Interesting S-K ratchet

[plinker]

I'd been looking for one of these for a while, they're fairly hard to find. Found one on ebay, so I bought it. These were made in the pre Ideal years, S-K had some tools made by Danaher, these ratchets and some torque wrenches. Not sure what else off hand.

It's really nothing more then the typical 36 tooth ratchet of fame with very nice chrome plating. The torque wrench I have has a bit better mechanism, not sure what's different about it without looking at it. Could be the pawl spring I suppose. I may experiment with it, a slightly stiffer one may be the difference.


Overall nothing really earth shattering about it, I wanted one & bought it.

An interesting footnote in S-K history at any rate.

 

[bobcatdan]

SK had a lot of interesting things in its dying days. Pearhead ratchets. G pro imported ratcheting wrenches, air tools, waterloo toolboxes branded as t hgv e commando series. The one thing I'm hoping they bring back is the angle wrenches. One of the last in house USA tools they came out with. About the best angle wrenches in my book.

 

[jimmyin3D]

Yeah SK had some neat ideas a while back. Specifically their G-Pro line, they had a deep offset double box RATCHETING wrench. Never seen anything like that before.

 

[3baygarage]

You made me check to see if that ratchet was still in my main box. It is, lol. I bought one gently used years ago, and never used it. Nice sleek looking ratchet and great handle. Nicest looking of all the rebrands, Allen, Armstrong, Napa, etc. I think they chose the wrong mech. though for an S-K ratchet.

 

[isb cornbinder]

If SK made it, I probably have it. I have the SK set my Dad bought in December, 1945.
The SK tool truck dealer used to come by the shop where I worked. The tool truck guy knew I would buy anything SK so he played into my must have.
I used to leave my name and cell number at second-hand stores and pawn shops. I would take any and all SK tools and Petersen Vise Grips. Hazet was on that list, also. A friend told me this was just nuts. I gave him some tools to shut him up.

 

[Fedwrench]

I had one of those once. I always thought of it as the SK branded clone of a NAPA ratchet without the quick release. I guess was SK's effort to bring a pear head ratchet to their inventory.

Speaking of the G Pro ratcheting wrench line, I think SK was the first US brand to bring Kabo made ratcheting wrenches to the US market. They're pretty widespread now.

 

[Fialaja]

Very interesting.... SK allegedly made the craftsman professional wrenches and danher made some SK ratchets. Thanks for that rare tool history lesson, learn something new every time I visit here!

 

[gungatim]

what years were those made?

My favorite S-K were early 90's. I worked as a machine setup mechanic and they supplied S-K tools, the wrenches were nice high polish chrome, not the old raised panel design and I really liked them. the screwdrivers were green handled and seemed identical to the old black handled snap-on. best S-K screwdrivers of the various types I have ever owned. I never seem to see S-K from that era available used so I assume they didn't make them long or weren't very popular. That ratchet looks like the same era but I don't recall what the ratchets and sockets were like then as we didn't use them often.

 

[highland512]

I remember these along with standard round head 1/4 and 3/8 ratchets in the nearest sears for sale.

 

[bonneyman]

I don't remember ever seeing a pear head S-K rat like that. Nice!

 

[plinker]

The post Facom & pre Ideal is '05 to '10 per what I found & remember, so a fairly short window for when they were made.

The Catalog I have is from '00 and doesnt list them. I dont remember where or when I got the catalog though likely around '05-'07.

I do remember seeing the ratchets in a flyer from the local Napa way back when (simply the best is the name the flyer IIRC).

 

[JSCraftsman]

I'd been looking for one of these for a while, they're fairly hard to find. Found one on ebay, so I bought it. These were made in the pre Ideal years, S-K had some tools made by Danaher, these ratchets and some torque wrenches. Not sure what else off hand.

It's really nothing more then the typical 36 tooth ratchet of fame with very nice chrome plating. The torque wrench I have has a bit better mechanism, not sure what's different about it without looking at it. Could be the pawl spring I suppose. I may experiment with it, a slightly stiffer one may be the difference.


Overall nothing really earth shattering about it, I wanted one & bought it.

An interesting footnote in S-K history at any rate.

Same here...I saw it, bought it. I had never seen one of these Danaher/Apex made S-K teardrop style ratchet wrenches before. I knew it was one they made the moment I seen the ratchet head. I have a bunch of other branded wrenches with this same head design, Cman, Matco, Napa...etc. I even have stock piled a bunch of these specific non-quick release repairs kits for these rats when they were available on Ebay. And agreed, nothing superbly special about these at all. They are a 36 tooth non-quick release with a metal selector, as opposed to plastic selectors some other counterparts offer with these. If you wanted to change out the kit for q-r, a Cman 43434 repair kit will work perfectly in this rat. The older Cman repair kit 44818 will also work in this rat as well, though those kits are much harder to come by. Thanks