Confessions of a tool junkie

[pcolbeck]

OK I admit it I'm a tool junkie. I love good tools and hate rubbish ones.
Currently I'm slightly obsessed with German screwdrivers and screwdriver bits, Werea and Wiha, so much better than the standard junk. I have a great fondness for ratcheting screwdrivers of all vintages and good adjustable spanners (old Bahco or King Dick) too. I love trawling car boot sales for unloved classic tools, hand planes, files, chisels and the like.

But my favourite  thing of all for some reason is pliers.

I have far too many old Elliot Lucas pliers some restored and some sitting in the box of rusty stuff to be dealt with at some nebulas time in the future. Of the modern ones I like Knippex.
Today Amazon delivered me two pairs of Japanese "Engineer" brand pliers. I had to have these as they just look so great and are unique in that the ridges on the jaws run at 90deg to normal pliers so you can undo sheared off or rusty screws with them. Plus who can resist something named "Neji-sarus" with styling like something out of Star Wars?

Any other tool o'holics ?

[T42]

The missus would say I am, but I never buy anything I don't need.

N.B. variable values of 'need'.

[rogerzilla]

I have a complete set of tools for 1" headsets, including reaming and facing.  They have saved a lot of trouble with headsets that won't adjust properly, and reduced a few JIS forks to ISO.

[essexian]

Am I the only one who cringes a little when their wife goes into their tool box...... I know that sounds sexist but its not meant to. It's simply that I have seen her do strange things with the wrong set of pliers.


And yes, I am more than happy to show her what does what but it's easier to do it myself...... blimey, does that mean she has trained me to do jobs I don't want to do when she wants them done...... 

[Jurek]

Hello. My name is Jurek and I am a tool junkie.

[rafletcher]

My wife wouldn't dream of going into my toolbox, she's happy enough to criticise me for using the wrong tool when I'm too idle to  .

I was digging through the cycle tool box the other day, and among the current stuff, I found a set of genuine Campag tools - BB, headset and pedal spanners, cone spanners, crank extractor. No earthly good to me now, but I'm struggling to get rid of them. I will though, soon....

Likewise I have a headset press I'll not be needing any more, but it's only a Cyclo one so might hang on to it in case someone needs to borrow one...

[pcolbeck]

My wife steals small ball peen hammers. I keep buying them and they keep disappearing. Every so often I find one in a random draw in the house. She likes rearranging the pictures and mirrors hence the vanishing hammers.

[andytheflyer]

My wife steals small ball peen hammers. I keep buying them and they keep disappearing. Every so often I find one in a random draw in the house. She likes rearranging the pictures and mirrors hence the vanishing hammers.

Be thankful she's choosing a hammer.  Mine'd try a pair of pliers to knock in a picture pin...…. Which is why I don't let her near my tools. Yes dear, my tools.

[Karla]

Pcolbeck, you might know already but the junk/antique shops in Kirkbymoorside have some nice tools; I picked up an excellent East German socket set plus several other items when I worked up there.

[pcolbeck]

Pcolbeck, you might know already but the junk/antique shops in Kirkbymoorside have some nice tools; I picked up an excellent East German socket set plus several other items when I worked up there.

No I didn't know so thanks. Its just up the road from me but not really a place you would visit without a reason. From here you bypass it on either side depending on where you are going.  I'll have to have a trip. Pcolbeck junior goes there a lot as that's where a load of his ex school mates came from and my main visits to Kirby have been as a Dads Taxi delivering him to house parties before he could drive.

[hatler]

There's a few junkies here.

[Mrs Pingu]

I bought a technician's bag to put our tools in in a nice control freak's orderly way because the bag for life we'd been transporting them in previously was driving me up the wall. (Think the brazil nut in muesli effect).

[Tim Hall]

Hello. My name is Jurek and I am a tool junkie.

Oh. I thought bringing, for example, a set of laser etched lock picks to the pub to show them off was perfectly normal behaviour.

[drossall]

Am I the only one who cringes a little when their wife goes into their tool box...

Happily, my wife assumes that the point of getting a husband is to have someone to make use of the contents of the toolbox. And I am able to argue that various tools were obtained to do this or that job that was so ordained. The latest, which arrived today, being one to split a watch bracelet in order to replace a worn catch on hers

[Aunt Maud]

I'm Aunt Maud and I'm an addict for carpentry hand tools and tool chests.

Here's a chest I'm working on during my limited spare time at college, it's made from 200 year old reclaimed Honduran mahogany and a bit of walnut it's 3'x2'x2'.

It's already full of carving tools and a few nice wooden planes.

[Jurek]

That lid fit.
Good for IP65?

[Aunt Maud]

Sadly, yes.

Everyone keeps asking why I don't put it on wheels, as it would be easy to move. Which is why I don't put it on wheels, as I don't want someone to come along and easily move it.

Currently it weighs over 100kg.

[Jurek]

 

[Jurek]

I bought a technician's bag to put our tools in in a nice control freak's orderly way because the bag for life we'd been transporting them in previously was driving me up the wall. (Think the brazil nut in muesli effect).

An interesting analogy.
Does the bag render your tools radioactive?

ETA - The brazil nut effect is a thing. In a granular convection kind of way. Or is that what you meant?

[Jurek]

My tool case from my freelancing days.
It's a Zero Halliburton case.
A Zero Halliburton case was one of the few items of luggage left intact when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorists blew up four hijacked airliners at Dawson's Field in 1970.
I've fitted the lid with a pair of gas springs.
When you pop the locks, the lid opens automatically.
The speed of the rise is governed by the weight of the tools stored in the lid.

[Zipperhead]

You lot think that you've got problems? I watch youtube videos about restoring old tools. (Not that kind Roger, that requires subscription to "specialist" sites).

I'm almost disappointed that the job I need to do on my motorbike this morning won't require the use of my little Wera Zyklops ratchet.

[Beardy]

The problem with getting more experienced¹ is that each new job doesn’t necessarily mean the need for new tools and so my tool acquisition growth [TAG] has slowed down considerably in recent years. I’m thinking of taking up horological studies to rectify this problem.

[andytheflyer]

My tool case from my freelancing days.
It's a Zero Halliburton case.

Oooooh.  Takes me back to my early career as an engineering geologist working in coastal engineering surveying.  The sparkies keeping the marine geophysical kit working had tool cases like this.  Our tools, on the drilling side, were rather bigger and heavier and there was no way you'd put them in a case.  More like a 20' container......

[pcolbeck]

You lot think that you've got problems? I watch youtube videos about restoring old tools. (Not that kind Roger, that requires subscription to "specialist" sites).

Me too. ScoutCrafter puts one or two out a week.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ1KhUcdotTuz2u3i5RSerA

I especially like Geoffrey Croker's channel. Some nice dry wit.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUOfupxqzuqSL_rfzA3PENQ

[Jurek]

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That Wera Zyklops ratchet is a delight. I'm just struggling to justify buying one.