SK Socket Quality

[SK Eric]

Woah. I wish I had seen this thread a lot earlier.

First of all, hearing about the issues that several of you folks have had is a bummer. That's not how we expect to operate. We hold ourselves to the highest standards not only in manufacturing, but also in customer service, and yes, marketing. I'm sorry that we haven't put our best foot forward.

I'll be PMing the OP and several others to be sure that we resolve these issues for them, and will address some of the topics discussed here in this thread. First, I need to do a little learning: I'll be sitting down in a few minutes with one of our engineers and geek out about socket forging.

 

[Mgdoug3]

I found an old neglected S-K Wayne 45170 in a box off Craigslist. After cleaning it back up, it's been my favorite ratchet and I bought more SK ratchets since then. I will continue to buy SK ratchets (even though I like the old knurled handles better) because they feel the best in my hands.

 

[buckwheat_la]

Woah. I wish I had seen this thread a lot earlier.

First of all, hearing about the issues that several of you folks have had is a bummer. That's not how we expect to operate. We hold ourselves to the highest standards not only in manufacturing, but also in customer service, and yes, marketing. I'm sorry that we haven't put our best foot forward.

I'll be PMing the OP and several others to be sure that we resolve these issues for them, and will address some of the topics discussed here in this thread. First, I need to do a little learning: I'll be sitting down in a few minutes with one of our engineers and geek out about socket forging.

Nice to see the rep take a gander at this thread. I (as many others I am sure) would love to hear your take as a whole things.

 

[V22mech]

Woah. I wish I had seen this thread a lot earlier.

First of all, hearing about the issues that several of you folks have had is a bummer. That's not how we expect to operate. We hold ourselves to the highest standards not only in manufacturing, but also in customer service, and yes, marketing. I'm sorry that we haven't put our best foot forward.

I'll be PMing the OP and several others to be sure that we resolve these issues for them, and will address some of the topics discussed here in this thread. First, I need to do a little learning: I'll be sitting down in a few minutes with one of our engineers and geek out about socket forging.

Thanks again for taking a personal interest in my issue. I did not expect or intend for this to elevate so far, but your willingness to make it right goes a long way to making me a loyal customer.

 

[SK Eric]

I'm in meetings for the next three days, but I will follow up with what I learned yesterday. I took some cool footage of our cold header at work and also the various broaching techniques. More to come...

 

[Mojave888]

Well, here's my 2 cents worth. I joined the SK Socket of the Month Club figuring it a good way to put together a 6 point 3/8 drive deep socket set. Oh boy, maybe not. The first socket I got was a 3/4, at least two of the retention detents were shallow and wouldn't stay on a locking ratchet/extension. I sent it back and the replacement had the same problem. I now have 9 sockets from the club. 7 of them have the shallow detents and two of them (1/4 and 5/16) have the same roughness on the inside shown in post #1 of this thread.

That's 8 out of 9 that are unacceptable. These will be dumped in my junk tool box and I'll start over with Wright or used Snap On. It's a shame to see a premium priced USA tool company producing sub-Taiwanese quality.

 

[Y00PER]

Well, here's my 2 cents worth. I joined the SK Socket of the Month Club figuring it a good way to put together a 6 point 3/8 drive deep socket set. Oh boy, maybe not. The first socket I got was a 3/4, at least two of the retention detents were shallow and wouldn't stay on a locking ratchet/extension. I sent it back and the replacement had the same problem. I now have 9 sockets from the club. 7 of them have the shallow detents and two of them (1/4 and 5/16) have the same roughness on the inside shown in post #1 of this thread.

That's 8 out of 9 that are unacceptable. These will be dumped in my junk tool box and I'll start over with Wright or used Snap On. It's a shame to see a premium priced USA tool company producing sub-Taiwanese quality.

I have been trying to join that club for over a month already. Every time I go to place the order, I get a server error message. I have called SK many times, and after they realized it is on their end, not mine, I have been told that IT is looking into it, and will call me back. Every week I have called, and get told the same thing, and every week the call never comes. Quite frustrated

 

[Schurkey]

I've been buying SK as I'm not working professionally--I'm strictly hobby-shop now. Snap-On has been my preferred brand, although I have some Mac, some Matco, some Bonney, some New Brittan, some Craftsman, some Proto, some Wright, and some junk.

I don't have a lot of SK, but what I do have is perfectly satisfactory. I will buy more.

