On Fri, 17 May 2019 18:33:44 -0600, rbowman wrote:

> I realize that there are criteria that result in different designs but
> the engineer in me is offended when the main criteria seems to being
> slightly different from the other company's design. I have a collection
> of oil filter cap wrenches, all of which are almost, but not quite, the
> same. Even if the filter itself is for the same applications the
> different manufacturers have to march to their own drummer.

Hi rbowman,

I agree with you that simply having a different size for no good reason
than to make it incompatible with others, is a marketing sham.

We should strive to not fall prey to those shams, where, I admit, I must
have a dozen different oil filter wrenches myself, from the cap type to the
strap type for my non-BMW vehicles (the bimmer has a different kind of oil
filter setup).

I just snapped this picture of my disassembled chucks, where you'll note
two things of related import.
<<https://i.postimg.cc/nVPJC1Sy/valve11.jpg>>

One is that only the middle (brand new) chuck even _has_ a spring, which
may be why I'm unhappy with the oldest chuck from the 1970s's when I bought
the compressor to paint my old Japanese sports car.

I have no idea where the spring went, where it's impossible that anyone
else has ever had possession of the chuck - so - maybe - perhaps - decades
ago - I may have taken it apart and somehow - perhaps - lost the spring?

I can't see the spring leaving on its own.

I could have sworn that I would have had the right sized spring in my box
of things, but a look there found everything but the right sized springs.
Since I take apart EVERYTHING that breaks, I am surprised I didn't save
more of the springs - but alas - I'll have to buy some since I see now that
the real problem with the chuck was that I didn't know how to repair it.
(And I hate waste - where I feel too many people waste our earth's limited
resources by throwing them out instead of fixing them.)

Anyway, the second thing is that the fittings I have on hand are from a
batch I bought from HF on sale perhaps a year or two ago, where the red
label says that they're "Industrial 1/4 inch Brass NPT M" fittings by a
company named "Kobalt" with a SKU of "8 79686 00455 4"

A google search finds this:
<https://partairtoolo.com/879686004554>

I guess that means my fitting "type" is "Industrial", whatever that tells
us.

Pretty much, that means I need to _only_ get "Industrial" fittings when I
need new ones, where the old ones don't ever wear out - but they seem to
hide with the socks.