Showerthought: My old boss said something about torque wrenches that finally clicked for me

Honestly, I was chatting with my old lead from the Kansas City shop the other day. He asked if I still calibrated my torque wrenches every year, and I admitted I sometimes stretched it to 18 months. He just said, 'You trust that tool to hold a wing on, but not enough to give it a checkup?' Tbh, that hit different. It's not just a tool, it's a promise to the next guy who flies that plane. I booked calibration for all three of mine the next day. How often do you all actually get yours checked?

3 comments

3 Comments

ivan_cooper2mo ago

Know exactly what you mean. I had a torque wrench fail calibration by a big margin once, and it was on a job I did for my neighbor. Felt sick thinking about it. Now mine go in like clockwork every year, no excuses. That trust you talk about is the whole ball game.

seanlewis2mo ago

Yeah, I used to skip that until I saw what happened to @ivan_cooper.

evac7218d ago

You mentioned "that trust you talk about is the whole ball game" and I see it differently. Trust is nice but it's not the whole game when it comes to tools. I've had a cheap ratchet that never broke and an expensive one that snapped on the third use. For me, it's more about knowing your gear's limits and using it accordingly, not just assuming it's trustworthy because you maintained it. Calibration schedules matter, sure, but some of us don't live near a service center and can't drop everything for yearly checks. So I work around that - maybe not ideal, but it's worked fine so far.