The video of the adapter breakage was a surprise and a disappointment. About all I can say is that I was similarly disappointed in Mac 3/16 and 1/4" male square pipe-plug sockets. They were terribly soft, the male square would twist right off. And the 3/16 Snap-On has so much taper that it was useless. Hard, didn't break--but it would tear up the internal square in the plug.

Every tool manufacturer seems to have some disappointing products. I can hardly wait for SK Eric to post; more troubling that disappointing tools is disappointing customer service.

 

[driftpin]

I took advantage of the S-K Tools 40% off sale, and bought a 1/4" and 3/8" socket set, both regular and deep sockets. Here are some pics of the set and a representative socket. After inspecting them, I saw no errors, and I expect that these will outlast me.

I also bought a set of metric and inch/Imperial flare-nut wrenches. I already had sets of these from other manufacturers, but decided that I would treat myself to them. The 40% off made them cheaper than I could find anywhere, by a substantial amount. All I need now is a 1/2" drive set, I already had a 3/4" drive socket set from S-K. Again, I already have 1/2" drive regular and deep drive in metric and inch/Imperial, it would be an upgrade from my USA Craftsman I bought new almost 40 years ago.

I'll just wait for the next sale.

 

[Dingleburry]

I recently purchased a few new sets of SK SAE 12-point sockets in various lengths and drives for an aviation maintenance tool box. All of the sockets 5/16 and below were extremely rough on the inside, so much so that they didn't fit properly on 12-point nuts. Is this a normal thing for new Sk sockets, or did I draw the short straw and end up with four separate sets of pre-Ideal stock? I sent an e-mail to SK asking about warranty, but only received a response that they would forward it to the quality department and nothing since.

The attached pictures are of the 3/8 Drive 1/4 socket. I wiped the gray corrosion preventative coating off from this socket, so I'm assuming the bits sticking up are either metal from the manufacturing process or flaking chrome.

Wow looks like a pile of **** you got there. Sorry i got no constructive input except they would be on the first mail pickup back to the manufacturer, with demad for refund, and a letter saying (in your case) harbour freight has better quality. Sorry. But its truly what i would be saying in my mind. I work in manufacturing, i know how a reputable and high quality product is manufactured, with extremely strigent QC, and very very low allowance for deviation in quality and specificatioms.
This is not that.
It looks like the cutting tool was very dull, and they should know the lifespan of it and replace as necessary before that happens. Or the metal was very soft. Both of which should have been caught by either QC or the machine operators, or batch schedulers. They should know after X amount of cuts it needs sharpening or replacement.

 

[thugline]

I replaced all the bad sockets from my SK 1/4 and 3/8 sets with Proto. There were at least a dozen. I tried first buying replacement SK sockets because my package to SK for warranty was refused. The replacements were terrible also. Maybe quality was different in the SK Wayne era? The Proto sockets I got are flawless. Perfect machining and finish and made with pride in the USA. This is the truth and prospective buyers of SK should be wary.

 

[Wamsutta]

I replaced all the bad sockets from my SK 1/4 and 3/8 sets with Proto. There were at least a dozen. I tried first buying replacement SK sockets because my package to SK for warranty was refused. The replacements were terrible also. Maybe quality was different in the SK Wayne era? The Proto sockets I got are flawless. Perfect machining and finish and made with pride in the USA. This is the truth and prospective buyers of SK should be wary.

That's been my experience too. I don't have a full set of Proto sockets but what I do have is perfect.

 

[CR888]

Most members here all like good tools and cringe when a homeland tool co moves offshore. I hope SK does what it takes too stay on home ground and give consumers what they want so the company can thrive proudly displaying its COO stamped on hand tools. Provided quality is good most here would love to support SK. Let's hope these issues are overcome and things return to normal. They have and can produce products that meet consumer expectation.

 

[David0858]

What would worry me is if they are cutting corners this bad on things you can see, what are they doing on things you can't see such as materials, heat treatments, etc.

 

[WWheeler]

I'm in meetings for the next three days, but I will follow up with what I learned yesterday. I took some cool footage of our cold header at work and also the various broaching techniques. More to come...

I'm looking forward to see this.

 

[Andres26tnt]

didn't want to add to the pot but the quality issues are true. I just bought and received my LP90 and everything looks fine until i got to the selector switch, its really hard to move. It gets stuck and wont budge, i have to rotate the anvil to get it to move.

 

[JBradley500]

Don’t the Matco 88 ratchets do that same thing? I seem to remember having that problem a lot when I use them. That’s one of the main reasons I went the Dual 80 route for my home ratchets.

