Best Wrench (ADJUSTABLE)? Craftsman USA vs Craftsman, Crescent, Kobalt, Milwaukee, Channellock

is a five dollar adjustable wrench just as good as one that cost over fifty dollars these wrenches are known for rounding off nuts and bolts but is it possible that a really good one is just as good as an open-end wrench well let's find out in the first test we'll see which wrenches back off when they experience movement then we'll see if a vintage usa craftsman wrench offers better holding power on a nut than an imported craftsman and 15 other brands then we'll see which wrench is the strongest all the adjustable wrenches we'll be testing are 10 inches in length at an absolutely terrific price at only five dollars is this navigondo brand handles nuts and bolts up to an inch and a quarter includes both sae as well as metric markings precision machine slide jaw and worm gear allows for fast fit and smooth adjustment forged and heat-treated number 45 carbon steel the navagondo is made in china the navaganda weighs 426 grams adjustable wrenches with poor fit and finish destroy nuts and bolts the navigando has 1.63 millimeters of up and down slop and .053 millimeters of side to side travel which seems about right for a five dollar tool a wrench with a lot of slop will self-adjust and back off with movement or vibration so let's see how much each wrench backs off when they experience vibration from a compact impact wrench for a fraction of a second i'll take the wrench to the test jig to keep it centered on the bolt and the navagando's jaw opened up 8.5 millimeters slowing things down a bit the worm gear backed off very quickly as the excessive jaw movement sent the worm gear spinning at a price of only six dollars the second least expensive brand we'll be testing is made by pittsburgh and sold at harbor freight made of forged steel the pittsburgh is made in china the pittsburgh is a little bit lighter than the navagando at 422 grams and the pittsburgh has even more up and down travel than the navagando at 2.1 millimeters and 0.66 millimeters from side to side the worm gear seems to grind quite a bit as it turns which really helped keep the worm gear from backing off 1.57 millimeters at a price of 27 dollars for three wrenches or nine dollars each is this cobalt brand drop forged chrome vanadium steel for strength and durability includes metric and sae markings on the jaw works with both standard and metric fasteners up to 1-3 8 inch the cobalt is made in china the cobalt is the heaviest yet at 500 grams and the cobalt has 1.85 millimeters of up and down slop and 0.3 millimeters of side to side slop and the cobalt performed much better than the navagando and the pittsburgh with the jaws opening up 0.97 millimeters at a price of 14 is this tekton brand precision machine slide jaw and worm gear allows for exact fastener fit laser at side markings in 1 16 of an inch or one millimeter increments the tecton is made in china the tecton is the lightest jet at 416 grams and the tecton has the least amount of up and down jaw travel at 0.93 millimeters in 0.25 millimeters of side to side travel and the tekken jaws opened up 0.65 millimeters to move into the lead at a price of 16 is this crescent brand wider handle for more torque larger neural for easier adjustment and tighter jaw fit hex jaw design reduces slippage and tightly grips bolt we're gonna test that heat treated forged alloy steel for toughness and durability laser etched scale it even includes an arrow for direction of use one and three eighths inch jaw capacity the crescent brand is made in china the crescent brand weighs 491 grams and the crescent has 1.17 millimeters of up and down slop and 0.3 millimeters of side to side travel and the crescent did well only opening up 1.02 millimeters about the same as the cobalt also at a price of 16 is this craftsman brand 1-3 8-inch jaw capacity includes both metric and sae scale the craftsman is made in china the craftsman is made in china is the heaviest yet at 508 grams the craftsman has 1.11 millimeters of up and down slop and 0.18 millimeters of side to side and the craftsman performed about the same as the crescent at 1.16 millimeters our usa made craftsman tools better than those made in china we're going to find out i bought this wrench on ebay it's advertised as new and from the looks of it it's never been used forged in usa the craftsman wrench on the left is made in china the one on the right is made in usa the wrench made in china is a little bit longer it has a bigger handle the craftsman made in china also has a wider jaw opening the usa made craftsman is the lightest yet at 413 grams the vintage made usa craftsman has far less slop than the other brands at only 0.64 millimeters of up and down slop and 0.18 millimeters side to side and the craftsman performed by far the best yet at only 0.35 millimeters very impressive also the price of sixteen dollars the same price as a crescent and a craftsman is this irwin brand machine jaws for maximum gripping strength made of chrome vanadium steel one and one eighth inch jaw capacity pro touch grip provides maximum torque and comfort the irwin is made in china the irwin weighs 447 grams the euro and vice grips have 1.27 millimeters of up and down slop and 0.18 side to side and the irwin didn't quite perform as well as a craftsman at 1.44 millimeters at a price of 21. is this channel lock brand jaw capacity one in thirteen thirty seconds of an inch longer jaws it grip better avoiding slippage or nut round off four thread knurl measurement scales for sae as well as metric thinner jaws for greater access and tight spaces precision