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by cjensen 1277 days ago
There is also a safety concern with overly cheap tools.

For an example, the adjustable wrench in this article. What happens when you apply a lot of force on a stubborn nut? If the wrench experiences rapid unscheduled disassembly, you now have broken pieces flying in random directions.

In the US, the thing that most prevents this from being a problem is the threat of liability lawsuits. That doesn't apply to a tool made by a small company in China and sold by a fly-by-night outfit on Amazon's marketplace. I'm guessing Amazon is unknowingly the liable party here, but I'm not a lawyer.

2 comments

What's going to happen is that the nut will round over, because there's little in this design to prevent the jaw back-driving the helix. Having used a lot of adjustable wrenches, and rounded over quite a few bolts, now I keep sets of open-end wrenches in reach on the toolbench and for adjustables I carry exclusively Knipex Pliers Wrenches, which are awesome tools. There's no way you're breaking the casting of the wrench without a big cheater bar, which I admit to having used...while wearing safety glasses.
Knipex are awesome, a good example of quality resulting in a tool that lasts much longer than the cheap tools and causing much less damage to the nuts you are working on.
Biggest worry would be smashing your knuckles on something when it gives up not the thing exploding.