Posted on 10/03/2008 5:59:02 AM PDT by Dutchgirl
Brains and charm are fine, but a real guy needs to know how to do real stuff. After months of debate among PM’s expert editors, here’s our lineup of essential skills, broken down in 10 categories for the competent man—plus 20 tools you need to own.
Automotive 1. Handle a blowout 2. Drive in snow 3. Check trouble codes 4. Replace fan belt 5. Wax a car 6. Conquer an off-road obstacle 7. Use a stick welder 8. Hitch up a trailer 9. Jump start a car
Handling Emergencies 10. Perform the Heimlich 11. Reverse hypothermia 12. Perform hands-only CPR 13. Escape a sinking car
Home 14. Carve a turkey 15. Use a sewing machine 16. Put out a fire 17. Home brew beer 18. Remove bloodstains from fabric 19. Move heavy stuff 20. Grow food 21. Read an electric meter 22. Shovel the right way 23. Solder wire 24. Tape drywall 25. Split firewood 26. Replace a faucet washer 27. Mix concrete 28. Paint a straight line 29. Use a French knife 30. Prune bushes and small trees 31. Iron a shirt 32. Fix a toilet tank flapper 33. Change a single-pole switch 34. Fell a tree 35. Replace a broken windowpane 36. Set up a ladder, safely 37. Fix a faucet cartridge 38. Sweat copper tubing 39. Change a diaper 40. Grill with charcoal 41. Sew a button on a shirt 42. Fold a flag
Medical Myths 43. Treat frostbite 44. Treat a burn 45. Help a seizure victim 46. Treat a snakebite 47. Remove a tick
Military Know-How 48. Shine shoes 49. Make a drum-tight bed 50. Drop and give the perfect pushup
Outdoors 51. Run rapids in a canoe 52. Hang food in the wild 53. Skipper a boat 54. Shoot straight 55. Tackle steep drops on a mountain bike 56. Escape a rip current
Primitive Skills 57. Build a fire in the wilderness 58. Build a shelter 59. Find potable water
Surviving Extremes 60. Floods 61. Tornados 62. Cold 63. Heat 64. Lightning
Teach Your Kids 65. Cast a line 66. Lend a hand 67. Change a tire 68. Throw a spiral 69. Fly a stunt kite 70. Drive a stick shift 71. Parallel park 72. Tie a bowline 73. Tie a necktie 74. Whittle 75. Ride a bike
Technology 76. Install a graphics card 77. Take the perfect portrait 78. Calibrate HDTV settings 79. Shoot a home movie 80. Ditch your hard drive
Master Key Workshop Tools 81. Drill driver 82. Grease gun 83. Coolant hydrometer 84. Socket wrench 85. Test light 86. Brick trowel 87. Framing hammer 88. Wood chisel 89. Spade bit 90. Circular saw 91. Sledge hammer 92. Hacksaw 93. Torque wrench 94. Air wrench 95. Infrared thermometer 96. Sand blaster 97. Crosscut saw 98. Hand plane 99. Multimeter 100. Feeler gauges
Sounds like something I read a LONG time ago in a Robert Heinlein book (mighta been “Time Enough for Love”).
...started with “A man should know how to:”
then a similar list...
...and ended with: “Specialization is for insects.”
The opinel is a fine utility knife, but I think these guys were referring to a chefs knife.
1. 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 painted part you were drying. 2. WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the work bench at the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ouch..." 3. ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age. 4. PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. 5. 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. 6. VICE-GRIPS: Used to 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. 7. OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for setting various flammable objects in your garage on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside a brake drum you're trying to get the bearing race out of. 8. HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a Morgan to the ground after you have installed your new front brake setup, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front bumper. 9. EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering a Morgan upward off a hydraulic jack. 10. PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack. 11. GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-do off your boot. 12. STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit. 13. TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and brake lines you may have forgotten to disconnect. 14. ½ " x 16" SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle. 15. ELECTROLYTE TESTER: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from a car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought. 16. PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads. 17. 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 an impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Georga, and snaps them off. 18. 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. 19. HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too short. 20. HAMMER: Use as an alternative to buying dark nail varnishes. Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive parts not far from the object we are trying to hit. 21. STANLEY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing seats and flying jackets. 22. WIRE STRIPPER: A tool designed to cut through the wire core, leaving it 1/2 inch too short (see hose cutter)! 23. CRESCENT WRENCH: used to professionally round off bolt heads. Commonly referred to also as a Crescent Hammer. 24. NAIL GUN: Automated device used to drive nails and brads deeper into the human body than can be accomplished manually. 25.VOLT METER: Device used to test the voltage of dead batteries; normally stored with dead batteries itself. 26:TABLE SAW: A rotating disk useful for launching pieces of wood at your midsection at high velocity. 27: MITER SAW: Combination of small saw and wood box with angles cut exactly 3 degrees off. 28. CHAIN SAW: A gasoline-powered device used for distributing oil and sawdust over one's clothing and hair. Also is useful for causing limbs and trees to fall toward buildings and vehicles if they are present. 29:BELT SANDER: Electrical device with trigger always locked in the "ON" position when plugging in. (if you've never used one, you've never seen power sledding across your workbench) 30: EXTENSION CORD: Device used to measure the exact 7/8 distance between wall socket and needed outlet. 31: 9 VOLT BATTERY: Device used to determine if your tongue is still working.
LOL! I think the term “skipper” thew you off, but someone was probably just trying to be cute.
I see there are about 13 million registered boats in the US, a little less than half over 16 feet. http://www.commanderbob.com/facts.html
What I want to know is who the hell ties bow ties?
I’m competent in half these things, and can fake 90% of the rest, but I’m not sure about running rapids or taking a steep drop on a mountain bike. That brings up several “painful childhood experiences”.
Whats a french knife? Its french, so Im assuming it has a white flag rather than a blade, so no, I dont know how to use it!
Best I have done is run over a hard drive with a forklift. Of course, a man was driving it.
A couple don't look too bad, the rest are faggy. But all their prices suck.
Though I am surprise they sell Sword Canes. Thought for sure those would be illegal in Europe.
OUCH! L0L
Yes, he fixes my computer, too. Without that, I’d be using a typewriter. For that, I am on my knees in deep admiration and adoration.
So many of these are true!
“CRESCENT WRENCH: used to professionally round off bolt heads.”
“Did you destroy it sufficiently that it would take the NSA to recover some of it?”
I smashed mine on a rock with a sledgehammer and then drilled three holes through it.
I then put the hard drive in our garbage that ends up buried in the landfill. The balance of the computer was recycled.
Maybe I should have burned it too.(sarcasm)
If a guy has mastered most of these skills, he probably has no problem getting women.
Real women like a useful guy. Useless boy-men are a dime a dozen.
Once I saw “Use a sewing machine”, I quit reading.
switchblades are not illegal in all states
When my boys were little, I would tie their bow ties (to go with their seer sucker suits) for Easter Sunday
...then they got too big for me to dress them...but on prom night, they needed a little help.
I'm thinking by their wedding days they will be sufficiently skilled to do without me-- and by inauguration day, they'll have it in the bag!
30: EXTENSION CORD: Device used to measure the exact 7/8 distance between wall socket and needed outlet.
Formal Dress - Tuxedo.....you have to tie your own bowtie....
Unless, of course, you clip on.....Hmmmmmmm?
But manly men only tie....
That was a Lazarus Long quote, but I wasn't sure which book it was from.
Google, being my friend except for political leanings, brought forth this link.
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