I dropped $60 on a lens spanner set from Amazon and it was worse than useless

That cheap spanner from China bent on the first helicoid I tried to adjust on an old Pentax 50mm. The tips are too soft and they don't grip worth a damn if you have any grease in there. Has anyone found a spanner under $100 that actually holds up to real use?

2 comments

2 Comments

felix1551mo ago

The problem is less about price and more about what kind of spanner you're buying. You can spend $80 on a nice-looking metal set and it's still got the wrong tip shape for old grease. Most of those cheap sets use hardened steel that's too brittle, they snap before they bend. You really need a spanner with replaceable hardened tips, the kind where the actual point is a separate piece. That Pentax helicoid grease is like tar if it's been sitting for 40 years, no cheap spanner is going to cut through it without slipping or bending.

nancy_davis1mo ago

Replaceable tips on a spanner wrench sounds like overkill for cleaning out some old grease. I've watched guys use a standard pin spanner with a little heat from a heat gun and it works fine without any snapping. The cheap sets might be brittle if you're torquing them like an ape, but if you go slow and steady they usually hold up okay. Seems like people get too caught up in needing special tools for every little job.