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Howard-
They’re better in that respect, yes. In fact just after I posted that I looked at the two beam wrenches I also have, one Park, one made in Brum, and the Brum one was out by about 10% at rest. I just tweaked it back by hand. Doesn’t fill me with confidence.
Having said all that, my hand is a pretty good guide, and I can usually torque up pretty accurately by hand over a good range. Practice, I guess.
jj72
The problem with torque wrenches is that outside of the professional aviation or automotive industries, no-one seems to calibrate them. I have two Park and one Shimano/Pro wrenches here and none of them have ever been calibrated since I’ve been here. I worked in the aircraft maintenance industry before and you had to take a wrench from the store (you weren’t allowed to use your own) and then check it out on the test rig before you used it. You had to do this each time you took one out or you’d be on a written warning at first and a formal from then on.
So in short, a bad torque wrench is just as bad, if not worse, than not using one.