Posted on 12/13/2005 7:44:39 PM PST by coloradan
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 Malvern, 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 pence part.
19. HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too short.
20. HAMMER:OR "IRISH MICROMETER": 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)!
True voltmeters don't use batteries, they are galvanometers; ohmmeters need batteries.
Unfortunately, digital meters need batteries just to say hello.
24: Adjustable wrench: combination bolt and nut rounder and hammer substitute
All of them, intimately.
"off topic but when I was 14 working on a construction site I was told to go fetch a crooked 2x4."
That's ok. As a young aircraft mechanic in the Navy they would send you for a gallon of "bulkhead remover" (wall remover for you non-nautical types) or a gallon of "propwash".
LOL
"We'd always send the new guys down to the maintenance bay to get a bottle of squelch oil. "
That's a good one!
"Ball peen hammer....good for flatening ball peens"
I've used them for flattening thumbnails.
Geez dude! Were you wearing safety glasses?
My first cousin had an old bicycle he would ride on the dirt road without tires - just on the rim. He used to kick down really hard on the pedals to spin the rear tire really good as he'd take off.
Once the chain slipped off and he had to go lay down on the couch for a while.
It's in the posted article: "Hammer: Use as an alternative to buying dark nail varnishes..."
What you mess up with molding you cover with paint.
Last one.
What you mess up with paint you cover with artwork.
As I am now grinning after reading your screename.
That would be a Crescent Spanner on this list.
As soon as I read that, it occurred to me that I had seen 250mm on one of my Crescent wrenches.
Just a few minutes ago, I went out and looked and sure enough, marked 250mm. Of course they mean the length of the handle.
Pry bar: An initially straight steel rod ranging in size from 2 feet to 4 feet whose characteristics can change when trying to pry up stumps from small trees, bushes, or extracting other large objects buried in the ground. Pry bar slippage is known to cause headaches, cussing, extreme temporary anger, and loss of blood.
LOL
"If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
-Red Green
LOL. Or furniture.
How about:
Metal Lathe: Tool that strips pretty coils of metal off a piece of bar stock that slices the pads off of your thumbs and finger tips.
Or:
File Handle: The piece of wood, plastic, or metal that goes on the end of a file that keeps it (the file) from being driven into your arm when one of the mandrels holding the bar stock on the lathe hits it. See also Mandrell.
Mandrell: A piece of metal designed to drive a file its entire lenth into your arm when it hits the end of the file, and you've forgotten to put a file handle on the file. Also used to hold the bar stock on the lathe.
Vice: Used to grasp the end of the file that's sticking out of your forearm after having been driven into your arm by a mandrell on a lathe. Once held securely by the vice, you simply pull your arm off of the file.
BTW, I know a guy to whom both of these have happened.
Mark
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