So, to finish off my Sunday night posting frenzy, here's a little education for everyone. I got to thinking tonight, "How in the world does a torque wrench work?".
My first thought, of course, was "little magical gnomes live in the wrench head, measuring torque by how many of their gnome brethren have been sucked into the bearings in the wrench (this would also explain why the wrenches wear out. I don't know that they do ever 'wear out', but I'd like to think they would with this model of operation). When the proper torque is achieved, they invoke a mystical spirit to make the wrench handle slip in the hands of the giant creature (read: you) doing the torquing."
Nope, that wasn't it.
This is how it works, or at least that's the best explanation I can find via google and askjeeves, and I'm going to accept it as fact.
I'm always amazed at how simple these things are. I build them up to be some magical device with a bazillion intricate parts that each perform some miniscule arcane function, culminating in a perfectly working machine. What do I find out in the end? A ball on a spring. Now that's engineering.
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