Basic shop tools - a handy guide

Basic Shop Tools and Their General Purpose

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 vertical stabilizer 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!"

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

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.

WELDING GLOVES: Heavy duty leather gloves used to prolong the conduction of 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 you want the bearing race out of.

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.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG YELLOW PINE 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off of a trapped hydraulic jack handle.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known drill bit that snaps neatly off in bolt holes thereby ending any possible future use.

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.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 24-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A very large pry bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids and 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.

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 the object we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S 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.

DAMMIT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "DAMMIT" at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.

(Source)

Death Metal dog

People with pets may have overly active imaginations, I'd say. Take for example the video below.

What you see is a Wire Hair Terrier, possibly, in a garage. The human uses his air compressor and blows air at the dog. The dog has a quite funny reaction trying to bite the airstream as you may have have guessed.

But now, add a musical soundtrack. Death Metal. The kind with screaming.

Now we've got something.

(Disclaimer: At no time were any animals harmed in any way. The dog still chases squirrels, tracks mud in the house, chews an occasional slipper and sleeps in doorway thresholds to this very day.)

Craftsman ads

Craftsman has always been a name meaning quality and durability. The guarantee on Craftsman tools is one of the factors that gives mechanics and handymen a very good reason to shop for tools at Sears (and now KMart). But the Sears stores have fallen on hard times and are slowly falling apart.

If Sears does go down the dumper, I hope some other company snatches the Craftsman brand and their quality tools.

Here are some new print ads featuring the human body as never before seen, featuring Craftsman tools. Awesome.

(Neatorama)

Click for larger.

Mr. Jalopy's garage

I'm not too familiar with Mr. Jalopy, although I've run across his name a few times. But being a first-class garage nut, I was interested in this post about his garage.

From the looks of things, it was a garage but now looks like a museum. Many vintage automotive parts are on the shelves and old test equipment can be found all over.

Check out this tour of Mr. Jalopy's garage.

The Manly Garage as kitchen

It's been a little over a week now that I've retired the Mac mini to the house from the Manly Garage due to the weather. That doesn't mean that the ol' garage goes unused until late March. Oh, no.

Since there's a little more space on the workbench now, AND there's electricity still flowing out there, it's being used as an auxiliary kitchen during Thanksgiving meal preparation.

The ham is being roasted out there. Here's a coupla pics:





The turkey, on the other hand, was compiled solely in the house.

Jay Leno's energy saving garage

We all know Jay Leno loves his cars. He has a collection of over 100 vintage, race and muscle cars as well as some great motorcycles (you've probably seen the American Chopper episode).

Well, he's doing a retrofit to his monster garage in Burbank, Calif. by putting photovoltaic cells on the roof, thereby freeing it up from the grid.

Of course he can afford to do this, he's Jay Leno.

Here's a link with a video from the L.A. Times if you'd like to learn more and have a look iside and on top of his garage.

(BoingBoing)

It's in the hole!

A lady (Is it a woman? What do you think?) Pulls into a garage for what seems to be an oil change. The garage is one of this types that has a "muffler pit" as we used to call it. Maybe she was just in a hurry. Hurry? It must be a guy, then.

(Via CrookedBrains)

A Prosaic Ode to the Manly Garage

Of all the wordly possessions I may have owned over the years, my most treasured possession is my garage. It has become my Fortress of Solitude, my home away from home and the center of my existence. I'm out in my garage almost every day of the year, weather permitting. Living in the state of Illinois, with its freakish weather and often brutal winters, I'm usually allowed about 10 1/2 months of bliss out in the garage. When the temperature is forecast to dip below freezing for the foreseeable future, and the wood-burner can't keep up, I pack up my electronic perishables and I retire to the house and abide by its rules to wait out the climate.

My wife and I built the garage in 1978, back when I had a steady job and a nice income. It was a family project, a do-it-yourself event. She handled the finances and I handled the work. The design was mine, a 24 by 30-foot 2 1/2 car garage. The half-car part was to be a little shop.

Over the years the garage has evolved into my present-day workspace/quiet room/media center/computer room/storage area. "Dad's pad when Mom's mad", if you will. As my kids grew up they became a part of it as well. Coupled with the driveway, this structural entity has become an indispensable tool making up a large part of what our family has become during our stay on our property and this Earth. There has never been a garage like this one and there will never be another one just like it for the rest of mankind's existence. It has personality.

There are many things that make my garage special, the first being that I'm firmly convinced this garage has played a major part in keeping my marriage together through three decades. The main thing is that the garage is not attached to the house. You just can't get out of your car, open a door and walk into the kitchen. There's a fifteen-foot, open, unprotected, sidewalk-connected distance between the house and the garage. There have been many times when I didn't want to be bothered but the weather wasn't conducive for Mom come out and "chat". Or nag. Disconnected, yet still connected. Still together.

