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Common tools and their uses
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bobnorman
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 11:34 am    Post subject: Common tools and their uses Reply with quote

I think we should all be able to relate to these... Laughing


DRILL PRESS:
A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL:
Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, "Oh, shit!"

SKILL SAW:
A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS:
Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER:
An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW:
One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS:
Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH:
Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.

TABLE SAW:
A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK:
Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

BAND SAW:
A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST:
A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER:
Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER:
A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.

PRY BAR:
A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER:
A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent to the object we are trying to hit.

UTILITY KNIFE:
Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use.

Son of a bitch TOOL:
Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling, "Son of a bitch" at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.
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Glenn Premium Member
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 11:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You forgot the BFH.
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bobnorman
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 11:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

BFH- Used to shatter stuck brake drums. Can also be used to flatten thumbnails and underlying bone.
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ROCKOROD71
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 2:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

clap......clap.....clap...clap.clap. clap clap clap clap

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 5:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have used from time to time a Snapgadget. Kinda difficult to describe its application. Comes in really handy when nothing else works. Not related to the Wiffer Deal that I use.
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LeeE
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 07, 2014 6:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Written by Peter Egan in Road & Track 1996

Hammers: Probably the Original Tool, if you exempt (as I always do) a straw stuck down a termite nest in search of food, as used by lower primates and some of the guys who were in my high school shop class. Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer is nowadays used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit. For those with a more accurate sense of aim, the hammer is useful for tapping on oilpans, water pumps and other brittle pot-metal castings to see if we've forgotten to remove one of the bolts, which we have.


•Electric hand drill: Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling rollbar mounting holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that goes to the rear axle.


•Pliers: Used to round off bolt heads.


•Hacksaw: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.


•Vise-Grips: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.


•Oxyacetylene torch: Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (what wife would think to look in there?) because you can never remember to buy lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Fort Campbell.


•Zippo lighter: See Oxyacetylene torch.


•Whitworth sockets: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for hiding 6-month-old Salems from the sort of person who would throw them away for no good reason.


•Drill press: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering against the Rolling Stones poster over the bench-grinder.


•Wire wheel: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes finger-print whorls and hard-earned guitar callouses in about the time it takes you to say, "Django Reinhardt."


•Hydraulic floor jack: Used for lowering a Mustang to the ground after you have installed a set of Ford Motorsports lowered road springs, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front air dam.


•Eight-foot-long Douglas fir 2x4: Used for levering the car upward off the hydraulic floor jack, perhaps.


•Tweezers: A tool for removing wood slivers.


•Phone: Tool for calling your neighbor Chris to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.


•Snap-on gasket scraper: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.


•E-Z Out bolt and stud extractor: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.


•Timing light: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup on crankshaft pulleys.


•Sanyo boombox: An electomechanical device that miraculously allows the lovely Cecilia Bartoli to sing Rossini arias in a garage full of choking paint fumes, which is something she would not normally be inclined to do.


•Two-ton hydraulic engine hoist: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and hydraulic clutch lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.


•Shop manual: A kind of mirror whose smudges and grease stains reflect the true soul of the clean and apparently innocent car standing nearby; the automotive equivalent of a police blotter.


•Shop rags: Composed almost entirely of pink lint, shop rags are essentially a washable version of the shop manual; when laundered at home they add a nice fresh scent to the washer and dryer.


•Craftsman ˝ x 16-in. screwdriver: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.


•Compression gauge: Used during buyer's inspections by overly cautious consumers who do not own a 2-ton hydraulic engine hoist or a Craftsman ˝ x 16-in. screwdriver.


•Outside micrometer: A device for periodically reviewing the meaning of all those little incremental marks on the barrel and trying to remember whether they translate into thousandths or hundred thousandths of an inch and exactly how many decimal places to the right of the period that is, anyway.


•Battery electrolyte tester: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from a car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.


•Metric wrenches: Used on cars from countries whose citizens believe that an acute misunderstanding of the earth's circumference (updated to a unit equal to 1,650,763.3 wavelengths of the orange-red radiation of an isotope of krypton) is a more legitimate and easier–to–visualize form of measurement than the instep of a dead king (as in, “Ludwig, let us pace off those wavelengths again!” Or, “Zut alors! I need to measure the curtains and I have forgotten my isotope of krypton!”). On American and British cars, metric tools are used primarily to round off bolt heads.


•Aviation metal snips: See hacksaw.


•Trouble light: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.


•Phillips screwdriver: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.


•Air compressor: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning powerplant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and rounds them off.


•Grease gun: A messy tool for checking to see if your zirk fittings are still plugged with rust.


•Deep-well sockets: Normally used as piston-pin and wheel-bearing drifts, deep-well sockets are also good for drawing circles when a coffee-can lid would be way too big.


•Toshiba miniature refrigerator: A trouble-free appliance, manufactured to metric standards; used primarily to chill Lotus piston pins down to an easy press-fit while storing up to 12 bottles of Guinness stout, proving once again that Science is really at its best in the service of Art.
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bobnorman
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 07, 2014 8:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I hadn’t seen the full list, too funny. A buddy emailed me what I had posted, didn’t know there was an attributable source, and didn't mean to imply that I had written them.

LeeE wrote:

•E-Z Out bolt and stud extractor: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.

•Trouble light: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.


Laughing Laughing Laughing
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LeeE
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 07, 2014 11:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I didn't mean to imply that you did, I just remembered Egan's article and posted them.
The use of various tools to round off bolt heads and screws are WAY too true.
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morymob
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 8:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Didn't know how versatile my tools were, best laugh in a long time.
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vdubyah73
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 29, 2014 10:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Crescent hammer? Before it became some kind of video game tool.

Bill
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fred69vert
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 01, 2014 11:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I cannot count the times during my 20 year Navy career followed by 16 years as a tech rep for the Navy (electronics tech) that I've had to instruct some young sailor on the difference between #0, #1, #2, and #3 Phillips screwdrivers. (And even #4, which fits the hinge screws on my Beetle.)
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 10:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

cordless drill....aka electric pensil sharpner driver.
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