Kept torque wrench at same setting for 15yrs

[TheCarbideRat]

It lost about 3 pounds in accuracy in this time and yes it's a click type, with instructions to return to it's lowest setting after use. Should you try this at home? Not really recommending it but. Anyway, the impetus of my experiment came from reading an article on firearm magazine springs and the author said he left some magazines fully charged for a long time, either 15 or 20 years and they performed flawlessly so, maybe not fully debunking the practice of leaving mags uncharged to protect spring function but at least giving some extra perspective on it, as the true capability and longevity of a spring will vary depending on their construction and design, materials used.

Anywho, during my experiment I would from time to time compare torque values with my co-workers wrenches and mine seemed to be well within spec, every time, comparing to multiple other TWs. That said, I dont think anyone sent theirs out for cal but at the same time they were all good quality units and it's not hard to tell if a Twrench truly has a problem. Not to say that cal is a bad thing, and it is required in some situations especially legal ones. I have a cube style electronic torque tester myself, got it last year and I have 5 TWs so that purchase made sense to me, at what I do, and what I use my wrenches for.
So, I did not throw caution to the wind, as I sometimes do, haha, and found a good outcome of laziness. I'm not encouraging the practice just passing on some experience, any comments are valid,... have at me GJ!!

 

[T45]

Nice anecdote...

 

[TheCarbideRat]

I think so.

 

[FigureItOut]

I got mine back from calibration set at around 80%, I found that a little odd but wasn't too concerned, but 15 years is a long time.

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[TheCarbideRat]

To clarify a bit, this wrench went from using it several times a work week or a bit more, for the first 11 years to several times a workday the last 4 years mostly on lug nuts.

 

[TheCarbideRat]

I paid $200 for it so it's not a cheapie either.

 

[manwithtools]

I've held this to be the case for years. I know what the "experts" say, but it just has not been my experience - your experiment validates my observations. I'm not saying returning to zero is a bad thing, just not as necessary as might be thought.

Curios as to what electronic tester you have, I'm in the market for one.

 

[TheCarbideRat]

I've held this to be the case for years. I know what the "experts" say, but it just has not been my experience - your experiment validates my observations. I'm not saying returning to zero is a bad thing, just not as necessary as might be thought.

Curios as to what electronic tester you have, I'm in the market for one.

http://www.alltradetools.com/catalog/torque-wrenches/2086-940759-.html

It's a PITA to read the display but I've played around with it alot and the readings are dead on repeatable and not just in the minute but a day or a week later.

 

[russ_h]

I'm guessing none of you need to have your TWs certified? Some industries require that wrenches be tested annually.

 

[Tp2177]

Most people on gun forums agree that the springs in magazines are worn by cycles of loading and unloading the mags not by being left empty or full. So this makes sense to me I use the harbor freight ones and just tighten a little tighter to account for the 4% accuracy anyway already.


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[dsimatt]

I always bring mine to the lowest setting when I remember which is pretty much never and it's still good.

 

[TheCarbideRat]

thanks

 

[mike93lx]

I always bring mine to the lowest setting when I remember which is pretty much never and it's still good.

how do you know it is good? calibrations/testing?

 

[manwithtools]

I'm guessing none of you need to have your TWs certified? Some industries require that wrenches be tested annually.

I need to have the ones at work certified. I want the tester for checking the ones at home without paying the crazy high fees for certifying. In some cases you can buy a new TW with a cert for not much more than a cert - and being without the TW for two weeks.

 

[russ_h]

We had a contractor buy a wrench and the company they were doing work for forced them to re-certify it despite being brand new.

 

[TheCarbideRat]

We had a contractor buy a wrench and the company they were doing work for forced them to re-certify it despite being brand new.

Jeez what was the wrench going to be used on?

 

[russ_h]

Pipeline flanges. The inspector was being a ****.

 

[TheCarbideRat]

I'll tighten his nuts, address?

 

[dsimatt]

how do you know it is good? calibrations/testing?

Everyone at work gets all their torque wrenches and gauges checked every year, the company does it for liability.

 

[6PTsocket]

It lost about 3 pounds in accuracy in this time and yes it's a click type, with instructions to return to it's lowest setting after use. Should you try this at home? Not really recommending it but. Anyway, the impetus of my experiment came from reading an article on firearm magazine springs and the author said he left some magazines fully charged for a long time, either 15 or 20 years and they performed flawlessly so, maybe not fully debunking the practice of leaving mags uncharged to protect spring function but at least giving some extra perspective on it, as the true capability and longevity of a spring will vary depending on their construction and design, materials used.