jaw design grips tight the first time the channel lock is made in spain the channel lock is the lightest yet at 411 grams and the channel lock has pretty good fit and finish at 0.88 millimeters up and down slop and only 0.6 side to side and the channel locks perform nearly the same as the vintage craftsman at 0.51 millimeters at a price of 24 is this reed manufacturing company brand large serrated knurl for smooth easy jaw adjustment handle is up to 70 wider for more comfort and less hand fatigue hex jaw design allows for more secure fit the reed does not have size markings on the tool the reed brand is made in spain the reed is really light at only 370 grams just like the channel lock the reed wrench has really good fit and finish at only 0.8 millimeters up and down slop and 0.6 side to side just like the channel lock the reed wrench performed very well only giving up 0.71 millimeters at a price of 33 is this klein tools brand the knurl turns smoothly for easy operation contoured handles for comfortable use precision machine jaws are individually chosen and assembled by hand for smooth operation high polished chrome finish is rust resistant made in spain the klein tools weighs 433 grams klein tools has a little bit more up and down slot than the channel lock at 1.16 millimeters and 0.1 side to side and the klein tools wrench gave up 1.2 millimeters also the price of 33 dollars the same price as the klein tools is this milwaukee brand accurate size adjustment won't dig into the palm laser etch ruler for easy to read proprietary adjustment screw jaws won't back off we're gonna test that parallel jaws won't slip or damage the finished surfaces the milwaukee is made in taiwan the milwaukee weighs 491 grams the milwaukee has a six thread neural and the milwaukee only has 0.71 millimeters of up and down slop and 0.13 side to side milwaukee claims their wrench won't back off and the milwaukee moves into first place only giving up 0.27 millimeters very impressive and the price of 38 dollars is this gador brand swedish pattern roller with left hand thread it has a striking face to allow for light blows the jaw set is at 15 degrees includes a metric scale the gador brand is made in germany the godor is the heaviest yet at 510 grams the godor has 1.16 millimeters of up and down slop and 0.2 side to side and the gador performed well only giving up 0.69 millimeters at a price of 53 dollars is this bako brand extra wide jaw opening jaws with shorter handle precision hardened and anti-corrosion treated slim head with tapered jaws includes a measurement scale on the head of the tool designed for maximum access and confined areas tobacco is made in spain tobacco is by far the heaviest at 643 grams the baca only has 0.62 millimeters of up and down travel and 0.25 side to side and the terrific fit and finish really helped the baka move into second place only giving up 0.3 millimeters at a price of 58 is this hazard brand laser etch ruler for easy to read while it's not stamped on the tool i believe the hazard is made in germany milling data is transmitted directly to a high-speed milling machine spindle mills forged the contours with high precision at 42 000 rpm hazard weighs 438 grams the hazard has 0.98 millimeters up and down slop and 0.15 side to side and the hazard performed very well moving into fourth place behind the usa made craftsman at 0.38 millimeters at a price of 200 for four of these wrenches or 50 each is this we're a joker it takes four of these wrenches to achieve the same size adjustments as a traditional adjustable wrench the smallest wrenches from 13 to 16 millimeters then 16 to 19 millimeters 19 to 24 and 24 to 32 simply lift up the head to open the jaws automatically adjust to the proper size ratchet function ensures a fast and consistent grip the wearer brand is made in germany where a joker that's very close to the same length as the other brands is 379 grams so the milwaukee cayman on top only giving up 0.27 millimeters the bako also performed very well at 0.3 millimeters usa made craftsman 0.35 has it 0.38 and channel lock 0.51 millimeters tool weight's probably going to be a factor in the next test with the baka weighing the most at 643 grams the door is pretty heavy at 510 grams the imported craftsman 508 cobalt 500 and milwaukee and crescent 491 grams now for the most important test let's see how much torque each wrench can handle before it rounds off a nut the bolt passing through the tester will move freely i'll move the handles while tightening the worm gear to move all the slack between the wrench and the bolt once the wrench is in place i'll be using a torque adapter and a breaker bar to apply force until the wrench loses grip i'll replace the nut with a new one between testing each wrench to serve as our control let's test a usa made craftsman wrench first the three quarter inch craftsman wrench is quite a bit narrower than the adjustable wrenches and there's a small gap between the jaws and the nut 129.6 inch pounds is the number to beat unlike the wrench i'm able to tighten the worm gear to press the upper and the lower jaws tied up against the nut and the navigando is off to a pretty good start at 120.8 foot-pounds and there's quite a bit of movement with the worm gear and the jaws on the pittsburgh 105.2 foot-pounds or 15 foot-pounds less than the navagondo and the jaws on the cobalt and the worm gear experienced a small amount of movement and finally let go at 113.3 foot-pounds to move into the second place position and the tekken has a lot less wobble than the navagando pittsburgh and the cobalt and it refused to give up very little movement