Socket wrench
Some lesser known hybrid drivers include striking wrench tools with square drive, and hydraulic impact wrenches (typically powered by on site hydraulic power such as present with military tanks, and many rail car applications).
The basic contemporary form of socket is hexagonal, referred to as "6-point" for the pointed intersections where its six solid sided facets meet.
Sockets are commonly available in fractional inch and metric sizes, and in short (shallow) and longer (deep) varieties.
[1][2] Square heads and sockets were the easiest to make in the era when hand filing was the typical method of manufacture.
With the proliferation of modern manufacturing methods it became just as easy to make hex heads and sockets as square ones.
A number of other specialized ratchets—with hammer heads, multiple drive sizes, and other unusual features—are built by various manufacturers.
A second major variety of compressed air powered tools are impact wrenches which are used for common tasks such as lug nuts on wheels.
They are typically finished in black oxide rather than the usual chrome plating of the hand-tool variety.
These less common shapes are typically found in special applications or particular industries such as aircraft, PVC plumbing fittings or German and UK made automobiles.
With rail cars, valve adjustment screws and pipe plugs, the 4-point square shaped driver can still be found in wide use both male and female configurations.
Nuts and bolt heads are also produced in 12-point double hexagon shapes and various types of splines, more common to aircraft and aerospace applications.
socket that attaches to damaged bolts of both metric and fractional inch sizes for removal.
Chrome plated sockets are not suitable as the impact wrench may break the chrome plating, which can form razor sharp flakes - consequently impact sockets use different coatings - often a black phosphate conversion coating, or black oxide.
Because the standards allow for some flexibility in tolerances, it is common to see two manufacturers make deep sockets of the same size but with slightly different depths even though both meet the same specification.
Standard length, otherwise known as "shallow" sockets, have a lower profile and allow a user to access nuts in narrow spaces.
Although most manufacturers offer only those sizes and depths described within the common ANSI or DIN specifications, some exceptions do exist.
Lowes calls their socket system Xtreme Access, etc.. Ratcheting box end wrenches can often be employed in the same application, but will nearly always be significantly wider.
Common male bit drivers of this type include Allen hex wrenches (in both metric and fractional inch sizes), Torx (T-3 through T-50) spline wrenches, 4-point (square), and 12-point (triple square) male bit drivers.
