Confessions of a tool junkie

[Tim Hall]

oh, and we saw Dom from The Repair Shop tv prog.

He's got a series on YouTube about recreating an English Wheel (a gadget made of skill and magic used for shaping panels). Castings! Sand! Patterns!

[robgul]

oh, and we saw Dom from The Repair Shop tv prog.

He's got a series on YouTube about recreating an English Wheel (a gadget made of skill and magic used for shaping panels). Castings! Sand! Patterns!

Yep - it's the highlight of my Sunday evening YouTube viewing 

[andytheflyer]

Garden shredder acquired at an auction (a real, live one not the ebay) - bit of a bargain as it's as new but cost 15% of the new price       Works a treat if a bit noisy, takes stuff up to about 40mm - downside is just more space is used up in the shed storing it.

We have two. Both Bosch. The first uses a Archimedes screw thing to crush quite large branches etc into bits. It bogs down and gets bunged up and stuck with green or sot stuff though. We've had it for 15 years or so and its now scruffy but just keeps going. The second is one with a spinning blade. This doesn't do thick branches but will mince any soft of green matter nicely. Luckily I have a fairly big (if dilapidated) shed.

I have what I think must be the same Bosch garden shredders.  The Archimedes screw is no longer available - I've changed mine 2 or 3 times over the years and they are great bits of kit, but mine's on its last legs now because the screw is getting blunt.
So I bought the version with the short spinning blade - works well but the on off switch packed up after only a few weeks and sending it back was too much hassle so I've bodged a work-around until I get around to fitting a new switch.  They do take up a lot of space in my shed though.....

[rogerzilla]

I got a new 26.0 hand reamer from the Bay of Thieves for a tenner.  Great for sorting out the (usually horrid) Moulton F frame seatpost fit.  I do like reamers generally, and other cutting tools like facers.

[T42]

Last week I went into our nearest DIY emporium needing a small sliding spanner and came out with the aforesaid, two ratchet ring spanners with hinged heads and a butane weed-burner. Then had to get a butane cylinder and a piezo gas-lighter because I got the cheapskate burner for 50€ instead of the piezo-equipped one for >100€.

[T42]

Forgive me, Fadder, for I have sinned...  Went into same shop as above for a litre of white spirit and emerged with this as well:



Rationale: the sockets will fit my torque wrench.

[quixoticgeek]

The Bahco ones are pretty good for the price I have a couple

In the end I went for a Bahco one. It works great. Very happy with the purchase.

J

[robgul]

Set of 6 "screwdriver straight handle" Allen keys  1.5 thru 4mm -  probably crap as they only cost £1 plus £3.50 postage from Amazon - but as I only want the 4mm for a one off job that's fine.   They replace the spangly set of similar RS keys that I've progressively lost over the past 40 or so years.

My set of Park Tool T-handles remain the wrench of choice 

[robgul]

Another new toy today - a rail-square that attaches to the rail of my tracksaw making it simpler to make square cuts (although I do have an MFT and dogs/clamps that also work for accurate cuts)    It's the one recommended by Dennis at Hooked on wood on YT.

... and I've had to buy a Shimano cassette lockring tool - I need one with a 12 or 13mm hole to be able to work on e-bikes with solid axles - my faithful Park Tool one has a centre pin for hollow axles.  More expense.

[Pingu]

...a rail-square that attaches to the rail of my tracksaw making it simpler to make square cuts (although I do have an MFT and dogs/clamps that also work for accurate cuts)...

OK, those words individually mostly make sense, but grouped together like that 

[robgul]

...a rail-square that attaches to the rail of my tracksaw making it simpler to make square cuts (although I do have an MFT and dogs/clamps that also work for accurate cuts)...

OK, those words individually mostly make sense, but grouped together like that 

Ah - watching the first 90 seconds or so of   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-yadqhZshs   will make sense - you'll see the rail square and an MFT (bench with holes in it!)

[T42]

Bought an Einhell impact driver after watching this:

https://youtu.be/FMNTZ2Tu5wY

A couple of semi-dodgy points but on the whole favourable. I only need it to drive the 100+ screws I'll need to build a new door for our barn and after that it doesn't matter.  Already tried it and it drives in screws like a bastard, about a second for a 6-cm ø 6-mm screw.

Nice point: the battery from my chain saw, an own-brand effort from a French DIY chain, is compatible with it.

[MattH]

Bought a Makita DTW1002 impact wrench (1000Nm continuous, 1600Nm nut breaking) as my corded Clarke one (450Nm) struggled a bit on some things. I already have 18V Makita kit so could just buy the bare tool.

I should have bought one years ago! Being cordless it's not a faff to get it out and have it where I need it - I didn't use the mains one much as I had to run an extension cable to use it. Rotating the wheels on the camper, jack it up, rattle gun them off, rattle gun back up with a medium torque set, final torque with a torque wrench. Very fast and easy, even tough stuff is no wrist strain.