Anywho, during my experiment I would from time to time compare torque values with my co-workers wrenches and mine seemed to be well within spec, every time, comparing to multiple other TWs. That said, I dont think anyone sent theirs out for cal but at the same time they were all good quality units and it's not hard to tell if a Twrench truly has a problem. Not to say that cal is a bad thing, and it is required in some situations especially legal ones. I have a cube style electronic torque tester myself, got it last year and I have 5 TWs so that purchase made sense to me, at what I do, and what I use my wrenches for.
So, I did not throw caution to the wind, as I sometimes do, haha, and found a good outcome of laziness. I'm not encouraging the practice just passing on some experience, any comments are valid,... have at me GJ!!

Why do coil or leaf springs on cars sag after sitting for years with the weight of the car on them? Why do dish washer door counter balance springs have several notches to hook onto? Springs under load tend to take a set.The people that write the instructions make their living playing with springs. From my own experiences and what the experts say, I will turn mine down to zero. I have had to cut turns off old springs that had streched out and had to bend the spring arm on micro switches, that had bent back from constant use and stretched coil springs that had over compressed Extension springs stretch, compression springs compress and leaf springs bend, if left under load.

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[bob15]

I've had my clicker go out of cal in less than 6 months.....so I guess you are lucky. then again you also aren't having it checked on a certified torque calibration unit either......

And all our torque wrenches at work are calibrated ever 6 months.

 

[manwithtools]

Is that with it left at setting or do you always return the TW to zero? I suspect that was a Snap-On that went out of cal, was it not?

 

[Packard V8]

All springs are not the same. Their lifespan depends on the quality of design, material and manufacture, the percent of yield over their cycling, number of cycles, heat, and cold.

I've been building engines for more than fifty years and some valve springs will be on the low side of acceptable out of the box and others will be in the middle range after years of use and/or sitting compressed; still others on the same engine will be below acceptable.

If a professional quality click torque wrench is used every day, I've never seen one go out of calibration if not returned to zero after each use.

On the other hand, one obsessive/compulsive guy I know bragged on his Armstrong wrench and returned it to zero every time. It broke the other day and it looked ten times more worn because of the constant up and down friction. My MAC and Proto wrenches still look good and pass calibration and are older than his and are never returned to zero.

jack vines

 

[TheCarbideRat]

Why do coil or leaf springs on cars sag after sitting for years with the weight of the car on them? Why do dish washer door counter balance springs have several notches to hook onto? Springs under load tend to take a set.The people that write the instructions make their living playing with springs. From my own experiences and what the experts say, I will turn mine down to zero. I have had to cut turns off old springs that had streched out and had to bend the spring arm on micro switches, that had bent back from constant use and stretched coil springs that had over compressed Extension springs stretch, compression springs compress and leaf springs bend, if left under load.

The people that write the instructions ALSO include people who screw with other people for a living ie LAWYERS. I am an instruction reading type of technician [many dont] I even save instruction sheets for my tools in plastic sleeves in notebooks because. If I can save hours of shop time [over the course of many years] doing something not neccessarily risky if you read my entire post, then heck yeh. I also had alot of experience before I started the experiment which gave me insight into what I did.

 

[TheCarbideRat]

Jeremy v on a 250ft lb rated TW, are you seeing many that are accurate in the 200 - 250 range?

Cool avatar by the way!

 

[TheCarbideRat]

Double post.

 

[bpjr]

Interesting info, thanks for posting. I zero my clicker but never compared it to pistol mag springs. I have one pistol mag that has been loaded 100% of the time since buying new in 1980. It still functions like new.

 

[Tinner]

Anecdotal evidence and unscientific tests. The fuel that powers so many GJ threads.

 

[TheCarbideRat]

Anecdotal evidence and unscientific tests. The fuel that powers so many GJ threads.

Won't argue with that but the power of communal comparison enables us to close the gap, sometimes considerably. Try sciencejournal/whatever.com maybe you belong there instead?

 

[disston]

I have 4 or 5 clicker torque wrenches. I also have 4 or 5 bar type torque wrenches. Each time I use my clickers I check it against one of the torsion bar wrenches for the setting I am using. Seems to work for me.

