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Debate with my lead mechanic about torque wrenches vs feel
My lead said you can get close enough just by feel on non-critical bolts, but I saw a guy snap a landing gear bolt last month at LAX that way. Do you trust the click or your hand on most jobs?
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scott.jana15d ago
Oh boy here we go again. Feel is not the enemy, people just suck at using it. If you've been turning wrenches for 20 years your hand knows way more than some factory torque spec written by an engineer who's never touched a bolt. That guy who snapped the landing gear bolt was probably in a hurry and not paying attention, not because he used feel instead of a clicker. I've seen guys with torque wrenches still mess stuff up too, like when they don't calibrate them and overtorque everything. Feel gives you that real time feedback about how the bolt is acting, not just blind trust in a tool.
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wendyk5615d ago
Yeah I had this same fight with my old foreman back at the hangar in Phoenix. He was all about the feel method for control cables and said I was wasting time with the torque wrench. Watched him overtorque a nut on a flap actuator once and strip the threads. Had to drill it out and re-tap the whole bracket, set us back half a shift. After that I just started keeping the clicker on me for anything with a torque spec written in the manual, even if he grumbled. Saved me more than once when I felt that click right at the limit instead of guessing.
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