Gentlemen,
After seeing Chris's mini ratchet wrench I had to make one. I went to the Wiha website and ordered all the small Imperial size sockets. As it was they were all on sale. I wanted to have it ratchet both directions so I took my 1/4 inch drive Craftsman ratchet apart and started measuring all the parts. Once I had everything drawn I scaled it by 1/2 which made the overall length 2.60 inches long.
The ratchet wheel blank was drilled in the corners then through the center. This gave me a close approximation of the hex size for the sockets. (4mm) I then filed the corners out and fitted each socket into the wheel blank. The ratchet teeth were duplicated in scale by cutting with a home made V cutter. The ratchet wheel has 36 teeth. I drew up the ratchet selector pawl and planned out the machining steps to duplicate it in 1/2 size. The handle is made from aluminum. I drilled the necessary holes and then bored for the ratchet wheel and pawl. This was done on the mill. I then mounted it in the 4 jaw chuck in the lathe and indicated the hole true and flat. This was to cut the slot for the 3/8 inch retaining clip. The handle is through drilled for a rod with a ball end to sit against the pawl. This was made from drill rod and the ball tip was hardened. On the other end I silver soldered a washer for a spring to sit against. On top of the spring is a follower rod which is held in place with a 5-40 set screw at the end of the handle. The small selector lever was machined and fixed to the pawl shaft with a 0-80 flat head Phillips screw. To hold the sockets in place I tapped the ratchet wheel for a 2-56 socket head set screw. This only retains the socket as the hex does the driving.