in the worm gear and jaws and the tecton finally gave up at 146.2 foot-pounds the crescent brand definitely knows something about adjustable wrenches and the jaws in the worm gear did a terrific job of staying in position and the wrench finally let go at 149.9 foot-pounds to move into first place and the craftsman brand which is one of the heaviest wrenches tested made it to 136.2 foot-pounds before giving up so the craftsman moves in the third place behind the tecton brand and the usa made craftsman worm gear and jaws are pill like a tank and refused to flex or buckle under pressure and the camera just barely caught the torque reading before the half-inch gradate bolt finally snapped at 184.4 foot-pounds very impressive while the craftsman didn't completely slip there's still some damage to the nut and the irwin has quite a bit of jaw wobble at 1.27 millimeters and it really hurt the performance in this test and there's quite a bit of visible jaw stretching as the torque is applied and the irwin gave up at only 103.5 foot pounds while the channel lock has very little slop unfortunately the adjustable jaw just doesn't seem to have a lot of strength as the torque is applied there's quite a bit of visible jaw stretching and the wrench gave up at 105.8 foot-pounds as the torque is applied the adjustable screw appears to be backing off very slightly and the reed finished at 123.5 foot-pounds while the klein tools wrench did have a little bit more up and down slot than some of the other brands the jaws in the worm gear seem quite a bit more robust than some of the other brands and the klein tools brand performed well at 147.1 foot-pounds the six neural worm gear in the milwaukee didn't seem to move during the test however the jaw stretch is pretty noticeable and the rinse performed slightly better than average at 134.3 foot pounds the godor had 1.16 millimeters of up and down slop and that seems to have been a factor in how it performed in this test and the godor gave up at 131.6 foot pounds about the same as the milwaukee the bacco is very large and has very little slop in the worm gear in the adjustable jaw however there is quite a bit of jaw stretch and the bako gave up at 132.9 foot-pounds about the same as the milwaukee and the godor there's nearly a millimeter of up and down slop with the hazard and that seems to been a factor in how it performed as the torque is applied the worm gear and the adjustable jaw began stretching 125.2 foot pounds and the weird joker has a very unique design that applies proportionately more squeeze on the fastener as torque is applied to the handle unfortunately the rent suddenly flew off the tester and that caused the torque adapter to suddenly power down the torque reading was not stored in memory but it does appear that the torque peaked at 167 foot-pounds unfortunately the wrench broke during the test so let's test the smaller wearer which will also work with a three-quarter inch nut and the weird joker made it to 163.7 foot-pounds before the wrench finally began to lose grip unlike the larger wrench the smaller wrench held up just fine so the vintage craftsman came out on top at 184.4 pounds before the bolt broke the smaller of the two wearer joker wrenches also performed very well at 163.7 foot pounds crescent 149.9 klein tools 147.1 and tucked in 146.2 foot-pounds and rinse it has perfectly parallel jaws will make more surface area contact with a nut or a bolt than a rinse that's not evenly aligned using this aluminum flat stock i applied up and down handle movement while tightening the worm gear to remove all the slop unfortunately the navagano jaws just aren't very parallel and there's a 0.045 millimeter gap between the wrench in the middle unlike the navigando the gap this time is on the inner side of the jaws with the worm gear tight and snugly the pittsburgh wrench has an even larger gap than the navigando wrench at 0.5 millimeters after measuring the no load gap on all the brands the channel lock and klein tools came out on top at 0.8 millimeters but the read wrench performed nearly as well at 0.1 craftsman usa 0.13 bacon has it 0.18 millimeters i put together this next tester to measure the quality and performance of the wrenches under load the steel plate across the top is made of ar500 to prevent the tester from bending or breaking we've already measured the no load gap so let's apply 200 pounds of load and measure the gap again i'll use a hydraulic press to apply the load beginning with the navigando without a load the navigando had a gap of 0.45 millimeters with a load the gap on the jaws of the navigator and the steel plate more than doubled to just over one millimeter with around 200 pounds on the end of the handle the size of the gap with the pittsburgh is 1.1 millimeters and the cobalt has a no-load gap of 0.33 millimeters and the size of the gap more than doubled with 200 pounds of weight on the end of the wrench and the cobalt performs slightly better than the navagando at 0.88 millimeters and the tekken has a no load gap of 0.25 millimeters and that tripled to 0.76 millimeters under load so the tecton does have the smallest gap and takes the lead from cobalt and the crescent brand performed very well in the testing leading up to this point and it performed very well in this test too with the smallest gap yet at 0.58 millimeters and the imported craftsman's build quality is pretty good but not quite as good as the crescent brand and the craftsman left a gap at 0.7 millimeters with very short jaws from front to back the usa-made craftsman is at a leverage disadvantage and the usa-made craftsman overcame the