PB Swiss, 20% off at Toollady.com

[paulsomlo]

ON SALE! - 20% off everything for Mother's Day
Our Mother's Day Sale runs from 5/8/17 - 5/14/17. Promo Code: MOMSROCK. Then watch our Facebook page for a new sale starting each Monday in May! There will be a new Promo Code for each week.

http://toollady.com/store.html

 

[2manytools]

Ive read so much about PB Swiss tools, and now after browsing the site, they are not Imperial measurement friendly. The metric hex key set is ~$6, and the imperial is $88. Can't recall any metric hex screws off the top of my head, but have a handful of inch sized ones that could use a nice set of hex's.

thanks OP though. got me looking

 

[BMack37]

Ive read so much about PB Swiss tools, and now after browsing the site, they are not Imperial measurement friendly. The metric hex key set is ~$6, and the imperial is $88. Can't recall any metric hex screws off the top of my head, but have a handful of inch sized ones that could use a nice set of hex's.

thanks OP though. got me looking

Go with Wiha or Wera. Bondhus also has some good hex wrenches for cheaper. For ultra cheap but surprisingly good (better than Eklind, which is made in the USA) and ridiculously cheap Tekton

 

[2manytools]

Go with Wiha or Wera. Bondhus also has some good hex wrenches for cheaper. For ultra cheap but surprisingly good (better than Eklind, which is made in the USA) and ridiculously cheap Tekton

LOL. I have the large set from them already. Bought at Meijer during the B1G1 sale. It is nice, but those colored ones looked like hot $hit.

 

[BMack37]

LOL. I have the large set from them already. Bought at Meijer during the B1G1 sale. It is nice, but those colored ones looked like hot $hit.

They are REALLY nice. Wiha has color coded as well as several other variations of hex keys. I've found Wiha to be the most SAE-friendly of the European brands. The PB Swiss is on a different level, their stuff is machined insanely well and their steel feels denser...I'd love to see some tests on it so I could say for sure how it compares.

 

[sharkytm]

Ive read so much about PB Swiss tools, and now after browsing the site, they are not Imperial measurement friendly. The metric hex key set is ~$6, and the imperial is $88. Can't recall any metric hex screws off the top of my head, but have a handful of inch sized ones that could use a nice set of hex's.

thanks OP though. got me looking

Um, hate to break it to you, but the metric sets aren't $6. Each KEY is $6.
http://toollady.com/store.html#!/212-L-RB-Keys-&-Set/p/61806402/category=17876055

The metric set is part number 212LH-10 RB, which is $75.

The imperial set is indeed $88: http://toollady.com/store.html#!/212-ZL-Set/p/62189262/category=17876055

 

[paulsomlo]

I see the punches are 25% and 30% off this week, until Monday.

http://www.toollady.com/store.html#!/ON-SALE-for-Mothers-Day/c/21409304/offset=0&sort=normal

 

[Breako#]

They are REALLY nice. Wiha has color coded as well as several other variations of hex keys. I've found Wiha to be the most SAE-friendly of the European brands. The PB Swiss is on a different level, their stuff is machined insanely well and their steel feels denser...I'd love to see some tests on it so I could say for sure how it compares.

I'm not sure how good a representation it is of the complete product line, but about a year ago bikeradar.com did a test of the accuracy of 10 different manufacturer makes of 5mm hex keys to determine actual manufacturing variances from 5.000 mm's. Of the 5mm hex keys randomly selected for testing from each maker, the best and most accurately built hex wrenches on average were from from Park Tool (made by Bondhus) with an average size of 5.000 mm's for the wrenches tested. Wera finished 3rd of 10 in the test and Wiha 4th. Surprisingly, the PB Swiss hex wrenches they tested came in 8th with an average deviation from 5.000 mm's of .044 mm's which was a good deal larger than the avg variations of those from Wiha, Wera, Park Tool and a few others.

I'm not saying this as a condemnation of PB Swiss tool quality, but it was pretty surprising that their hex keys tested were off the target mark of 5.000 by that much IMO, especially considering what they charge for their stuff.

 

[PureLeaf]

I'm not sure how good a representation it is of the complete product line, but about a year ago bikeradar.com did a test of the accuracy of 10 different manufacturer makes of 5mm hex keys to determine actual manufacturing variances from 5.000 mm's. Of the 5mm hex keys randomly selected for testing from each maker, the best and most accurately built hex wrenches on average were from from Park Tool (made by Bondhus) with an average size of 5.000 mm's for the wrenches tested. Wera finished 3rd of 10 in the test and Wiha 4th. Surprisingly, the PB Swiss hex wrenches they tested came in 8th with an average deviation from 5.000 mm's of .044 mm's which was a good deal larger than the avg variations of those from Wiha, Wera, Park Tool and a few others.

I'm not saying this as a condemnation of PB Swiss tool quality, but it was pretty surprising that their hex keys tested were off the target mark of 5.000 by that much IMO, especially considering what they charge for their stuff.

I saw that test, and I think the test doesnt measures their effectiveness. Does the best fit mean exactly 5 mm? Many tools now on hex fasteners for instance engage the flats instead of the corners. Perhaps the PB swiss is doing the same.

A better test would have been to use 10 identical bolts, 10 different allen keys, and see at what torque each one slipped, failed, or rounded out the allen head bolt.

Not saying PB swiss is the best, but I think that test made some big assumptions, that may be incorrect.

 

[RKA]

If both the tool and the fastener are exactly the same measurement, you wouldn’t be able to fit the tool into the fastener. One or the other has to be sized ever so slightly differently. In that test nearly 50% of the field fell between 4.980 and 4.990 which can’t be an accident. The park tool was closer to 5.000, however that was one of the few tools for which they found 3 samples to test and the variance among the samples was larger than I would have suspected.

I’m no machinist, far from it, however that “test” appears to have insufficient information to draw any kind of conclusions.