whats 1/4ww mean on a socket?

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odenne said:
Never quite understood why there's 112 lb in a hundredweight??? Why not make it a hundred or call it a hundredntwelveweight? An you sed it were simpler?:confused:
Click to expand...

It's perfectly obvious ...

it is because a hundredweight is four quarters each of 28 pounds, and there are two stones in each quarter, each stone being fourteen pounds. OK?

We had an empire upon which the sun never set when we used Imperial measures. Now we've gone metric, look at the mess we're in.

CharlesY
 
That's ridiculous! Someone will be suggesting a measurement system based on 12 a's in a b (which is split into eighths, sixteenths, thirtytooths etc), 3 b's in a c, 1760 c's in a d and a timing system based on 60th's! Never in my lifetime i tell ya!
 
This dates back to Imperial thread sizes I could wax lyrical on the subject, but a quick answer is the socket would fit a 1/4" whitworth threaded bolt head or nut or a 5/16" BSF which is a finer imperial thread than Whitworth, unfortunately when British Engineering went Metric in the early Seventies both these thread sizes became obsolete together with many others.
the size of socket is determined by the length of the flat of the nut hence on a 1/4" whit cthe length of the flat on the head would be 1/4" on 3/8" it would be 3/8" and so on.

Pongo
 
AF means across flats,so a 1/2 inch AF spanner is half inch across (open ended) for whitworth a 1/4 inch fits a bolt which has a 1/4 dia whitworth thread (same reasoning for BSF . There are two standards of whitworth as at the start of the second world war the bolt head sizes were dropped down one size to save metal.
There is a conversion chart Here to help in selecting spanner sizes.
 
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Still got me full sets of BA, Whit, AF and metric spanners and sockets, including a couple of Armstrong spanners which came from the days when we still had a textiles industry!
 
Oldseadog said:
Still got me full sets of BA, Whit, AF and metric spanners and sockets, including a couple of Armstrong spanners which came from the days when we still had a textiles industry!
Click to expand...
:rolleyes:
us old geezers have been there and done that first time round eh seadog..

like you I still got stuff from way back when,
then the slitty`s first arrived with 12mm bolts and I had to buy MM sockets...;)


and that was for my first scooter, being a geeerman one.
Durkopp Diana Sport 200..

was nearly 16 at the time :rolleyes:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=d....com%2Fforum%2Ftopic108037%3Fpage%3D3;400;300


love my disco, but would love to find another durkopp 200 sport again :)

so advanced for its time, was 12 volt, electric start, had a 100 watt dynastart, would power lots of 12 volt car spotlights at once (did on my scooter) but no worse than a row of roof mounted spots on a landie ;)
 
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I've still got imperial tools that I use myself dating way back to my apprenticeship. Looking at them now its a bit sobering,all those years that have passed and all those firms that used to make the tools that are now just memories.
A few still exist but they now (apart from one) just repackage cheap Chinese tat and sell it on to people who know no better.
I just took in some genuine helicoil kits, according to the stamping on the taps and insertion tools they are made in China.
Rule Britannia?.
 
Britool spanners had the A/F size as part of the spanner part number, which gave some strange numbers when it came to the Whitworth and BSF sizes.

Going back to the original question:

Whitworth was the first 'standard' thread as invented by the guy it is named after.

That series of thread sizes was used up until WWII when a need for some standardisation was introduced, so British Standard Whitworth or BSW was introduced, along with British Standard Fine, a fine thread as its name suggests.

As part of the rationalisation, the spanner sizes were combined so that BSW spanners also correctly fitted BSF bolts as well, but not always in identical sizes, they run a 1/16" out by memory.

So pre-WWII, heads sizes were larger on Whitworth bolts and nuts, and BSW is only used for WWII onwards fasteners.

