Just found out most torque wrenches are way off out of the box

I was reading through some old FAA stuff last night and stumbled on a study that said almost 70% of torque wrenches used in the field are out of spec by more than 10%. That blew my mind. I always figured the cheap ones might be bad, but even the nicer digital ones they tested were drifting after a few months of heavy use. I work line maintenance at a small regional outfit in Kansas City and we just send ours out once a year for calibration. Now I'm wondering if that's enough. Has anyone else looked into how often you really need to check these things?

3 comments

3 Comments

ruby_bell476d ago

Yeah mine was reading like 15 ft-lbs high right from the factory...

joseph_bailey6d ago

@finleym37's dad had the right idea, real world testing beats trusting numbers on a screen.

finleym376d ago

My dad was a machinist for 40 years and he always said if you buy a measuring tool for under fifty dollars you're basically just guessing. He used to check his torque wrenches with a simple beam type tester he built himself in the garage. I see the same pattern everywhere now, like how kitchen thermometers can be off by ten degrees or how bathroom scales show different numbers depending on where you set them on the floor. People just trust numbers on a screen without thinking about where those numbers came from. It makes me wonder how many critical bolts on planes and cars are actually tightened to the right spec.