Went to add a set of new-to-me snappy crowfoot flare nuts to my box and realized my crowfoot sets were taking up entirely too much real estate on the cheap plastic holders that I've put up with for years. I sure didn't have enough room to do the same with my new-to-me set. I also never liked the crowfoots on this style socket holder because they can be difficult to remove, especially the smaller ones.
So I decided to fab up my own like sort of I've seen other people do. Made them pretty crudely out of 3/8 bar stock. Cut each to length, drilled out the ends for some cotter pins, then chucked them in a 1/2 drill as straight as I could so I could taper the ends on the bench grinder while they were spinning. That was fun, not really, but it sort of worked - at least good enough for the girls I roll with.
Then I slightly ground down each of the sides just a smidge and broke the edges so the crowfoots would slide on the bar stock a little easier, and then spent a few minutes on a belt & disc sander trying to mask the worst of the grinder marks before I heated them up with propane and dropped them in oil to give them a bit of bluing so they hopefully won't rust so easy.
Lastly, I rigged up some cotter pins and ball bead chain so I won't so easily lose them. Didn't turn out too bad at all.
Most importantly to me, all four sets now take up a fraction of the drawer space the three sets used to.
Those are amazing!
And, thanks for leading me over to this thread. I see that I'm about to lose a bunch of free time catching up here!
Mike