Taking the wheels off my motorbike to get new tyres, get the bike on the stands and whip off the bolts. No straining on a breaker bar with the bike still on the ground, bike didn't move at all even on stands.

Eldest son used it to disassemble the suspension on his Disco to replace lower arms, again just worked on stuff that his air impact wrench wouldn't touch.

I am genuinely impressed. Not cheap, but makes jobs so easy - and nuts you think are never going to move just spin off.

[robgul]

Bought an Einhell impact driver after watching this:

https://youtu.be/FMNTZ2Tu5wY

A couple of semi-dodgy points but on the whole favourable. I only need it to drive the 100+ screws I'll need to build a new door for our barn and after that it doesn't matter.  Already tried it and it drives in screws like a bastard, about a second for a 6-cm ø 6-mm screw.

Nice point: the battery from my chain saw, an own-brand effort from a French DIY chain, is compatible with it.

Another rave vote for the Einhell impact driver - superb for the money - and over the past 6 or 8 months I've upgraded/swapped out/sold other corded and battery tool to Einhell stuff - with the obvious common battery platform benefit. 

You need to shop around as prices and deals (e.g. "free battery") are many and varied across suppliers.

[T42]

That's nice to know, thanks.  Re batteries, the compatible Bricomarché one seems to have a fantastic shelf life as well: I hadn't used it for a couple of years but it still showed 3/3 lights on the charge indicator.

[T42]

Now looking for an excuse to get the Einhell 18v circular saw. Doing the barn door I'll be working on a ladder and a dangling flex would be a nuisance, but so far I can think of only 3 cuts I'd need it for.

ETA: Oops. Was in DIY shop and happened to notice that their own-brand saw looked [un]surprisingly like the Einhell but cost around 25€ less, so it just sorta fell into the trolley. 

Then we went on to Aldi and I noticed that their own-brand saw looked just like the one I'd just bought but was 20€ less again. Oh well.

Tried the saw at home: noisy (need to check blade retaining screw tight enough) but efficient.

[Mrs Pingu]

My little tiny Bosch ratchet driver thingy came today. Of course I don't have any annoying doorknobs to replace at the moment...

[robgul]

Now looking for an excuse to get the Einhell 18v circular saw. Doing the barn door I'll be working on a ladder and a dangling flex would be a nuisance, but so far I can think of only 3 cuts I'd need it for.

ETA: Oops. Was in DIY shop and happened to notice that their own-brand saw looked [un]surprisingly like the Einhell but cost around 25€ less, so it just sorta fell into the trolley. 

Then we went on to Aldi and I noticed that their own-brand saw looked just like the one I'd just bought but was 20€ less again. Oh well.

Tried the saw at home: noisy (need to check blade retaining screw tight enough) but efficient.

. . . ah but is that YABF?    (Yet Another Battery Platform) -  Casual DIY on YT has just done a video on the pitfalls of numerous different brand battery tools

[T42]

Now looking for an excuse to get the Einhell 18v circular saw. Doing the barn door I'll be working on a ladder and a dangling flex would be a nuisance, but so far I can think of only 3 cuts I'd need it for.

ETA: Oops. Was in DIY shop and happened to notice that their own-brand saw looked [un]surprisingly like the Einhell but cost around 25€ less, so it just sorta fell into the trolley. 

Then we went on to Aldi and I noticed that their own-brand saw looked just like the one I'd just bought but was 20€ less again. Oh well.

Tried the saw at home: noisy (need to check blade retaining screw tight enough) but efficient.

. . . ah but is that YABF?    (Yet Another Battery Platform) -  Casual DIY on YT has just done a video on the pitfalls of numerous different brand battery tools

Nope, I made sure it used the same battery as the impact driver and our chainsaw.  They're all made by ISC GmbH, in Bavaria.

[robgul]

Now looking for an excuse to get the Einhell 18v circular saw. Doing the barn door I'll be working on a ladder and a dangling flex would be a nuisance, but so far I can think of only 3 cuts I'd need it for.

ETA: Oops. Was in DIY shop and happened to notice that their own-brand saw looked [un]surprisingly like the Einhell but cost around 25€ less, so it just sorta fell into the trolley. 

Then we went on to Aldi and I noticed that their own-brand saw looked just like the one I'd just bought but was 20€ less again. Oh well.

Tried the saw at home: noisy (need to check blade retaining screw tight enough) but efficient.

. . . ah but is that YABF?    (Yet Another Battery Platform) -  Casual DIY on YT has just done a video on the pitfalls of numerous different brand battery tools

Nope, I made sure it used the same battery as the impact driver and our chainsaw.  They're all made by ISC GmbH, in Bavaria.

Interesting - ALDI here has just been making a big thing about all their cordless tools all being on the same battery format - there is hope!

