Torque Wrenches - my answer... (holy smokes!)

[KUNZ,BOB (HP-Boise,ex1)]

Monstrous Martians forced rob hod to type out the following:
> 
>   Well this has had one hell of a build up, viewpoints have become
> entrenched yet incredibly diverse.

Sorry I started the whole thing...

> 
>   Any chance of a live video feed of the great experiment?, Well worth
> cracking a beer over and selecting favorite armchair.

I did this experiment again last night and even confirmed the cosine/sine
reduction when not in-line. Here's what I did. I could take pics but that
will just show you how I set things up. You'll have to trust me for the
actual values.

I happen to have a long open end wrench with 1/2 and 7/16 ends. A 7/16 open
end wrench fits nicely on a 3/8 square drive. The torque wrench I used is a
dial type and the bolt is a standard 1/2 inch head (I think that makes it a
5/16" bolt). The wrench (extension) is longer than the torque wrench
amplifying the equation for this demonstration. I got exactly the predicted
torque multiplication.

Here's the nice part, the cosine of 90 is zero, so if you attempt to attach
the torque wrench at 90 degrees and apply torque, guess what? You can try
all you want, but zero torque is transmitted to the bolt. Well not quite
zero, because getting exactly 90 degrees is hard.

--bob