Let's discuss the 10mm socket

Why is it so popular and why is it always MIA?

Too easy to loose, too used to leave alone. 

Dumbasses like me use it often and therefore lose it often. The entire internet, myself included, must have the organizational skills of a papaya. 

I haven't used a 10mm on my new-to-me truck yet and its kinda freaking me out. 

For whatever reason, it's the 13mm that I'm always losing.

They're mischievous tools. Rarely are they lost; instead they like to hide for 15 minutes or so and watch you frantically backtrack your steps until you find it right where you thought it was the *last* time it decided to hide.

Small enough to easily lose, used commonly enough that it increases the chance of "misplacing" it

Kincrome got in on the joke and decided to help us all out...

Must be somewhere in engineering school that they teach you that the ideal way to attach items is with 10mm hardware. Just the ideal balance of strength, size, and weight for so many items.

Daylan C said:

Dumbasses like me use it often and therefore lose it often. The entire internet, myself included, must have the organizational skills of a papaya. 

Papaya guts are sticky, maybe try using one to hold your sockets?

Never lost one.  Ever. 

Magic.

In reply to Pete Gossett :

I must confess that I now realize that I was picturing a plantain when I said papaya. Still you suggestion is valid and will be taken under consideration.

thatsnowinnebago said:

I haven't used a 10mm on my new-to-me truck yet and its kinda freaking me out. 

Don't worry, the minute you do find a 10mm fastener you need to remove, every 10mm socket in the county will disappear.

You can buy them in bulk off the tool trucks.

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HF gets it.  I was browsing the local store and saw this.  They don't sell individual wrenches or sockets normally, but they do sell these.  It's the ONLY individual regular socket they sell that I know of.

A couple years ago I bought a bulk bag of them for cheap from somewhere online. So now I have over 20, 10mm 3/8” drive sockets.

Of course I haven’t lost one since.

aircooled said:

HF gets it.  I was browsing the local store and saw this.  They don't sell individual wrenches or sockets normally, but they do sell these.  It's the ONLY individual regular socket they sell that I know of.

 

And 10 lb-ft of torque will turn one into an "open end" socket :P

Tom_Spangler said:

For whatever reason, it's the 13mm that I'm always losing.

Yeah, I seem to lose the 13mm more than the 10mm.

My current socket set I bought in 2002. It still has all the sockets. I have lost a couple tools, but they are all somewhere in the mud under my dock. A HF prybar is one. I try to only use certain tools on dock related work just in case.

I always lose my 13mm box end. And Phillips drivers. 

13mm is easy to lose because 13mm is not a real size, and any OEM who uses it is a dick. Thus when you do need to dig it out, it's been so long since it last saw daylight that it's hiding somewhere in the corner of the metric socket drawer. 

I actually found a Snap On 10 mm 1/4 drive socket the other day. It was never mine, but it was within 5 feet of where I was using mine on my X1/9, outdoors next to the shop building. It had patina too.

Am I right in assuming 13mm seems to be European (German?) and 12mm is Japanese?

Aircooled VW are full of 13’s, Japanese cars seem to use 12’s for half the bolts and nuts.

My dad gave me a Matco 10mm that he found in his car. The other 10mm socket I have is also not original to the set.

My box end set has been missing a wrench for years, either a 14mm or 13mm, I never bother to check because I never need the one that's missing. Kinda freaks me out because I must have needed it at some point.

10mm and 13mm. Use them so much they go flying into places to bever return. 

I never looked at a 10mm socket as something you can actually "own". Sure, you can pay for them.  But are they really yours? They are in the class of creatures like a cat or our now semi tame  orphan squirrels we raised after hurricane Irma. They come and go.