Black And Decker ReadyWrench Ratchets Righteously

I call my socket set Voltron. Not because I love the show (I do!) but because my current socket set is comprised of my five previous sets — I lose sockets constantly. But with the B&D ReadyWrench it’s a physical impossibility.

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You’re not gonna lose sockets, primarily because the individual sockets are welded together into a hollow cube that sits at the either end of the wrench and rotates when you’re selecting a size. It covers the most common sizes, 8mm-19mm. What’s really cool is that each socket works for metric and its imperial counterpart, so the 8mm also fits 5/16″. That means I’ve got essentially 16 un-lose-able sockets at my beck and call. It’s also solid — it doesn’t feel like it’d break it if I whanged on a rusty bolt or two.

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There’s no way to lock the selected socket in the down position, so the wrench will wobble slightly as you turn it, which makes it tough to really torque down on a stubborn bolt. Also the direction selector is a bit finicky — sometimes you can flick back and forth with ease, sometimes it’ll just push the whole mechanism around. $US35 from Black and Decker.