That airport hangar tour in Tucson changed my mind on old torque wrenches

Stopped by a repair shop outside Tucson last month and saw a guy calibrating a 1970s beam style torque wrench instead of using the digital one sitting right there. He said the old tool has never drifted in 30 years, and frankly the digital unit on our truck has been off twice since January. Anyone else trust the clunky stuff over the fancy readouts when it matters?

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noahwood15d ago

Wait, thirty years and never drifted? That can't be right. I mean, I've seen beam wrenches hold accuracy, sure, but thirty years without so much as a recheck? My buddy has one from the 80s and we had to zero it out after he dropped it off the workbench. That Tucson guy must have some kind of luck or he's just never actually tested it against a standard. And two times off since January on that digital unit, that's wild, but honestly I trust a dead simple mechanism over a circuit board any day. Still, no drift for three decades just sounds like a story people tell at the shop.