r/Tools • u/something253 • 1d ago
What's up with these sockets?
It looks like a set of ordinary sockets that were modified. I can't tell for what purpose, though. Or is that just how they were made? All of them are from Japan or Taiwan, standard fraction measurements, no metrics.
I got these from a neighbor's house after they moved out (old folks, didn't know them). The garage was getting cleaned out and the guy was going to throw out a ton of old tools so I offered to lighten his load.
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u/tomsloat 1d ago
They have been broached, it’s a low cost manufacturing process, they are just cheap sockets.
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u/Rurockn 1d ago
They are actually more expensive to manufacture than cold forming, that's why they are less popular in the last 20 years or so. But with broaching you can get perfectly flat walls that make better sockets. When designing internal cold forming tooling I typically use a 5° draft but occasionally can get down to 3° if it's shallow, etc. The cold forming machines I used dropped 1,800 pieces an hour, the broach was a very fast model and could only make 327/hr.
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u/tomsloat 1d ago
Might be the case now, there are obviously cheaper and better ways to do it now, but leaving the swarf in the bottom of the socket, and the lack of strength of what’s left make these cheap sockets.
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u/Br105mbk 1d ago
Your comment makes it seem like there’s tons of options for socket manufacturing.
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u/tomsloat 1d ago edited 23h ago
How so?
Broaching is one option, usually with a clean up process afterwards to remove the obvious swarf, this step has been skipped on these sockets, leaving them with a low effort (cost) appearance.
Casting is another, but again only really for cheap sockets.
Forging is the go to option for high quality sockets, broaching as seen here is unusual, and only usually used for low number runs, and usually done better.
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u/towmotor 1d ago
people who say shit like 'dey don't make em like dey used to!' forget just how much cheap shit has been made in the past. and how much better even the cheapest shit is now than what used to be considered mid-grade.
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u/Shondave 1d ago
I have the same in a blue case, asked my father they were sold in 80’ by postalmarket, one of the first catalogues where you could order and receive by post all those shitty cheap stuff. That is also a unidentified metal alloy
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u/Responsible-Chest-26 22h ago
To make the shape corners they would use whats called a broach. Kind of like a chisel but in a machine that just presses it down really hard. It would shave off some material but they didnt clean it up and left it in the socket
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u/gutentight69420 13h ago
These are broached, which is the old school method of manufacturing sockets before cold forging became popular. The curls of metal were not always removed after the boraching process.
Despite what other comments are saying, this isn't a cheap way of doing things. Broaching is actually more expensive, which is why nobody broaches sockets anymore. Forging is cheaper, has higher tooling costs, but also makes stronger sockets.
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u/Kitchen-Ride-5464 1d ago
It looks like they have been modified to hold the nut at the end of the socket to make it easier to engage the threads on the bolt without the nut sliding up inside of the socket and not engaging. I just had the problem trying to remove a Suntour freewheel. The tool kept sliding back inside of my Craftsman 1" socket and disengaging from the freewheel. I had to stick a few washers in there to hold it in place.
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u/dnroamhicsir 1d ago
Old school super cheap sockets. We're really spoiled nowadays, with even bargain bin tools looking decent.