OT: What is your favorite tool in the garage? Sorry if this is a repeat.
I find the magnetic wrist band a very valuable tool especially for me because I am always dropping screws, nuts and bolts!
Still looking for the perfect flash light or light source when under or around the car.
A head mounted light - something like this?
http://www.hydroponics.net/i/135059
Nitrile gloves. I may go through a pair an hour when heavy into the oil and grease, but at a dime apiece, I can almost afford them. Pull them off, wash your arms, and you're ready to approach your woman's soft parts without her being put off by rough hands.
They're as cheap as 8 cents apiece at Harobor Fright.
Headlight removal tool from Bobs's
Bob Jablonski
My belt sander. Great for adjusting valves, taking a little off a castellated nut so the cotter pin lines up, cleaning up dings on the heads of hex bolts, etc.
With a 80 grit belt it will do some things a grinding wheel won't.
Ricks - gotta get me some of those nitrile gloves. Where do you get them ?
The proper tool for any job I need to do!
I cant find it at the moment but my lead hammer.
You can wap the crap out of a shaft or part and the hammer takes all the dent.Ricks,do those gloves affect your grip any? I have trouble gripping small parts even bare handed.
I have an old pair of duckbill pliers that use the heck out of.
My favorite tool is the one that I just used and can't find.
I use some endearing names for it - so it must be my favorite!
My metal lathe. Every day I turn it on to make something. My best friend Tony Verschoore went with my wife to pick one out for me for Christmas many years ago. I must have said it hundreds of times before that "I wish I had a metal lathe" then on Christmas morning - what a surprise. A 12" x 36" 220V powered geared head metal lathe. Not many men can say their wife bought them a metal lathe for Christmas and kept it a surprise.
My favorite tool is my KR Wilson combination machine (with all the tooling). I love using that thing. My most important tool is my air compressor. I can do nothing without it. If it tears up, Ive told the wife we will have to take out a loan and finance a new one because the world would stop turning and come to an end with out it.
John: You better do whatever it takes to keep her. She sounds like a keeper to me...
Bud, I get the gloves in boxes of 100 from Harbor Fright. HF is everywhere, like Radio Shacks used to be. They come in S, M, L, and XL.
http://www.harborfreight.com/5-mil-nitrile-gloves-powder-free-medium-100-pc-68496-8478.html
I was using the XL until in the last year, as I've lost 50 pounds, so the L fit good now. I have been using them for about 15 years, so no problem gripping small parts. I don't think they would take much getting used to. Don't try to apply tape with them on, though.
The gloves at HF used to be made in Thailand and Indonesia, where they have rubber, and need industry. Now the dirty ChiComs have even taken that away.
Late one night in Peoria, Jun, 2000.
I use my new SawStop table saw about every day. Also my 2 wood lathes for making pens. I also use lots of nitrite gloves because you can't even think of working on the T without getting your hands black.
Ralph, how old is that picture?
13 years
I'm somewhat embarrassed to mention it but the one "tool" I use more than any other is super glue. Every car I have owned in the past 30 years has had things repaired with super glue. Radio knobs, emblems, felt window trim, etc etc. Like duct tape, I am never without at least a couple fresh, dollar-store tubes of super glue.
Hal,
I agree: I use the top of the line Sawstop my lady bought for me a couple years back. After that any of the wood working equipment/tools. Just have to finishing building kitchen cabinets so I can do more "T tinkering". I like all my wood/mechanic/electronic tools. Almost as bad as collecting T stuff.
"What is your favorite tool in the garage?"
My son in law?
My favorite tool is the vice
I think every part in my projects sturdy enough to be clamped in the vice has been there at least once for some adjustment, filing, bending or pressing bushings out or in..
Here the main leaf from the front spring was gradually bent (with an old exhaust pipe for leverage) until it could be mounted upside down for 1" more lowering
My favorite tool is my indestructible Walker floor jack. It goes great with my T but I use it whenever I change the oil in any of our vehicles.
With the ratchet wheel I can raise it just about as quick as a new hydraulic jack but the solid mechanical linkage just feels so much safer. I've seen several other hydraulic jacks slowly let cars or heavier trucks down - very scary. If something comes off that Walker jack, it'll have to slip cause the jack itself isn't coming down.
