Favorite Tool In Your Shop..

I know i know.. this can go many ways.


my pick for number one..

Skilsaw 7-1/4" Worm drive HD77

Next...chainsaw of some kind..

next.. ratchet set... i know its many parts but it takes my 3rd spot..

you?

my 4th...

hammer... followed by sledge hammer

 

If I find the tool I'm looking for, that's good enough.

 

Not that I don't agree, but shit man you such a thread killer.

Your posts remind me of Eeyore.

 

My favorite tool is the one that gets the job done.

Sorry, I just don't find any intrinsic value in tools.


"Give me a good tool...not too good, just good enough" (unknown)

 

You've clearly never used good tools, or you wouldn't hold that opinion.

The difference is night and day.


My favorite tool is probably a ratchet, but I don't know which one... I could cheat like you, but my socket set covers like half a century, a variety of brands, etc., and then you've got to have wrenches too, and so fourth and so on - I can't call everything that turns a fastener one single tool, I probably have 50lbs in stuff designed to do nothing more than turn things.

I like my anvil, though it's a poor example and I've never actually used it, need to figure out a propane forge.. Torque multiplier and impact gun are cool, too. Car jack is indespensible.

Really to have a good experience with whatever your project is, you need to have a wide variety of high quality tools, so that you can have things that fill the necessary role with no compromise and work flawlessly, in as many situations as possible, and you need to know your tools.

 

my tig welder or plasma cut are pretty great to have. But the bandsaw is pretty great but too small

 

You clearly have completely missed the point. I said good tool. When I talk about using tools I'm not just talking about some hobby.
I made my living as a carpenter for many years, also as a welder/ fabricator. For a time I also made my living as a guitarist.
I never considered the guitar anything more than a tool.
You know the guy who has a guitar so fancy he won't even take it out of his house to play? Thats a tool too good.

Good tools are a pleasure to use, but only up to a point does the quality matter. Though it might be prettier to look at, (and I do believe tools should be reasonably nice to look at) A fancy engraved and brass highlighted hand plane for instance, doesn't do any better job than my perfectly tuned and sharpened old Stanley.

I have metal-working hammers that I made from plain old sledgehammers, single jacks and ball-peens, shaped, faced and polished to a mirror surface, by hand. I could have spent hundreds of dollars buying fancy production made tools but I didn't need them. I don't need tools made of cryogenically treated Swiss steel or a Browning roll-away to store them in. Just a good tool, the right tool, good enough to do the job.


You can send me that anvil BTW, if you're not going to use it...

 

Impact driver

 

I don't know, I'm still not sure I agree about there being a point where the tool being better is not desirable.

I can easily see a case for such an ornate plane being inferior to a good old american made stanley - high quality isn't just more expensive or harder to make, it's more ideally suited to the job.

It's great when something will do, but given the choice, nicer is nicer is nicer. I have a lot of tools that will do and are awaiting upgrade because I needed something that would do but didn't have the money or need to justify spending it on the better version - but I will take any chance to upgrade something to a higher quality or more capable version.

Also, I was disagreeing in that I do find intrinsic value in tools - tools are power, tools are what has made man different from any other animal. Tools are not just a means to an end, tools are their own end, and dictate the other ends even fathomable. I find tools pleasing, and to have great value based on the things that can be done with them.

As to my anvil, I have every intention in using it ... it's just a lack of other tools or time that's holding me back right now. I seem to probably be coming into the possession of a full hot shoeing outfit in the future, with at least one better anvil and lots of anvil tools and such, then I'll have a lot more motivation to get on this whole forge problem I've got (also getting a blower, but can't use a coal or wood one here, without burning the place down). The one I have now is cast iron, so lower quality and less deserving of a bunch of my time to set up a forge for it when it could decide to crack with the first blow.... back to that quality thing.

 

vice vice baby......

 

id have to say plasma cutter

 

We're talking about the same thing here I think. A tool needn't be any more than ideally suited for the job, long lasting and durable.

A person who needs to cut a coupla 2x4's once in a blue moon doesn't need a magnesium hypoid worm-drive saw, nor are they likely to appreciate the quality like a professional carpenter would, using it every day on the job.


I agree that tools, along with basic math were what allowed our species do develop the means to manipulate the environment in our favor.

If I were to have to pick one favorite tool and one from which I would make all the other tools I might need it would be a perfectly flat surface. Thats probably the most difficult tool to make without the aid of other tools. With that as a reference one could calculate a right angle and make an accurate square and with that, layout accurate angles and degrees of a circle.

Or maybe dividers...yeah thats it! My favorite tool is my Miller Falls dividers.


It's the one tool that I have thats been with me the longest throughout the years and used for reference and lay-out in one way or another for nearly every different craft I've been involved with, from carpentry and metal fabrication to lutherie and shoe-making.


BTW The idea that tools are what separates us from animals is highly debatable you know...

 

^^^ This

 

I'm very surprised no one has come into here and mentioned their cock ...

 

I think if I could only have one tool, it would be a knife - one of the most simple, necessary, and beautiful tools - but I was interpreting this thread differently - what I use "tools" for is usually automotive or similar.

It's true that we wouldn't be just like any other animal without tools, but just like speech, they allow you to gradually alter your horizons - you simply can't organize or comprehend some thoughts without speech (even if it's a primitive internal or private speech), and having some degree of technological development is necessary to visualize the next level you're trying to attain. If you don't have tools to build things and control and manipulate things and record things, then any advance is only as perminent as the thought, and everyone starts from square 1 - our success is not due just to smarts or physical capabilities, it's due to tens or hundreds of thousands of years of inherited knowledge and.... tools....

The use of tools is a self-reinforcing cycle, and one of the cycles that made us something special.

 

a soldering iron and multimeter are handy. I wish I had an oscilloscope and logic analyzer to play with but they expensive. can't say I would really know how to use the logic analyzer because I've never had one to learn using.

aside from "physical" tools, there are quite a few many software tools that are quite useful, and one which immediately comes to mind is the shell.

 

Hubby's fav is the Dremel Tool.

I'm a pliers type person myself; especially needle-nosed.

 

What's that? A roach clip?

 

LoL,

It's a tool called a dividers. Some call it a compass, but I'm not sure how you use it to find which way is north...LOL