I agree with leathermang---let it cool naturally. I have heated and formed a number of tools with a sharp right angle bend---works real well.

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K. Weimer
300SD (1)
300D (5) [Plus 1 parts]
300SEL 4.5 (2)
280SE (4)
280 (2)
250 (1)
250SE (1)
240D (7) [Plus 1 parts]
220D (11) [Plus 3 parts]
200D (2) [Plus 1 parts]
180c (with sunroof)

1995 Nissan UD1800 rollback
"If I can't fix it, it don't get fixed"

leathermang,

Thanks for the offer. I ended up making shims to go between the hinges and the door to move the door rearward. I won't have to use up any of the dust after all.

Thanks for the offer,

This is not smithing. This is taking a piece of so called steel and doing what you want with it. Metalurgy aside .....bend it.

Wolfgang, you sound omnipotent... however, the rest of us have to allow for the physics of what we are working with... and quenching without taking it back up to a heat to take the brittleness out could cause problems on other items... probably not this one but the concept needed to be mentioned with regards to heating and bending metal in general... And some tools will not take this tight a bend without cracking if not heated...but that is something you only find out after it is too late ...

Greg, you are right but remember- he also ground the thickness of the wrench to a thinner spec to fit on the skinny nut which undoubtedely destroyed the original hardening that the factory wrench had. If it was a Rockwell C @ 40 its now @ 25. The thing will probably bend at the jaws before ever breaking at the water quenched bend.

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Orland Park, IL
1985 300SD 215,000 miles

there are three steps in making a decent bent wrench.First bring it up to a medium red heat and make bend.
second(hardening) lay bent wrench on fire brick play torch over it evenly till you get a good even cheery red pick it up with pliers and quench it in a can of light oil. Wrench will be very hard and brittle now and will have dark fire scale on it.
Step three (tempering) wire brush or sand some of the fire scale off till you have a spot of shiny steel showing ,put wrench back on fire brick and very slowly heat it till bright spot turns straw color quench it again in oil, wrench should be hard and tough now.

note there are many different alloys of steel, oil hardening, water hardening, and air hardening plus exoctic types, but the method Iv'e discribed shoul work on most wrenchs.......
William Rogers....

The only thing that I've noticed about Craftsman tools...

Is that Sears is getting more devious about advertising the "Craftsman" name. I've noticed a lot of their lower end tools say "Sears" , or some other name.

I've got 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2" drive sockets. I decided to stop messing with "Made In Taiwan" a while ago.

The 1/2" drive is kept in the trunk for a lug wrench.

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83 SD 143 K miles
93 Grand Caravan 130K miles
92 Buick Regal (winter car)

I bought a set of SEARS Japanese BF wrenches,
years ago and never had any problem (except for the 12 MM I lost) Sears doen't carry those anymore as Japan has been replaced by cheaper stuff from Taiwan and China (although, Taiwan quality has improved).
All of the CRAFTSMAN hand tools I've seen recently were still made in USA.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW