tools and their uses

[dry suit diver]

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands, so 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 with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned guitar calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, "Yeou s**t...."

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. The tool used most often by all women.

BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touchup 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 that you want the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or ½ socket you've been searching for the last 45 minutes.

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.

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 somewhat misleading.

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. Women excel at using this tool.

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 Jeep, 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. Women primarily use it to make gaping holes in walls when hanging pictures.

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.

[hyweldavies]

superb - my favourite is the precision screwdriver tip on the pry-bar.

There are three kinds of tools: tools that can bash you, tools that can cut you, and tools that can roll away under a bench and get lost. Thus, two thirds of tools are dangerous.

(plagarised from somewhere sadly)

Hywel

[jamesp]

was watching a guy hammer nails in to some wood the other day.

Using an adjustable spanner.

The agency sent us someone else the following day.

[Spacehopper]

I should bloody well think so. The fool should have known that the correct tool for the job was a screwdriver handle.



Gareth

Originally Posted by jamesp

was watching a guy hammer nails in to some wood the other day.

Using an adjustable spanner.

The agency sent us someone else the following day.

[ardhill]

Excellent

[Mark Chase]

Originally Posted by jamesp

was watching a guy hammer nails in to some wood the other day.

Using an adjustable spanner.

The agency sent us someone else the following day.

So let me get this straight you sacked a guy capable of lateral thinking

My lot would loose the hammer and then spend two hours at £11 an hour driving to Travis Perkins to purchase another hammer on my account and of course the obligatory builders bucket or two because the one they bought yesterday is dirty.

The bloke hammering nails with a wrench sounds like a breath of fresh air

ATB

Mark

[gobfish1]

a hammer is for wacking things in to place ,,,

or sorting out the guy s on the job ,, but you shoud never bang a nail in with it

[Sparky]

Originally Posted by jamesp

was watching a guy hammer nails in to some wood the other day.

Using an adjustable spanner.

The agency sent us someone else the following day.

Well you could aways get one of these! Sorry about the picture quality scanned and enlarge from a catalogue.

[NeilB]

....and there was me thinking 'I have several tools working for me but I can't think of any other use for them.'

[jamesp]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

So let me get this straight you sacked a guy capable of lateral thinking

My lot would loose the hammer and then spend two hours at £11 an hour driving to Travis Perkins to purchase another hammer on my account and of course the obligatory builders bucket or two because the one they bought yesterday is dirty.

The bloke hammering nails with a wrench sounds like a breath of fresh air

ATB

Mark

Capable of lateral thought??

any would have been a start.


No he got sacked for something else, Had him loading sawn billets to the machine for a simple facing op. When they were all done turn them around face the other side to bring to size. He managed to put three out of fifty in the same way twice leaving a sawn face, undersize plate and £6 a time in scrap. Ignoring the fact that the material is held and issued under a traceability system that shows I have only buggered four of these up in the last 15 years and 800 components,was he blind??????



The best "builders excuse" I have ever heard was the plasterer doing my parents extension. Arrives at the job, looks around, turns to my mum and says " I cant start today, I`ve lost the flint out of my lighter".