TOOLS DEFINED
Anyone with a workbench will relate to
these....
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 paint off bolts and
then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also
removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it
takes you to say, "SHIT!!!"
3. ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for
spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.
4. PLIERS:
Used to round off hexagonal 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. VISE GRIP PLIERS: 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 shop
on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside a wheel hub you're trying to
get the bearing race out of.
8. WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working
on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for
impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2 socket you've been searching for the last 15
minutes.
9. HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the
ground after you have installed your new disk brake pads, trapping the jack
handle firmly under the bumper.
10. EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 4X4: Used
to attempt to lever an automobile upward off a hydraulic jack handle.
11.
TWEEZERS: A tool for removing splinters of wood, especially Douglas
fir.
12. TELEPHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has
another hydraulic floor jack.
13. SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically
useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for removing dog
shit from your boots.
14. E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that
snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill
bit.
15. TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the
tensile strength of bolts and fuel lines you forgot to disconnect.
16.
CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool that
inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the
handle.
17 AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.
18. TROUBLE LIGHT:
The home builder's own tanning booth. Sometimes called 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 105-mm 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.
19. PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER:
Normally used to stab the lids of old- style paper-and-tin oil cans and squirt
oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off the
interiors of Phillips screw heads.
20. 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 Pneumatic impact
wrench that grips rusty bolts last tightened 70 years ago by someone at Ford,
and rounds them off.
21. 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.
22. HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too
short.
23. HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer
now-a-days is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive parts not far
from the object we are trying to hit.
24. MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open
and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front
door; works particularly well on boxes containing upholstered items, chrome-
plated metal, plastic parts and the other hand not holding the knife
Tue Nov 25, 2008 11:03 pm