It still makes me laugh when I think about the first time I got to use that jack. I was about 10 years old in my grandfather's shop. We were lifting the "Blue Jewel" a 1970 Oldsmobile 98, my dad drove it in high school and had a love/hate relationship with it. It's still one of the biggest cars I've ever seen. I barely managed to get it up pumping the jack - that car weighed SO much. The funny part came when I went to let the car back down. I stepped on the little foot pedal and started working the handle. My dad said "You can go a little faster . . ." because I was moving it down about 1 click per 2 seconds. So I started really moving it and my dad didn't get to finish saying "but be careful . . ." Because it will run away with you, is what he would have said but the handle started moving at a blur and I couldn't really let go. It shook me like a rag doll and scared the crap out of me, along with dropping car a bit faster than would have been preferred. The dust settled and I was still holding onto the handle feeling beat to death, with my dad and granddad laughing so hard they were in tears. It was a good minute or two before he finally got out "Are you ok?" I was fine. I'm pretty sure that it wasn't until about 8 years later bodyboarding in Hawaii in waves taller than my house in a shorebreak onto sand that I experienced anything nearly as violent as that jack shaking my teeth out.
Since then, the grease has thickened up a little bit and the jack isn't quite as ready to run away with the operator as it used to be. I'll try and post some pics of it later.
I agree with the metal lathe (don't use mine that much) but when you need it you need it. I also agree with the table saw. My third favorite would be oxygen acetylene torch (blue tip wrench).
A hammer---Like they say if it can’t be fixed with a hammer, you probably have an electrical problem.
Beer opener has to be a close second…
I've learned that there's a lot to be said for vintage tools. They simply work very well. My favorite is the Marquette Tire Tool.
That clever thing will peel a tire off a rim in no time and, if you warm the tire up beforehand, it'll put a tire on a rim almost as fast.
And for those times when the Marquette won't quite do it, I have a set of tire irons that were designed especially for the Model T.
Sorry to say that the nice old couple that used to make these have disconnected their phone.
On my wish list is one or two Sioux Bead Breakers. They'd be faster and easier to use than C-clamps.
Oxy acetylene torch and cutting attachment. Usually the heat is all I need to undo rusted stuff (never find that on a T project eh). I've had it for 40 years and certainly don't use it every week but when I need it I need it!!!
From October to March, it's the heater.
What ever I can find that fits and works for what I'm trying to repair, plus some BLUE air thrown in to help. All in a day (or three) of tinkering.
Bob
Me puter...
This Walker floor jack was given to me about 25 years ago by a friend who claimed it came from a Staten Island N.Y. Chevy dealership. It didn't work at the time but I managed to find a hydraulic re-build kit at an obscure store on Staten Island and it's worked well since. It's only about 4" high collapsed at the front wheels and has almost a 2 foot lift. Don't know it's age and I don't care. It's not going anywhere.
Used to be Band Aides. Not so much any more. Now I'd have to say my cordless drills.
I second the vintage tools. Guess I'm just not in a hurry anymore. I use wrenches more than sockets and ratchets anymore and I don't remember the last time I used my air ratchet. I have a neat little valve spring compressor made especially for the T. Don't use it often, but it is a really neat tool.
Heres one of my favorites---a small but tough cresent wrench. opens to about 1/2 inch. Usually keep it in my pocket. Bought it on a model A tour in Sweden---Paul
1/4" Skil electric ratchet, great for running down bolts or nuts especially fine threads, you still need to tighten everything down.
Rick
The three chairs in my shop in which my friends sit and chat with me or give me a hand with my cars. Their friendship is the best tool for the soul
CRESCENT HAMMER!
My brain, followed by my metal lathe, drill press, bench vise, a set of special tools I made for early coil work, my field coil winder, and old T parts. Nothing like some unusable T parts to make special tools and fixtures from.
Seriously; I would have to say my 1920's tire mounting machine is pretty high up there. Lathe & Mill, So are the dozens of home-made tools, jigs & fixtures that I have made every time I found something to be "inconvenient". A modified deep impact socket for taking cam nuts off with an impact wrench is pretty darn handy.
my cell phone to call for help!!!!!!!!
My SouthBend 9 inch lathe. Next is my Miller Tig welder.
Slightly OT but I recently totally straightened out my garage after 15+ yrs of threatening to do so. I was always able to go right to whatever I was looking for and now that it is "straightened out" I can not find anything and it's making me nuts.(go figure) My favorite tool seems to change with my age and now seems to be my LED worklight. (go figure again
2 1/2 ton air jack and my refridgerator.
My AIR COMPRESSOR. WHEN THE TIRES ARE LOW AND THEY all DO LEAK, IT IS MY FRIEND. And it works quickly and needs no up-keep
I'd have to go along with Mike on the refrigerator. Next would be the radio. If I had air conditioning in the shop, I think that would get elevated to my number one favorite.
Ken
If you can close off and AC just part of you shop, you'll find that ducking in the AC for even a few minutes every so often is a huge help when that thermometer hovers near 100!
My workbench, grinder, vise area, etc. has a small 5000 BTU window unit, the main garage does not. Still, it's a lifesaver!