leverage disadvantage and moves into first place over the crescent with the smallest gap yet at 0.55 millimeters unfortunately the vice grip ranch really struggled and rounded off the nut at only 103.5 foot-pounds and it struggled in this test too at 0.75 millimeters unfortunately the no-load gap grew by 10-fold from 0.07 to 0.7 millimeters for the channel lock just like the vintage craftsman the reed has very short jaws putting it at a leverage disadvantage even so it performed just as well as some of the wrenches with longer jaws at 0.7 millimeters the klein tools performed very well and didn't slip and round off the nut until 147 foot pounds and it performed very well in this test too with the second smallest gap yet at only 0.65 millimeters and the milwaukee had a no load gap of 0.35 millimeters and the gap size doubled under load to 0.75 millimeters which is very close to average the godor has a no low jaw gap of 0.25 millimeters and the gap size just about tripled to 0.7 millimeters under load the baco has the longest jaws and that really helped it in this test with a gap of only 0.58 millimeters the baco tied to crescent for second place the hazard has a no load gap of only 0.17 millimeters and it performed nearly as well as the bako at 0.6 millimeters with a 200 pound load under the weight of 200 pounds the wrench making the most contact with the nut is the vintage craftsman with a gap of 0.55 millimeters however the crescent and the bako performed nearly as well at 0.58 millimeters has it 0.6 inclined 0.65 millimeters unfortunately i've broken a lot of tools by pushing them past their limits if you use an adjustable wrench to apply leverage to flat or square stock we'll see how much pressure they can handle for safety reasons i'll be securing the wrench to the press and wearing a lot of protective equipment jaw length and build quality has a huge impact on performance and the navagando has a leverage advantage with longer jaws than average making it all the way to 750 pounds before the adjustable jaw broke off throughout the entire test of the harbor freight pittsburgh there's quite a bit of visible jaw stretching that took place and the pittsburgh made it to around 600 pounds before giving up cobalt has quite a bit longer jaws than most of the other brands and that really helped it perform well in this test finally coming apart at 940 pounds the tekken performed fairly well throughout the testing but the short jaws really put it at a big disadvantage and the tecton gave up at 581 pounds just like detecting the crescent has pretty short jaws but it still performed very well and the jaw finally snapped at 775 pounds and the craftsman's long jaws give it a leverage advantage over the crescent however the craftsman gave up at around 656 pounds or about 120 pounds less than the crescent the usa made craftsman has much shorter jaws than most of the other brands putting it at a big disadvantage even with the leverage disadvantage the craftsman still perform well at 634 pounds the irwin with the second longest jaws in the lineup really benefited from the leverage advantage and moves into the lead at 1 179 pounds very impressive and the jaw length on the channel locks is very close to the same as the imported craftsman and it gave up 10 pounds less at 646 pounds even though the reed has very short jaws it performed very well reaching 687 pounds before busting loose and taking flight the jaws on the klein tools wrench are shorter than average but still put up an above average number at 731 pounds and the milwaukee weighs nearly 500 grams and the jaws are longer than average which really helped it perform well in this test the worm gear is frozen and the top and lower jaws have some pretty bad bends the godor's jaw length is very close to the same as the milwaukees and it performed very well making it to pounds before snapping and the bako has a seven millimeter jaw length advantage over all the other brands and the baku refused to give up but finally came apart at 1 334 pounds very impressive the hazardous jaws are slightly shorter than average but it still performed better than average at 861 pounds so if you're looking for a rent that can handle the most torque for flat or square metal the bako came out on top at 1 334 pounds the irwin also performed very well at 1 179 pounds gador 961 cobalt 940 in milwaukee 907 pounds and the risk that performed by far the best in this showdown is definitely the vintage craftsman made in usa but unfortunately that wrench is no longer sold so if i had to choose a wrench for under 20 i would definitely go with the crescent brand it performed extremely well if you're willing to spend a little bit more money why not just go ahead and get the klein tools it too performed very well all the videos in this channel including this one are viewer suggested so if you have a video idea i hope you'll take time to leave a comment thanks so much for watching please take care and look forward to next time

Channel: Project Farm

Views: 1,871,528

Rating: 4.8895903 out of 5

Keywords: project farm, Wrench, best wrench, which wrench is best, adjustable wrench, best adjustable wrench, which adjustable wrench is best, crescent wrench, best crescent wrench, which crescent wrench is best, crescent wrench comparison, klein tools wrench, kobalt adjustable wrench, irwin adjustable wrench, bahco adjustable wrench, Milwaukee adjustable wrench, craftsman adjustable wrench, channellock adjustable wrench, hazet adjustable wrench, tekton adjustable wrench

Id: cyOd05PUix4

Length: 19min 16sec (1156 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 24 2021