Ratchet Heads for the Dummy Tool User

Ratchet drive socket wrench

What a concept: today marks the fourth consecutive day in which our DotD nominee (all of them originally at eHow.com) changed the meaning of the original question in their assignment to make it easier to answer, because they didn't understand the question, or both. We suspect usually both... Whatever the case, please give a warm Antisocial Network welcome to Hans Fredrick and his ItStillRuns.com post, "How to Get the Head off a Socket Wrench."

For some reason, Fredrick chose to interpret the question to mean, "How do you get a stuck socket off a driver?" To that end, the boy managed to pump out a total of 336 words, words that anyone who owns a socket set would probably realize to be superfluous. What's more, Hans decided that he needed more text, so he padded out his "instructions" by exhorting his readers to "Maintain your tools regularly by cleaning and oiling them [sic]," apparently under the ludicrous notion that a stuck socket results from poor maintenance... Whatever, Hans!
Those of us who have used socket sets, unlike the "Bachelor of Fine Arts" grad, realized that the question was, quite literally, how to take the head off a ratchet – in other words, how to take the darned thing apart. There are actually instructions on the 'net for disassembling a ratchet, instructions such as this set from the FamilyHandyman.com – never mind that it's Reader's Digest, it's still better than what Fredrick published!

In truth, ratchets are typically held together with spring clips that can be removed to disassemble a ratchet. Although that's not "get[ting] the head off a socket wrench," a competent tool user would have been able to figure out that was what an incompetent tool user wanted to know.

Unfortunately, anyone who stumbles across Fredrick's entry, will end up with instructions such as,

• "Step 3: Clamp the handle of the socket wrench carefully in a vise. Wrap the tool with several wraps with a rag if you're worried about scoring the tool in the jaws of the vise."
• "Step 4: Tighten a crescent wrench or monkey wrench around the socket or use a pair of pliers to get a strong grip on it. Again, wrap it in fabric if you're worried about biting into the tool. Pull as hard as you can until you separate the tools."

Really? Socket wrench owners are worried about "scoring the tool"? And this putz thinks you could tighten a Crescent® wrench¹ around a socket? Does he not know they're round???

In the real world, most mechanics simply whack the socket on a cement floor a time or two to loosen a stuck socket. That's what our Dumbass of the Day should have said about removing a stuck socket... but, of course, that wasn't the topic in the first place. Sheesh.

¹ We must assume that Hans was referring to an adjustable wrench, beloved of eHow's less knowledgeable contributors, since Crescent is a brand and not a description...

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