by RichD » Sat Nov 17, 2018 9:49 am
There are four possible reasons for stripping the set screws or rounding off the driver. First there are screws that are not hard enough and will strip very easily, I always replace those with high quality screws from Slot Car Corner. Many of the available wrenches are not properly heat treated and will easily round off, on the other hand some wrenches are hard enough, but are too brittle and the tip will snap off if you are not very careful. Finally the driver must be a good fit for the screws, if the tip is just a little too small the risk of damaging it or the screw would be greatly increased.
Wiha and Wera make good drivers for a reasonable price. You can reduce the odds of having a problem if you use a torque limiting driver. For years I used the orange ones that Slot.it sold, those had a tip that was a good compromise between hardness and resistance to breaking off. Those drivers have been replaced with a newer version that I have not tried. My go to wrench is the torque limiting model from Scale Auto. In some cases you may need a wrench for hubless wheels that require a longer than normal shank or something that can poke through a tire that has been glued on the wheel. Some wrenches have replaceable tips, if you get one of those you might also order spare tips.