[T42]

Tools, not exactly, but took delivery yesterday of 68 metres of 25 x 195 mm of autoclaved pine boards to build a new barn door with.  I now need to cook up a batch of iron acetate & tea to "age" it before giving it a coat of something brownish to match the remaining door.  At the supermarket I found a wondrous 3-litre preserving jar to put it in, but it's so beautiful I don't have the heart to muck it up.

The doorway being ~4 metres high and my sense of balance being a bit dodgy these days I want to rig myself a safety line, and to that end have bought some "pig's tail" hooks to screw into the very hefty oak beam over the door. (The hooks I have are bigger and the thread is longer on mine.)  I'm wondering if I should put them in horizontally or screw them up from under the beam.  From what I can remember from the school gym they should be OK vertical, but horizontal would probably be better.  However, I only have 4 and I need to work on both sides of the beam, and 4 vertical hooks would give me better coverage.  I'll be using them for a hoist as well.

Ideas?

[robgul]

Tools, not exactly, but took delivery yesterday of 68 metres of 25 x 195 mm of autoclaved pine boards to build a new barn door with.  I now need to cook up a batch of iron acetate & tea to "age" it before giving it a coat of something brownish to match the remaining door.  At the supermarket I found a wondrous 3-litre preserving jar to put it in, but it's so beautiful I don't have the heart to muck it up.

The doorway being ~4 metres high and my sense of balance being a bit dodgy these days I want to rig myself a safety line, and to that end have bought some "pig's tail" hooks to screw into the very hefty oak beam over the door. (The hooks I have are bigger and the thread is longer on mine.)  I'm wondering if I should put them in horizontally or screw them up from under the beam.  From what I can remember from the school gym they should be OK vertical, but horizontal would probably be better.  However, I only have 4 and I need to work on both sides of the beam, and 4 vertical hooks would give me better coverage.  I'll be using them for a hoist as well.

Ideas?

   

I had to think about what "autoclaved pine" might be - presumably "pressure treated" is the same thing?

[hatler]

Tools, not exactly, but took delivery yesterday of 68 metres of 25 x 195 mm of autoclaved pine boards to build a new barn door with.  I now need to cook up a batch of iron acetate & tea to "age" it before giving it a coat of something brownish to match the remaining door.  At the supermarket I found a wondrous 3-litre preserving jar to put it in, but it's so beautiful I don't have the heart to muck it up.

The doorway being ~4 metres high and my sense of balance being a bit dodgy these days I want to rig myself a safety line, and to that end have bought some "pig's tail" hooks to screw into the very hefty oak beam over the door. (The hooks I have are bigger and the thread is longer on mine.)  I'm wondering if I should put them in horizontally or screw them up from under the beam.  From what I can remember from the school gym they should be OK vertical, but horizontal would probably be better.  However, I only have 4 and I need to work on both sides of the beam, and 4 vertical hooks would give me better coverage.  I'll be using them for a hoist as well.

Ideas?

Two hooks either side near the ends of the beam inserted horizontally. Then rig up a strop that latches on to all four and which you can then dangle from ?

[T42]

Tools, not exactly, but took delivery yesterday of 68 metres of 25 x 195 mm of autoclaved pine boards to build a new barn door with.  I now need to cook up a batch of iron acetate & tea to "age" it before giving it a coat of something brownish to match the remaining door.  At the supermarket I found a wondrous 3-litre preserving jar to put it in, but it's so beautiful I don't have the heart to muck it up.

The doorway being ~4 metres high and my sense of balance being a bit dodgy these days I want to rig myself a safety line, and to that end have bought some "pig's tail" hooks to screw into the very hefty oak beam over the door. (The hooks I have are bigger and the thread is longer on mine.)  I'm wondering if I should put them in horizontally or screw them up from under the beam.  From what I can remember from the school gym they should be OK vertical, but horizontal would probably be better.  However, I only have 4 and I need to work on both sides of the beam, and 4 vertical hooks would give me better coverage.  I'll be using them for a hoist as well.

Ideas?

Two hooks either side near the ends of the beam inserted horizontally. Then rig up a strop that latches on to all four and which you can then dangle from ?

Sorry Hatler, didn't see this last week. The trouble with rigging a horizontal rope to hook onto is that the tension set up in the horizontal by a weight in the middle is much higher than if the weight is suspended from a vertical rope: https://dewwool.com/the-formula-for-tension-in-a-rope-at-an-angle/

In the meantime I've acquired a couple more hooks and I'll work with a couple of safety lines I can transfer between.

[Mrs Pingu]

After attempting to install some chemical anchors in the garage y'day and failing I have ordered an SDS drill. I didn't realise before that they weren't all 7kg behemoths like my brother's one, so I have ordered one hopefully more suitable for a weak and feeble woman. (Yes, and some bits and ear defenders).