MAGNETIC KEEPER ACCESSORY FOR WRENCH SOCKETS

摘要

An accessory (10) for a wrench socket (12) is disclosed including a generally cylindrical magnet (32) secured to a generally cylindrical, nonmagnetic, compressible disk (26) . The disk (26) has a shape having at least portions extending over the inner periphery of the well (14) of the socket (12) and is deformable under force to pass into and snuggly fit within the well (14) and magnetically insulate the magnet (32) from the socket (12). The magnet (32) has a size smaller than the well (14) and is secured to the disk (26) generally concentrically within the well (14), with an air space being created between the magnet (32) and the well (14) for magnetically insulating the magnet (32) from the socket (12) in the most preferred form. The accessory (10) is removably insertable into the socket (12) of any design and model and without need for modification of the socket (12) and captures a fastener (16) slideably received in the well (14) of the socket (12) to magnetically hold the fastener (16) captive in the well (14) as the socket (12) is moved to the fastening location while not magnetizing the socket (12) or the fastener (16) sufficiently to be detrimentally magnetically attracted to metal adjacent to the fastening location. The first face (34) of the magnet (32) is secured to the second face (30) of the disk (26) in a first form. In alternate forms, the magnet (32) is received in a recess (46) formed in the disk (26). The recess (46) is also shown as being frusto-conical in shape and as including an undercut (50) to hold a complementary shaped and sized magnet (32) in the recess (46) without requiring the use of glue or adhesive.