AlanRatcliffe
Tools for Your Workbench
Setting up a new workshop? There is a lengthy list of tools you'll need. This list will help you get started:
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 it against that freshly stained heirloom piece you were drying.
WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench at the speed of light.
ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.
SKIL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.
PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.
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 setting various flammable objects in your shop on fire.
WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16- or 1/2-inch socket you've lost.
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 pads, 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.
TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters and wire wheel wires.
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.
RADIAL ARM SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to scare neophytes into choosing another line of work.
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.
TROUBLE LIGHT: The home 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 that 105mm 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 strangely appropriate.
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.
AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts which were last over-tightened 30 years ago by someone at Ford, and instantly rounds off their heads. Also used to quickly snap off lug nuts.
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 -- or thumbs, whichever are closer.
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 and fingers, but only while in use.
Explorerlover
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Perfect list for the bench I'm building now
chris77
Great stuff! The DIY highlight in my life is teaching myself to solder badly and making a spice rack in std 6 that my mother still uses (albeit as a display vehicle for ornamental spoon, but still...) This is great info for us with dreams of one day actually making stuff intstead of just buying them.
TomCat
Bwahahahaha... ? ? ?......Brilliant....and all also very true.....
Heath
Bwhahahahhah . That pretty much sums it up very nicely
Sean
hahaha...great writing, had a really good laugh ?
TomCat
The really funny thing is that each one of us at some point in time has had at least one of those things happen to us with these tools...... ? ?
CDee
I don't like working with tools >☹
I'm not even close to being as talented as Django or Tony Iommi, I NEED all parts of all my fingers ... ?
Spyke
Tears! :roflmao:
That is so accurately true.
Riaan-Combrink
Brilliant ?
Deserves a bigger audience ...
FenderBender
Alan Ratcliffe wrote
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.
Also useful as a replacement for your missing taxi steering wheel!
Renesongs
Aha a man well acquainted with the tools of the trade. Here are a couple of my own:-
SOLDERING IRON: A plug in screw driver that gets exceedingly hot. Used to repair homemade cables before an important event. Will at no extra cost singe hair and burn holes through the thickly calloused fingers.
SUPER GLUE: A viscous substance used to bond diverse materials together. Also useful for repairing holes in thickly calloused fingers.
BUTTER KNIFE: AKA poor mans screwdriver AKA fretboard de-gunger. This multi-purpose tool , if close at hand can also be used to pry apart diverse materials that have been inadvertently bonded together, such as say fingers and table tops for example.
INSULATION TAPE: Usually used for insulating bare electrical wires. If close at hand an abundance of insulation tape can be used as an emergency tourniquet to stop excessive blood loss from gaping wounds to the forearm from what was hitherto considered a blunt object such as a butter knife.
GUITAR & AMPLIFIER: Although traditionally used to create modern music such as Jazz and Rock, if close at hand by, this tool combination can be used to alert the neighborhood to an emergency situation. If you are unable to use you hands for whatever reason and you are able to switch on the amplifier with your foot and turn up the volume with a toe, kicking the guitar repeatedly with your foot will soon summons help usually in the form of the police services.
PS If the cable being repaired was the one formerly connecting the guitar to the amplifier then you are well and truly butter knived.
