style.
For those interested, these seem to be made in Taiwan - at least according to what's on the packaging from the Ares rails.
The other style is available from brands like Heyco, Alkan, Performance Tools and likely others too. I'll refer to these as Heyco style.
I don't know where these are made.
According to the guys from Extruded Solutions this is a pretty common profile, made by a large number of aluminium extruders. Whilst the profiles are similar they are not the same. The same goes for the clips and the end caps.
The Heyco style is on the left, the Ko·ken style on the right.
As you can see the end caps on the Heyco style rails need to be removed to add or remove clips, where there's no need to on the Ko·ken style rails. The end caps on the Heyco style come off quite easily (just be careful not to rip the cushioning on the bottom of the rail). The ones on the Ko·ken style are not that easy to remove.
As for the clips, on the Heyco style rails there seems to be a little more wobble than on the Ko·ken style. The clips can be interchanged between the two styles, however where as the Heyco style clips on the Ko·ken style rails will make for an even looser fit, the other way around will be a pretty tight fit having almost no wobble.
Ko·ken style rail with matching clip.
Ko·ken style rail with Heyco style clip.
Heyco style rail with matching clip.
Heyco style rail with Ko·ken style clip.
Both the clips and end caps on the Ko·ken style rails have "PAT." moulded in them.
The magnets seem to hold equally well on either style.
Seeing as I couldn't get on with the black on black on the Ko-Ken rails I looked at getting some different coloured clips. I ended up getting this Sealey socket tray which has 80 clips for just little more than 20 loose clips. Again there's two different versions of this kind of tray matching either the Ko-Ken or Heyco style clips. A good value option if you want extra clips or different drive size/colour clips.
Much easier on my eyes.
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