Cone wrenches look like regular wrenches until you try to use a regular wrench on a hub cone and realize why these exist. The flats on hub cones sit in a narrow gap between the cone and the locknut, and standard wrenches are too thick to fit. Park Tool's SCW-SET.3 includes seven cone wrenches covering the sizes you'll actually encounter on cup-and-cone hubs, from 13mm through 19mm in one-millimeter increments.

The thin-profile heads measure just 2mm thick, letting them slip into the tight spaces where cones live. Once you're in there, the stamped steel construction provides enough rigidity to hold position while you work the locknut with a second wrench. Hub overhauls require this two-wrench technique since you need to hold the cone stationary while tightening or loosening the locknut against it. Trying to do this with box wrenches or adjustable wrenches simply doesn't work because they won't fit the space.

Each wrench in the set gets a different handle color, which sounds like a minor detail until you're reaching into your tool drawer for the 15mm and can grab the blue handle without reading stamped numbers. The vinyl dip coating also keeps the handles comfortable during extended use and prevents them from sliding around on your bench.... Read More