 

[doojus]

Don’t the Matco 88 ratchets do that same thing? I seem to remember having that problem a lot when I use them. That’s one of the main reasons I went the Dual 80 route for my home ratchets.

the matcos just change direction on their own, they're not hard to flip the levers though.

 

[2ndGearRubber]

didn't want to add to the pot but the quality issues are true. I just bought and received my LP90 and everything looks fine until i got to the selector switch, its really hard to move. It gets stuck and wont budge, i have to rotate the anvil to get it to move.

Adjust the face-plate screws. Loosening them helps lower selector effort, it does have a break in period. I tossed some moly grease in mine, top notch ratchet now.

 

[Andres26tnt]

Adjust the face-plate screws. Loosening them helps lower selector effort, it does have a break in period. I tossed some moly grease in mine, top notch ratchet now.

sweet I'm going to try that, i remember seeing that in a video on youtube now.

 

[V22mech]

didn't want to add to the pot but the quality issues are true. I just bought and received my LP90 and everything looks fine until i got to the selector switch, its really hard to move. It gets stuck and wont budge, i have to rotate the anvil to get it to move.

That's a shame, I have one of the first runs with the green selector switch and its my favorite ratchet by far. I hope you get your issues worked out.

 

[Skin]

Don’t the Matco 88 ratchets do that same thing? I seem to remember having that problem a lot when I use them. That’s one of the main reasons I went the Dual 80 route for my home ratchets.

All the Danaher family ratchets had issues where the pawl would get wedged between the gear and housing. Matco, Armstrong, Gearwrench, Craftsman. Seemed to happen when they switched to 80+ teeth. I tentatively narrowed it down to the spring being too weak.

 

[Andres26tnt]

That's a shame, I have one of the first runs with the green selector switch and its my favorite ratchet by far. I hope you get your issues worked out.

yeah, i was disappointed. i have the DT upgrades for all sizes and love them. hopefully its an easy fix.

 

[American Locomotive]

My LP90 sometimes will not change direction, but giving the anvil a quick turn will always free it up. But I don't have to be turning the anvil to be able to change direction.

Doesn't bother me however, as I've never owned a ratchet that didn't do that to some degree every once in a while.

 

[AmishFury]

my LP90 switch was impossibly stiff out of the package... taking it apart, cleaning the factory lube out, and giving it some fresh seemed to do the trick...

massive improvement in the switch

 

[6PTsocket]

I'm sorry if I came off as combative, I actually agree with you on the first point. All of the sockets between 7/8 and 5/16 have perfectly formed shoulders and plenty of room for the bolt/stud, and I absolutely prefer this to the fully broached Snap-on sockets I use at my primary job. However, the 15/16 and 1 inch sockets have a shoulder that is formed by pressing excess material from the splines into the center of the socket, which is then bent out of the way to create a pass through for the bolt/stud. For some reason they chose not to machine the excess material out of the way.

I'll try and snag some old hardware for a demonstration, but in the meantime here picture is of two sockets from the same set:

On the right is the 7/8 deep and it is one of the most functional, well machined and perfectly finished sockets I have ever seen, this thing is seriously a masterpiece. You can see that the shoulder only just barely extends past the splines, leaving .879" of clearance for a bolt.

On the left is the 1" deep, which has the shoulders formed by pressing the excess material from the splines into the bore. There is only .744" inches of clearance for the bolt on this one, which is apparently just small enough to catch the threads of the bolts I was using. You can see where I cracked the shoulder trying to get it to fit. You can also see some rust that was hiding under that gray paint they coat these things in. This particular socket appears to have missed some finishing steps. The 15/16 looks much nicer, but has the same clearance issues.

I have old pre Snap On Williams that are made that way, with the ragged piece peeled back.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[V22mech]

I have old pre Snap On Williams that are made that way, with the ragged piece peeled back.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

My brand new replacement 1" socket came back perfect. I have no idea what caused the original socket to be so rusted and inconsistent. I'm guessing it was from an older era than the rest of the set because it didn't look like the same manufacturing techniques were used.

 

[vssjim]

didn't want to add to the pot but the quality issues are true. I just bought and received my LP90 and everything looks fine until i got to the selector switch, its really hard to move. It gets stuck and wont budge, i have to rotate the anvil to get it to move.

I oiled my LP 90 with Kroil Micro oil and it works perfect and has since I bought it with green selector.

