Three-Way Wrench 4, 5, 6mm Straight Tip Hex

Stem clamps at torque. Seatpost binders the moment the post starts to slip. The medium-hex sizes on a Y-handle when the bolt needs to be tight and the ball-tip format has reached the end of its working range.

The straight-tip cluster is the finishing tool for the 4, 5, and 6 mm hex sizes. Where a ball-tip wrench engages the recess on a small contact patch and works at angle, a straight-tip drops square into the recess on the full hex flat and transmits torque on the whole working surface. On bolts past about 8 Nm of working torque (most stem face-plates, every seatpost binder we've seen, every crank pinch bolt), the straight-tip is the right tool. Reach for the ball-tip first, switch to straight-tip for the snug-down.

The shanks are chrome-vanadium steel, hardened and tempered. Tips are black-oxide treated for a clean fit into the hex recess. The glass-fibre-reinforced polypropylene handle is the same geometry as the ball-tip Y-handle in the line, so the two tools feel identical in the hand and the switchover between them is one motion at the bench.

What it's for

4 mm straight-tip is the right finish for stem face-plate bolts (typically 5 Nm on aluminum bars, lower on carbon depending on the bar's published spec) and brake-lever clamps. 5 mm covers seatpost binder bolts and stem steerer-clamp bolts, both of which need to hold a slipping interface under load. 6 mm is the size for disc-brake caliper-mount bolts (which see thermal cycling and benefit from the full-flat engagement of a straight-tip) and some older-design chainring bolts.

Specs

• 4, 5, 6 mm straight-tip hex sizes on a three-arm Y-handle
• Chrome-vanadium steel shanks, hardened and tempered
• Black-oxide tip treatment for corrosion resistance and recess fit
• Trivalent chrome plating to ISO 1456:2009 on the non-tip shank surfaces
• Glass-fibre-reinforced polypropylene handle
• Hex keys manufactured to the ISO 2936 dimensional standard for metric hex keys
• Manufactured in Slovenia

Built in Zreče, Slovenia

Unior has been forging hand tools in Zreče since 1919, and sponsors professional road and mountain-bike race teams. The straight-tip Y-handle is the finishing tool in our shop's hex kit, paired with the ball-tip Y-handle for angled-access work and the long-arm L-keys for high-leverage pulls.

Pro tip from our mechanics

The straight-tip Y-handle takes a stem face-plate bolt to about 80% of its working torque comfortably. For the final 20% on a published spec (say, 5 Nm on an aluminum bar with carbon-bar tolerance below), you want a torque wrench. The Y-handle gets you there fast; a torque wrench gets you there to spec.

For the hex sizes the Y-handle covers vs. the sizes that demand a long-arm L-key, and where the working-torque crossover lives between ball-tip and straight-tip: Hex and Torx wrenches: how to pick the right tool for the job →.