Tool Misuse

[GrayFox]

I feel horrible for using a torque wrench improperly. Is this normal?

Here's the story.
At work I was told to disassemble an item. The bolts were Loctite in several years ago. I grab an impact and start busting them loose. Supervisor comes up and says "What are you doing? "
I reply "Getting the bolts out"

Supervisor: " Don't do that . Go get a Torque wrench and bust them loose."

So I get the T.W. and go about "loosening" them. After about ohh.. the 2nd or 3rd turn I hear a loud pop. And basically after that it would barely catch the teeth in the head.

 

[Buckgnarly]

Why the hell did he tell you to use a torque wrench?

And why the hell did you listen......to preserve job I guess?

 

[BillK]

GF,
A torque wrench is not designed to remove fasteners. Period. But the teeth in the ratchet head still should not have broken.

 

[MechanicNamedJohn]

What? Seriously, he told you to grab a torque wrench? Why did you listen to him, do you own a breaker bar?

What bolts were you removing, why didn't he want you to use an impact?

 

[Skin]

I reply "Getting the bolts out"

Supervisor: " Don't do that . Go get a Torque wrench and bust them loose."(

uhh what?

 

[eborcim]

LOL..now you know why he's in mgmt.

 

[bagsanthony]

i swear there are some real dumbasses out there...

 

[trout]

sounds like my boss, he wouldn't know the difference between a breaker bar or torque wrench either.

 

[Kirbot]

WTF?
A torque wrench? Seriously?
And this guy is a supervisor?

Has he never heard of breaker bars?

 

[MechanicNamedJohn]

Maybe he thought you were installing the bolts, and you misinterpreted what he meant??? Did he actually say to get a torque wrench and bust them loose?

I mean seriously, I don't get it...

 

[mrshaun]

Hope it was a shop tool and not your own. If so you just screwed it up. and I bet he will not buy another for you.
breaker bar is what you "break" something loose with.

 

[ngk22r]

Shame on you, how dare you do such a thing to a tool. I hope TPS comes to your house and breaks your front door down and takes all your tools away!!!!
















..... Just kidding, hey if it was the works torque wrench, take it to the boss and say "It worked, but we need another torque wrench"

 

[GrayFox]

@BillK
I know, that's why i feel bad.


@ MechanicNamedJohn &Skin
Yes he seriously told me to get a torque wrench and do that. His reasoning: "The impact may not always bust it loose." and "I don't want to hear the Impact running for 5 years".
3/4" ,7/16 (or was it 9/16) bolts.
I didn't have my breaker bar with me. Didn't know i would need it.

 

[diesel research]

I think you likely made the right decision. (providing it was company equipment)

 

[mrshaun]

get a better impact if you are working with smaller bolts.
there are plenty out there. or get a bigger compressor.

 

[DrkMtnDew]

the only torque wrench i've ran in reverse was one of the old beam style. a customer, a really picky customer, accused me of overtorquing his spark plugs. so i had to prove that i was correct, but that was the one and only time. in your case a impact or breaker bar should have been used.

 

[GrayFox]

I guess it was company property. SK torque wrench.
I just know it was not mine.

 

[bchee]

I never understood why it can take the forward torque, but not reverse.
If the bolt was on at 20lb, and you set the torque wrench to 100 lbs, is it still not ok to use the torque wrench to take it off???

 

[diesel research]

I guess it was company property. SK torque wrench.
I just know it was not mine.

Definitely the right choice. After fighting with warranty claims and having to purchase a different one, the hard painful lesson may be learned.

Of course if he is halfway good at playing political game, he could spin this around on you or simply deny making such statement.

 

[GrayFox]

I don't think I have to worry about that. As I no longer work there (left for better job opportunity).

 

[X1 Mike]

I never understood why it can take the forward torque, but not reverse.
If the bolt was on at 20lb, and you set the torque wrench to 100 lbs, is it still not ok to use the torque wrench to take it off???

I say it's just unnecessary wear and the shock from breaking something loose. A torque wrench is made to come up to the torque easy. It's not that the teeth only go one way because I use my torque wrenches on LH threads all the time.

 

[Wakefield]

Say the bolt was put in at 100 ft.lb. and loctited and frozen with time. It probably needed more than 100 ft.lb. to break loose. If the wrench could not be set as high as the bolt needed to break loose that is probably what busted the wrench. (if it has a left hand thread reverse)
----what is the name of the law that says that management rises to its level of incompetence? Sounds like that is what happened here,I think that happens a lot and helps explain why our economy has so many problems,especially since some of these management/bully types get offended if someone under them tries to correct them. My biggest torque wrench only goes to 150 lb-ft. and I can pull something that long much harder than that.

 

[D9H 90V]

Supervisor: "Go get a Torque wrench and bust them loose.".

This is exactly why they are making them with "fixed" non reversable heads

 

[DrkMtnDew]

This is exactly why they are making them with "fixed" non ratcheting heads

or in the case of the PI's that i own, non-reversable.

 

[mkirkpatrick]

Say the bolt was put in at 100 ft.lb. and loctited and frozen with time. It probably needed more than 100 ft.lb. to break loose. If the wrench could not be set as high as the bolt needed to break loose that is probably what busted the wrench. (if it has a left hand thread reverse)
----what is the name of the law that says that management rises to its level of incompetence? Sounds like that is what happened here,I think that happens a lot and helps explain why our economy has so many problems,especially since some of these management/bully types get offended if someone under them tries to correct them. My biggest torque wrench only goes to 150 lb-ft. and I can pull something that long much harder than that.

Peter Principle

 

[diesel research]

----what is the name of the law that says that management rises to its level of incompetence?

Peter Principle

It holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions.....

....in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out their duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence". Managing upward is the concept of a subordinate finding ways to subtly "manage" superiors in order to limit the damage that they end up doing...

...anything that works will be used in progressively more challenging applications until it fails...

...There is much temptation to use what has worked before, even when it may exceed its effective scope...

...For example, a factory worker's excellence in their job can earn them promotion to manager, at which point the skills that earned them their promotion no longer apply to their job.

Thus, "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence"

The Dilbert Principle

bservation by Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams stating that companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management (generally middle management), in order to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing. In the Dilbert strip of February 5, 1995 Dogbert says that "leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow".

The Dilbert Principle, by contrast, assumes that hierarchy just serves as a means for removing the incompetent to "higher" positions where they will be unable to cause damage to the workflow, assuming that the upper echelons of an organization have little relevance to its actual production, and that the majority of real, productive work in a company is done by people lower in the power ladder.

 

[Greatbear]

It's amazing the number of people I've come across who think that a "torque wrench" is something made to put gobs of torque onto a bolt/nut, akin to a breaker bar. I have to tell them that a torque wrench is a measuring instrument, they are thinking of a breaker bar. Some people get offended at the correction.

 

[diesel research]

Imagine my confusion when they hand me a "torque gun" for the 1st time last week.

I am now familiar, but those first few minutes were a little confusing. Didn't know such a thing existed, but now makes sense from a production type stand point.