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Range Officer
Range Officers
May 2, 2009
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So we've all seen / owned DW's with buggered up barrel nuts. Here's a little insight as to why--not necessarily a gorilla on the wrench handle...
I have a bunch of the broken/cracked "red" DW 357 wrenches same as the rest of you. I figured I might as well experiment with one. So I pulled the steel insert out of one and fired up the lathe...
First I took a simple bolt and turned the head down to an interference fit (.001 or less) of the inside of the DW wrench piece. Lubed it up good and smacked the assembly with the big brass mallet...then I smacked it over and over and over (hence the story here).... finally it was seated. Turns out the DW wrench is made of REALLY HARD steel. It didn't want to stretch for the interference fit.
So how hard is it...? Well, I wanted to use it inside one of my comp barrels; so I put it in the lathe and made a light pass with the bit... guess who won... The nut wasn't even scratched, and my lathe bit had the end cut off.
ok, no problem, I'll hit it with a big double cut mill file.... once again, didn't even scratch the wrench insert. Hmmmm....
Over to the 1 hp 3650 rpm bench grinder 
... Now we're in business. I'm sure my grinder wheels are a little smaller now though. A quick pass on the little finish grinder and I have a nicely polished piece.
So, now I fully understand why so many DW's have gouged nut slots. As hard as the prongs on the wrench are, they will cut into anything. One slip with the factory wrench and you're going to mar something.
EWK (Eric)--I'm sure you'll read this. Any insight? Thoughts? I wish I had access to a Rockwell hardness tester.
SHOOT
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January 24, 2009
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I wouldn't have guessed they were that hard, that's interesting. I guess they made them extra hard so the tabs wouldn't break off? It's funny that with the ovekill on the steel hardness, that they mounted them in a plastic handle.
I bet it's about as hard as a motorcycle brake rotor...those will eat up a lathe bit too, with nary a scratch on the rotor. No idea how hard they actually are, either.
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Dans Club
February 22, 2009
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Too bad they didn't give that much thought towards the rest of the design…
This WAS to my Model 45:
Technically, the glass is always full; half liquid, half air....
Dans Club
March 2, 2008
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The wrenches have always been the weakest part of the DW system, IMHO
I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman "Were is the Self Help Section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
George Carlin
October 13, 2009
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That's interesting Shoot re. the hardness! Get a file and see if it "bites" in. If the file just glides over it without cutting any digging in, we're talking about Rockwell C60. I can't imagine them being that hard, but you never know. The harder you get, the more brittle the steel becomes. As you can see, those DW nut slots mean the lugs on the wrench are not that beefy. Maybe its so it will match the plastic snapping. Or seriously, the logic may have been the plastic will break before the "hard" lugs would.
Eric
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