 

[TheCarbideRat]

jeremy, thanks for weighing in I will see if the wrench in question [my wrench] does it's max [250] and post the result.

 

[jimmy-ray]

Interesting, I cant think of a single instance where 3ftlb or inlb would matter in my field.

You guys mean cocked for the pistols? Or when the slide is retracted? All my stuff is loaded and ready to fire, never had an issue. I have had some problems with a bersa failing to feed but it turned out to be operator error, all my high end stuff performs flawlessly.

lol my bad im an idiot.

 

[country83]

That's how I test mine. I have 5 beam torque wrenches (various overlapping torque ranges) that all have +/-2% accuracy. I have plastic soft jaws designed to hold round items that I put in my bench vise and I use them to clamp the main tube of a clicker torque wrench. I position the clicker wrench with the square drive facing up. Then I use a 8pt socket and a beam wrench to test the clicker's calibration at multiple different torque settings. I test the full range again after zeroing everything out, and then do a few random tests at different torque settings where I will torque on my beam wrench from zero until it clicks 10-15 times in a row to make sure the clicker wrench stays consistent. Then I zero it out and do one more full range test and if everything stays consistent and accurate I feel confident in the torque wrench. I recheck my wrenches once a year or so and they almost never need more than a slight adjustment.

In practice, if I am going to torque some engine water pump bolts or torque some lug nuts I just grab the appropriate clicker, set it, and go because I trust my own recent calibration testing. If I need to torque something more critical like head bolts, I will use my 2% beam wrench instead if possible or else I will do a few quick comparisons betwen the clicker and my beam wrench to verify the accuracy of the clicker before using it. That gives me good peace of mind. I have seen too many bad torque wrenches that appear in good condition to trust any clicker blindly.

My concern with your test method is when you say you clamp the tube in the vise...that's changing how the tool reacts to the load. When this happens it can (and on most wrenches it does) throw your readings off. I've seen wrenches that I've been calibrating change the readings just by moving where the handle is hitting the torque test bar (high, middle or bottom, all on the handle).

 

[guy48065]

In my experience (which parallels Jeremy's with regard to how the top end "goes soft" when the spring fatigues), there's no need to zero a wrench between uses unless it'll be stored a long time. That said--you should never put one away set near the top of it's range. The more time a spring sits near its capacity, the more it will weaken over time. Under 50% and you probably could store the wrench indefinitely without affecting the calibration.

 

[guy48065]

So you're thinking that my calibrations might be off because the loading is being applied to the tube instead of the handle when doing the tests? I understand where you are coming from. That was a concern of mine as well when I started doing things the way I do now. I alleviated my own concerns by doing some direct comparison testing.

The first test I did involved setting a clicker torque wrench at a certain value and then clamping the tube in the vise. I torqued on it with my beam wrench and wrote down my beam wrench's reading when it clicked. Then I zeroed out the clicker torque wrench and removed it from the vise. Then I clamped the torque wrench tube in the vise before setting the wrench's torque level. I tested it again against my beam wrench and wrote down the result. I found the results to be very consistent and accurate when both tests were compared. I did this with various low and high torque levels, repeating the test using each of my personal torque wrenches (just in case one wrench was more sensitive to the tube being clamped). My wrenches didn't seem to mind. That test told me that my tube clamping wasn't distorting/disrupting the internal torque setting of the wrench in a meaningful manner.

The second test I did involved directly comparing the readings between a torque wrench that was set at a certain torque and then tube clamped in the bench vise vs. the same torque wrench set at the same torque setting (after being zeroed between the tests) clamped in the bench vise via the handle instead of the tube. I clamped the handle in the bench vise in the same position my hand would be in if I was torquing the clicker wrench by hand. I compared the results for various torques and repeated the testing with all my personal clicker wrenches and again I didn't find there to be a difference large enough for me to notice. That helped me to know that I could comfortably clamp the tube instead of the handle and be fine in terms of my calibration accuracy testing.

I realize that it is a little riskier to clamp the tube than it would be to clamp the handle instead and better approximate real world use, but the reason I prefer to clamp the tube is that it allows me to do my calibration testing much faster. Since the handle is free during the testing I can change the torque settings multiple times for various tests without ever having to unclamp the torque wrench from the bench vise. That ease of testing allows me to test/check my calibrations more often without it becoming a hassle, so I think in the end I end up with more accurate torque wrenches that I have a great amount of trust in by doing it the way I do. My current torque wrenches all test on paper within the +/-2% guaranteed calibration of my beam wrenches, so even if I lose a percent or two of accuracy due to my testing technique I am still sitting within the accuracy level of just about every other clicker torque wrench out there (+/-4%).