When I started work in the early 1960's, I had mainly BSW/BSF stuff, but UNF and UNC were coming along quickly, so I added those as well to my toolbox. When I went to Sweden for factory training on Scania trucks in 1971, I had already started adding metric spanners as well. We had a system at the place I worked where you could buy tools and pay them off with so much a week out of your wages, which helped a lot when you were buying the larger spanners in Britool branded stuff.

Eventually I got out of mechanicking due to a bad back, not helped by manhandling damn great engines and gearboxes about! but kept all of my tools.

Most of the Discovery V8's are UNC, most of the injection system is Metric, I haven't come across any BSW or BSF yet.

BA sizes are another weird one, I bought a Britool 1/4" socket set for some ridiculous amount, and it had BA, Metric and A/F or Imperial sizes. Still got that today with most of it still there.

As mentioned earlier by welshlaner, there is a comprehensive set of tables on our websites:

http://www.stationary-engine.co.uk/Tables/Mech1.htm

http://www.oldengine.org/Members/Diesel/Tables/Mech1.htm

Peter
 
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Yep, I've still got some of my AF spanners, mainly ring spanners and my AF socket set. Bought using Greenshield stamps (remember them?). I was always told that AF stood for "American Fred" to differentiate it from proper British bolts. Still got my BA spanners too.

Odd though, even if you use a metricated socket set, the square drive is still 1/4", 3/8", 1/2" or 3/4" for the big stuff. Napoleon didn't get round to metricating that bit.
Kinda like buying a 8x4 foot sheet of 6mm plywood, or worse still, 2.1 metre length of 2x1 (which isn't really).
 
1/4 whit is the only british size i remember using when i used to mess about with cars in the 1980s - as said before it was the battery size

i had a ford cortina which was partly manufactured at dagenham and partly in germany so needed both AF and metric spanners - a nightmare
 
listerdiesel said:
Britool spanners had the A/F size as part of the spanner part number, which gave some strange numbers when it came to the Whitworth and BSF sizes.

Going back to the original question:

Whitworth was the first 'standard' thread as invented by the guy it is named after.

That series of thread sizes was used up until WWII when a need for some standardisation was introduced, so British Standard Whitworth or BSW was introduced, along with British Standard Fine, a fine thread as its name suggests.

As part of the rationalisation, the spanner sizes were combined so that BSW spanners also correctly fitted BSF bolts as well, but not always in identical sizes, they run a 1/16" out by memory.

So pre-WWII, heads sizes were larger on Whitworth bolts and nuts, and BSW is only used for WWII onwards fasteners.

When I started work in the early 1960's, I had mainly BSW/BSF stuff, but UNF and UNC were coming along quickly, so I added those as well to my toolbox. When I went to Sweden for factory training on Scania trucks in 1971, I had already started adding metric spanners as well. We had a system at the place I worked where you could buy tools and pay them off with so much a week out of your wages, which helped a lot when you were buying the larger spanners in Britool branded stuff.

Eventually I got out of mechanicking due to a bad back, not helped by manhandling damn great engines and gearboxes about! but kept all of my tools.

Most of the Discovery V8's are UNC, most of the injection system is Metric, I haven't come across any BSW or BSF yet.

BA sizes are another weird one, I bought a Britool 1/4" socket set for some ridiculous amount, and it had BA, Metric and A/F or Imperial sizes. Still got that today with most of it still there.

As mentioned earlier by welshlaner, there is a comprehensive set of tables on our websites:

http://www.stationary-engine.co.uk/Tables/Mech1.htm

http://www.oldengine.org/Members/Diesel/Tables/Mech1.htm

Peter
Click to expand...

the 2 bolts holding bracket for steering damper to diff are ww on disco 1s
 
I've still got whitworth spanner for my machine tools and for some rail way jobs I do
Much stronger thread form than metric you can feel the extra resistance when tapping a whit hole!
 
Here's a portrait of Joseph Whitworth (1803-1887).



Wouldn't you just want to put his threads on everything?
 
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