A torque wrench is something expensive but probably very useful to install optics on our guns.

I was at home today and had some free time so I tried to build up a torque wrench.

I used 2 ball bearings and two 1/4" bit holders.

In my wrench lever length is 6 inches, if you put 2.5lbs of water in the bottle you get 15in lbs of torque when lever is horizontal.

How to use this wrench ? Hold the lever horizontal and insert the hex bit in the screw head. If lever rotates (clockwise) it means wanted torque value wasn't reached.
Remove the bit from the screw, put the lever horizonal and start again.
When lever remain level it means you have reached wanted torque value.

Otherway you can leave the lever vertical (zero torque)insert the hex bit in the screwhead and rotate your gun counterclockwise till the lever will go horizontal (just mount this wrench on a table so that you can freely rotate your gun)

I used ball bearings to hold the bit holder but you could use a bicycle freewheel instead. So you could easily bring the lever back horizontal without removing the bit from the screw head.

You have too much free time. A FAT wrench costs $40 and can be used at any angle. Won't spill water on the carpet either. Seriously though, some homemade things just aren't worth the effort even as a mind exercise.

quote:

Originally posted by Ozzie:
You have too much free time. A FAT wrench costs $40 and can be used at any angle. Won't spill water on the carpet either. Seriously though, some homemade things just aren't worth the effort even as a mind exercise.

Well a professional torque wrench costs about 150$ in the USA (CDI torque tools for instance), about 200$ in Italy.

A $40 torque wrench is not a professional tool and I have some doubts about it's accuracy.

And even if it was accurate enough the Wheeler Engineering FAT, which is about $40 in the USA, is being sold for more than 80$ +shipping in Italy and you have to wait more than 2 weeks to have it.

My wrench costed $0 and less than 1 hour of work