Without getting technical there are 2 issues with holding the tube:
1 - Most manuals state that you should hold the wrench by the center of the grip. Many wrenches have a scribe line there. ALL calibration procedures say to apply force to that spot. Consistency is key.
2 - If you ever load a 250FP clicker to 250 IN A FIXTURE and look at the tube you may be shocked how much it bends. When you clamp it you're trying to straighten out that bend which will have some small affect on the point where the internal spring pressure is exceeded and the "click" happens.

 

[country83]

Without getting technical there are 2 issues with holding the tube:
1 - Most manuals state that you should hold the wrench by the center of the grip. Many wrenches have a scribe line there. ALL calibration procedures say to apply force to that spot. Consistency is key.
2 - If you ever load a 250FP clicker to 250 IN A FIXTURE and look at the tube you may be shocked how much it bends. When you clamp it you're trying to straighten out that bend which will have some small affect on the point where the internal spring pressure is exceeded and the "click" happens.

1. Agreed. On wrenches where the handle spins up/down to set the torque we'd have to adjust the tester bar to keep it in the middle of the handle.
On #2- I've seen this too, and it's actually kind of scary on some of them.

 

[country83]

guy4805, it says under your name that you work at a calibration lab? This question is for you and also for country83 since he mentioned it too. What kind of percentage change do you notice in your torque readings if you hold/clamp torque wrench handles in different ways? Are we talking even a 1% difference in the tested torque between having the test bar in the middle of the handle vs near the end or is it often more than that? Just wondering. I've wondered that about beam torque wrenches too. How much of a change is there in the actual torque if you let the handle tilt instead of balancing the handle on the pivot pin when torquing like you're supposed to? If you have digital testing rigs, you can see small differences in results that I would never be able to notice with my setup.

Depends on the wrench, it can be more than 1%. It's been a year or so since I've done any calibrations but on a wrench that says +/-4% it can mean the difference between in cal and out of cal.

On a beam wrench (I assume you're talking about the old-school twin beams where the scale is at your hand and the needle moves as you are torqueing) by keeping the handle balanced it allows the proper amount of deflection of the beam vs. shortening the length of the part that's flexing when your handle hits it higher than the pivot pin. I haven't used that style in years and never cal'ed one, only ever did clickers and electronics.

 

[bigredjeepone]

Why do coil or leaf springs on cars sag after sitting for years with the weight of the car on them? Why do dish washer door counter balance springs have several notches to hook onto? Springs under load tend to take a set.The people that write the instructions make their living playing with springs. From my own experiences and what the experts say, I will turn mine down to zero. I have had to cut turns off old springs that had streched out and had to bend the spring arm on micro switches, that had bent back from constant use and stretched coil springs that had over compressed Extension springs stretch, compression springs compress and leaf springs bend, if left under load.

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Most all springs, excluding quality, that take a set, sag or stretch are the result of the cycling and the resulting fatigue. A good spring will weaken little to none before simply breaking. I have yet to see a car that was new and parked for 15 years to sag due to springs. The bushing will degrade though.

Most springs that are compressed but not over stressed will generally not be damaged. Most of my click TWs are never used past 80% total range, but I always return to the lowest setting. Its just my OCD.

 

[guy48065]

... but I always return to the lowest setting. Its just my OCD.

There's no shame in following the instructions.

 

[guy48065]

guy4805, it says under your name that you work at a calibration lab? This question is for you and also for country83 since he mentioned it too. What kind of percentage change do you notice in your torque readings if you hold/clamp torque wrench handles in different ways? Are we talking even a 1% difference in the tested torque between having the test bar in the middle of the handle vs near the end or is it often more than that? Just wondering. I've wondered that about beam torque wrenches too. How much of a change is there in the actual torque if you let the handle tilt instead of balancing the handle on the pivot pin when torquing like you're supposed to? If you have digital testing rigs, you can see small differences in results that I would never be able to notice with my setup.

I would concur with country83 that the effect is small--but the allowable error is small, too, so so calibration & adjustment must be done by rigidly following accepted procedures.