On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 18:47:47 -0000, Steve Walker wrote:

On 26/02/2019 11:04, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Andy Bennet wrote:
On 25/02/2019 19:02, Commander Kinsey wrote:
I just bought a new socket set (for car repairs) as I lost my last one.
Half the bits are imperial! What the hell are they selling those for?
My first car was made in 1988, and even that was metric for goodness
sake. I guess half of it's going on freecycle for vintage car owners.

Still plenty of new stuff being sold using imperial. New rotary lawn
mower - the bolt that holds the blade on has a 9/16 inch head.
I expect if it has a Briggs and Stratten (USA) engine it will be all
imperial.

When you talk imperial, I think of BSW and Whitworth.

The US still uses American threads for some things, and they are measured
in inches. And the same socket size fits many older UK cars. With unified
threads.

But only an idiot would buy a socket set without making sure it covered
the sizes needed, and only those.

Surely it's good to have both to hand anyway? Who knows when you may
come across an old item that you need to work on?

Anything that old belongs in the skip.

Maybe even when your hand-driver just won't move a smallish torx screw
and you need a 1/4" socket to allow the use of a small bar to get a bit
more torque? 6.35mm, just uncomfortably small for a 6.5mm socket ,
especially if a reasonable force or even shocking it is required.

What? Torx is in mm too.

I've certainly come across old, tight plumbing fittings that have been
built around after, are too rounded for a crude plumbing spanner and the
only way to undo them in the space has been to cut the pipe and use a
socket. Yes, I know there are other tools to do that, but if you've
already got an imperial socket set, you've got something that'll do the
job without having to stop and go out to buy something else.

Anything that old should be ripped out and replaced.