COMMON TOOLS DEFINED

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 sh!#..."

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 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.

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 * x 24-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A very large pry bar that inexplicably

has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

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.

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.

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.

True on all counts, so very true. My personal favs are the wire wheel and the Craftsman screwdriver. Perhaps because I can directly relate to both.

I have many, many, Dammit Tools. Also quite a few holes in the dry wall. While I'm at it, several neighbors that now give me a wide berth after having been walking by my house with their kids when I used a Dammit Tool.

carl

We must get our tools from the same suppliers, although my wire wheel is currently being investigated by MIT for its ability to transport said bolts to a parallel universe.

I'm beginning to think ALL my tools are "dammit" tools...

Maybe thats why some of my smaller tools like to hide until I'm not looking for them any more...they don't want to become a "dammit" tool!

That's funny about the neighbors giving a wide berth. Once while helping my brother-in-law dye the interior panels of his corvette, he hit the garage door opener to let some of the fumes out, but forgot to consider all the parts were hanging from the garage door tracks. As the pieces were falling to the floor and he let loose with the longest string of the foulest vocabulary known to man, I was at the perfect vantage point to see his new neighbors stopped dead in their tracks with mouths hanging open in utter shock. They were just moving their furniture in and hadn't met any of their new neighbors yet.