Combination Spanners

I'm very happy with Halford's pro range.

Take a look in the shop you're buying from. Select the mid-priced range. The cheap ones aren't worth buying and the expensive sets aren't worth the money.

If you're that worried, try to stick to the good brands, ie Sykes-picivant, Snap-on, Britool etc etc.

Personally, I buy mine from Cromwell Tools - The Kennedy range are quality spanners and quite reasonably priced. E.G. 18pc Combination Metric 6-24mm - around £50

Shop around, don't buy cheap crap.

Alex

In news: snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk, Dave Plowman (News) decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

As am I.

I carry one of the Halfords £15.00 socket sets in the boot of my car. Very handy and seems sturdy enough.

I've not been disappointed with Machine Mart's range.

Alex realised it was Wed, 16 Mar 2005

I agree.

I wouldn't call Snap-on mid-priced. Good stuff, but *way* too expensive!

Personally, I like Facom, Gedore and Kraftwerk. IMHO, all of these are at least as good as Snap-on, but much more reasonably priced.

I buy a lot of spanners from autojumbles etc. - a good way to get Snap-On, Britool etc. for a fraction of the cost of buying from a shop. You get some that are obivously cheap junk (chromed lead) with famous names stamped in them, but they're usually obvious.

Mike.

My advice is the same as always. IME If you buy spanners marked 'Chrome Vanadium' you don't need to spend a fortune to get decent spanners. There's an abundance of good cheap spanners available these days, at prices that seem far too low for them to be any good. Screwfix, Draper, Clarke, J&L Industrial Supply, all sell good sets of Chrome Vanadium spanners at surprisingly cheap prices. As an example. I baught a combination set from J&L a couple of years ago. £13 IIRC for a 10-32mm set. Still going strong with no signs of wear, and I use them nearly every day. Mike.