The garage has quite a history as well. Over the years it's seen times of computer parties, 4th-of-July parties, man-to-man talk sessions, algebra lessons, infants' playground, male bonding, love-making, guidance counseling, tears and laughter, tons of farting and just plain being a guy. Without my garage, I am half a man. If and when we sell our house I'll insist, no, I'll DEMAND that our next domicile have a detached structure where I can be myself and entertain my thoughts accordingly.

Some interesting facts about my garage:

There were 21 guys from work who helped pour the slab and, in my nervousness, I filled one guys boot with concrete.

I got "hooked up" with the concrete. A work buddy's Dad was a supervisor at the concrete company. He loaded up a ten-yard mixer with 12 yards of concrete. The driver had to stop half-way up the river bridge to make sure he wasn't shitting concrete out the top. I paid the bill for nine yards.

Had one wheelbarrow-full of concrete when the job was done. Used it to patch part of the house foundation.

After the slab was poured, we all drank beer, except for the guy who did the finishing work. He was wired on coffee.

My wife and neighbors spearheaded a cookout to be ready for us after the slab job.

I had to cut down a giant willow tree to clear the way for the slab. While cutting down down the tree, I saw my wife in the back window of the house and motioned for her to come out and join us. She just flipped me off. What a woman.

It took 4 weeks to burn the stump of the willow below ground level. The heat melted the aluminum sheets I had placed over it and had to keep asking my neighbor for more.

The guy who masterminded building the structure was diabetic. One Saturday morning he forgot to take his insulin and called his wife to bring it. And a chainsaw. I watched as he lifted up his t-shirt, pinched the flab of his gut, looked at me and stuck out his tongue as he injected himself. He used the chainsaw to cut off the roof rafter tails.

One of the rafters has about 9 nails in it where it attaches to the wall.

Over the years, the garage is on its third roof.

I've actually parked 3 cars in the garage and been able to shut the big overhead door.

There's a pee bucket in one corner so I don't have to go in the house.

I have a hand-me-down TV which is positioned just under the rafters held cantilevered by chains. Its platform is part of a pallet from the delivery of an AS400 computer at work.

There's a 60-bin parts drawer bench which I inherited from my Dad after he died. The bins used to be part of an old post office.

There's a wood-burning stove which is an original "Sotz"; two 55-gallon drums, one the stove, the other, a heat exchanger. Wood for fuel is what I can glean from recent storms and construction or remodeling. Haven't paid for wood yet.

The stove part is a double-walled rad-waste barrel obtained from the nuke plant where I used to work.

The heat-exchanger part is an oil drum I fished out of a dump at work. It still contained about about 4 gallons of 5W40 oil which I've used for light lubrication over the years. After kicking the drum down the dump hill, I tumbled after it in the 6" snow after tripping.

I've strung cable TV, phone, and CAT-5 Ethernet out to the garage. The phone line is unused. Quiet.

I have a 4-speaker (not surround-sound) stereo. All audio is wired to it. It does the job.

Beer fridge, VCR, DVD player, microwave, and a large fridge for the wife of my life for cold food storage when the house fridge needs it. And a small freezer.

A 1967 Volkswagen Beetle Baja Bug with a Corvair engine has been stored in the garage for over 20 years. All it needs is a new battery, I swear.

For the last coupla years, there's the Mac mini positioned right above the stereo receiver. It's what I've been using for many months. SixPackTech.com got started out here in the garage on this machine.

I dubbed my garage "The Manly Garage" shortly after it was built. Since then, I've re-christened it as "The Manly Cyber Garage."

These words that I've written do not fully convey how much a part of me my garage is. If I lose my garage, a very large part of me dies. It's what makes me ME. It's my personal climb-into safe deposit box. It will be in my heart until the day I die.

Robotic car parking

One way to get out of tipping the schlub who parks your car is to have a robot do it. The Autostadt Car Tower (thumbnailed at left) at the Volkswagen facility in Germany is most renowned, though there are a few other installations around the world.

Below is a video filmed by the crew at Popular Mechanics which demonstrates one such robotic garage with style and taste.

D.I.Y. Beer

I've often thought of dabbling in the science of zymurgy, or brewing your own beer. Buy some yeast, hops, malt, whatever and mix up a batch just like Al Capone did. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart doesn't sell hops and the beer store is right across the street.

Popular Science has an interesting article on a beer brewing machine created by a couple of guys in a garage (sound familiar?) All it takes for you to build one of these machines is a small investment of time (3 months) and money ($4,300).

This is a very interesting read complete with a 5-minute video and slide show. Check it out right here.

Story of my life

If you saw my garage you'd wonder
how I can spend so much time out there.