 

[petercookies]

I'm in meetings for the next three days, but I will follow up with what I learned yesterday. I took some cool footage of our cold header at work and also the various broaching techniques. More to come...

any updates on this?

 

[ssdave]

I replaced all the bad sockets from my SK 1/4 and 3/8 sets with Proto. There were at least a dozen. I tried first buying replacement SK sockets because my package to SK for warranty was refused. The replacements were terrible also. Maybe quality was different in the SK Wayne era? The Proto sockets I got are flawless. Perfect machining and finish and made with pride in the USA. This is the truth and prospective buyers of SK should be wary.

That's been my experience too. I don't have a full set of Proto sockets but what I do have is perfect.

I do have nearly a full set of Proto sockets; I'd guess better than 400 of the 550 or so in my top drawer are proto, the rest are mostly SO with a few Williams and Wright. I like the Proto a lot, love the quality of fit and finish and they've proven to be very durable. I prefer many of them to the similar SO sets I have, that reside in my road box. However, I had SK before I started getting Proto and SO, and they were pretty good. Not as nice as the Proto, but the price was a lot less. I used those for a long time before I got enough Proto and SO to finally displace them, first from my main box, and then from my road box. I still have a couple SK sets that I've been reluctant to get rid of, although they're duplicates.

I don't have any of the new SK sockets, but I have newer SuperKrome metric wrenches from about 6mm to 34mm, and they're excellent.

 

[M_George]

I have a couple of hew SK sockets and a set of Gear Wrench sockets. I singled out the socket with lightest indent and it held just fine on my SK, HF, Craftsman, and Snap-on ratchets. But the Gear Wrench sockets held so tight that I needed to pry them off with a screw driver.

 

[JBradley500]

I went through my ~2014-2015 3/8” 6point 49 piece kit. None of my stuff looks out of the ordinary. I think some of this gets blown way out of proportion. Nothing else from SK I own is anything but perfect.

I’m not saying there can’t be flaws, but I think some of the people on this site that are constantly bashing SK for quality don’t know what they’re talking about and just go off of anecdotal evidence from other random people on the internet who are doing the same.

 

[BearDeXPS]

^yep..

 

[WWheeler]

I'm in meetings for the next three days, but I will follow up with what I learned yesterday. I took some cool footage of our cold header at work and also the various broaching techniques. More to come...

I'm looking forward to see this.

any updates on this?

Still looking forward to this

 

[spicytuna]

Just a quick update on my minor issue regarding the new 21mm SK socket with the missing "2". (Post number 84 in this thread.)

SK Eric contacted me via PM and promptly sent me a replacement socket via courier.

To be honest, I was willing to live with the cosmetic issue but was pleasantly surprised at the extent he was willing to go to satisfy a customer. Especially someone like me who's obviously a tiny contributor to this forum with maybe a post per year.

 

[Wamsutta]

Is that screwdriver shank hexagonal?

 

[2ndGearRubber]

Is that screwdriver shank hexagonal?

yup, best baby screwdriver in the biz. I love mine for general poking, dash work, connectors, etc.

 

[V22mech]

Just a quick update on my minor issue regarding the new 21mm SK socket with the missing "2". (Post number 84 in this thread.)

SK Eric contacted me via PM and promptly sent me a replacement socket via courier.

To be honest, I was willing to live with the cosmetic issue but was pleasantly surprised at the extent he was willing to go to satisfy a customer. Especially someone like me who's obviously a tiny contributor to this forum with maybe a post per year.

He contacted me as well and is getting things sorted out. I appreciate his willingness to tackle this head on, especially given how volatile and partisan this discussion has become. Most company reps would avoid this thread like the plague and it means a lot too me that he is willing to step into the lions den to back up his product. Thanks again Eric, you made an SK fan out of me for sure.

Sent from my SM-G930V using The Garage Journal mobile app

 

[M_George]

yup, best baby screwdriver in the biz. I love mine for general poking, dash work, connectors, etc.

I have one from returning my DX kit. Love it.
A full set of those would be great for Epstein Day

 

[M6erfan]

SK Eric contacted me via PM and promptly sent me a replacement socket via courier.

He contacted me as well and is getting things sorted out. I appreciate his willingness to tackle this head on, especially given how volatile and partisan this discussion has become. Most company reps would avoid this thread like the plague and it means a lot too me that he is willing to step into the lions den to back up his product. Thanks again Eric, you made an SK fan out of me for sure.

Eric is a stand up guy for sure, and the majority of SK customer service reports are excellent.