Singlecut
Well-known member
These came in today, I'm very pleased with them overall and I figured I'd share this with you.
Shipping was super fast, I liked that.
However, other than the tools and thank-you sticker, there was no cushioning whatsoever. I was a little disappointed to see this
But, I'm not going to use the plastic tray anyway, so all is well.
First impressions were great!
I played with them a little bit and the pros and cons quickly emerged.
Pros:
Super powerful magnet for it's size.
These things double as pickup tools.
All are 6" length, I found that perfect.
Cons:
You can't click these into another extension or bit socket.
The 3/8 and 1/2 will hold screws and bolts just fine, but it won't hold nuts well. (However the 1/4 does, more on this later).
Not useful on Deep Sockets.
Nuts have to be flush with the stud or else the setup bottoms out, (more on this later).
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Here is the 1/4 extension holding up a P1 CMAN Pro screwdriver:
Here's the 3/8 holding up a friggin P4 CMAN Pro:
The 1/2 is even stronger. I picked up a 12 oz Dasco Chisel with it.
But anyway...
The magnet sticks into the socket 3/8" deep:
Here I have a 7/16" bolt placed inside of a 1/4" drive, 7/16" size socket. Note the depth.
Now here's the same setup with the 1/4 extension clicked in, note the new depth:
I think the engineers at GW got this right. Perfect depth to start catching threads.
So the big question, Do they work?
You bet.
Here I am putting my aviation snips back together after a dis-assembly and lube. Stuck that 7/16 nut in there and got the nut to catch effortlessly. You can really feel the thing seat or cross thread. I love that. I know these are just aviation snips, but I bet you these would shine with under dash work.
At this point, I'd like to go back and re-iterate that only 1/4 drive is practical with nuts. As you can see from the pictures above, the magnet protrudes right down the center of them. On 1/4 drive there is enough surface are for the magnet to grab. On 3/8 and 1/2 drive the magnet stays relatively the same size, so bigger nuts do not really catch on the magnets. of course, all drive sizes shine with bolts and screws, as aforementioned.
Anyway, so I finished putting my snips back together:
Used the 3/8 drive on this bolt:
But ran into this problem:
See how the stud pokes out farther than the nut?
The setup doesn't work:
It bottoms out. So I used the wrench on that one, got everything back together:
And then realized that I haven't tried out the 1/2!
Fortunately, the table I was working on had wobbly legs and needed to be tightened up.
But damn, I can't use my new tool on these:
That's ok. Pop a deep socket on there and just get it done:
Oh well.
Overall, like I said, I'm very happy with them. The packaging didn't really bother me. The cons really don't either. The only insight I wish I had is this: I'm really only going to use the 1/4 extension. But for $11, it doesn't hurt to pick up the set and have the others just in case. To be honest though, I'm probably going to use them just as magnetic pickups.