I’m not a professional mechanic, but I play one on TV in my dreams.
I am definitely an automotive enthusiast. I took a stock Mazda Miata and modified it with a Turbocharger running at 15 pounds of boost. I’ve pushed a POS Pontiac Fiero home and *not quite* did a ground up rebuild/refinish on it. I’ve replaced a handful of engines and transmissions. And I do almost all of my own maintenance. So yeah, I end up using my sockets a lot.
The Metrinch socket is unlike any other socket I’ve come across. It does Metric and it does inch - it doesn’t care which. Most socket points are hard angles, but these are curved, like a sine wave. That shape allows them to firmly grip on nuts without needing at tight fit, so that abused and rounded nuts can still be taken off. This link kinda tells why it's different
http://www.metrinch-tools.com/website/introductie.php?subnr=2. I remember when a buddy of mine was taking his exhaust down pipe out and the exhaust nuts rounded off with his socket set. I brought my Metrinch over and without trouble, we got the damaged nut off and left the stud in great shape.
They really are an amazing socket design and that is why I bought a full complement of them. But this red set… I used it far more than any of the others. It’s the right size and weight and does most of what I do. Anytime I go on a road trip, or over to help a friend, this one always went. That set and I have a lot of memories together (like when my buddy was rebuilding the front end of his pickup and we mistook a nick in the oil filter for a rear main leak. He bought a new truck over that oil filter
) so it’s worth more to me than to the average guy to get an exact copy of the set that I lost. I think I paid about $50 for it when I bought it, but I think it’ll cost me closer to $130 to replace it from England. For the same price, I can get a set from the American distributor, but it will have the deepwell sockets too. I’d rather have my smaller set.
Dave, I like your posts on this board and I’d like to meet you (again? We might have met in a downtown Renton coffee shop meet up a year ago…) so I’d be happy to drive down to your place and show you what a set looks like. I might need some help getting a charge before I head North though.