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Tool uses

leecreek

Jedi Warrior
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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 stained heirloom piece you were drying.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned guitar calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, "You %&*%R"

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

SKILL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters. The most often tool used by all women.

BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touchup jobs into major refinishing jobs.

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.

VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely 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.

WELDING GLOVES: Heavy duty leather gloves used to prolong the conduction of intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub you want the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or ? socket you've been searching for the last 45 minutes.

TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG YELLOW PINE 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off of a trapped hydraulic jack handle.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters and wire wheel wires.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known drill bit that snaps neatly off in bolt holes thereby ending any possible future use.

RADIAL ARM SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to scare neophytes into choosing another line of work.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 24-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A very large pry bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The home mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a 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
105mm 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.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids and for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads. Women excel at using this tool.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws.

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 a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts which were last over tightened 30 years ago by someone at Ford, and instantly rounds off their heads. Also used to quickly snap off lug nuts.

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.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit. Women primarily use it to make gaping holes in walls when hanging pictures.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use.

DAMMIT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "DAMMIT" at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.
 
Very comprehensive. I was thinking this belonged in the tools forum, then the humor forum, but in hindsight, it does belong right here in the Pub where it will be noted!! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif
 
I love this one, still makes me smile. The original piece was penned by the great Peter Egan in a column in Road and Track a few years ago.
 
Think he knew what he was talking about, I could just see all of that.
 
bugeyemike, that entire list is all very familiar to me, i watched a young aircraft mechanic attempting to drill out a screw from an inspection plate with an air drill, he was on top of the wing on his knees bent over the drill applying downward pressure with with his chest i told him three times not to do this but he just looked at me and continued i turned to walk away as i did i heard a loud bang and a terrible scream the drill bit had broken halfway down its shaft the effect of all his wait being forced on the drill resulted in the drill bouncing of the wing right back into his face the bit caught his upper lip and the lip was wrapped around the remainder of the bit by 3 1/2 turns i had two other guys hold him down while i undid the air hose connection and as gently as i could turned the drill counter clock wise i can tell you lips can really bleed, for about a month he looked like angelina jollies mutant brother, he had to grew a mustache and can never shave it off.
 
<span style="color: #FF6666">AAA</span><span style="color: #FF0000">AOOO</span><span style="color: #990000">UUU</span><span style="color: #660000">UUCH</span>! Tony, just the thought is painful! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cry.gif
 
bugeyemike, at 55 years old and being in the aviation and home improvement industries ive witnessed a great deal of carnage and it doesnt only involve the young novice but seasoned and experienced individual as well, all it takes is a slight lack of awareness or concentration and youll never play piano again, i could and perhaps should write a book, every time i look at a table saw my ears actually twitch automatically and my hearing,sense of smell, taste and vision become much more vivid, if i dont find myself in that level of awareness ill save the table saw work for another time no joke, i have two friends that both lost four fingers to table saws both in the business all their lives and both admit to having some sort of personal problem at the time, one was just normally pushing material through the saw and forgot where his fingers were, the other went behind the blade to pull material through when the material got caught and pulled his hand in. they both said they didnt feel a thing for 5-8 seconds,another friend was feeding a green piece of oak into the saw to make a piece of thin trim it caught and kicked back spearing the flesh just above his right hip i drove him to the hospital. chop saws? i got a thousand stories about that machine, i could go on for weeks on this subject. im happy to say i still play guitar. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif
 
Yup, saw "mr. safety-for-all" himself smash his fingers in an auto-brake once... It was about 4:30 on friday, and he was thinkin about the weekend.
and I had the guy in the bay next to me have a coolant flush machine blow up on him, covering him in 200+ degree coolant. also at about 4:30 on a friday. Talkin about goin to dinner with his girlfriend.
He was out for over 6 months
It all comes down to
Pay attention!
 
I bet all those guys wouldn't find humor in this list though! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rolleyes.gif /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
 
Gah. Did time in a steel mill. Gruesome events occurred.
 
Friend of mine was polishing a revolver cylinder for bluing when the buffer jerked the cylinder out of his hand, bounced it off the wall, hit him in the head and knocked him unconcious.
 
anthony7777 said:
the drill bouncing of the wing right back into his face the bit caught his upper lip and the lip was wrapped around the remainder of the bit by 3 1/2 turns

Those air motors turn up fast! I have experimented with this:

I was drilling rivet holes on the A-10 vertical stab at Fairchild when a lock of my hair fell over the chuck of my drill motor. When I pulled the trigger, I saw stars!

I didn't know what happened. I thought the vibration had caused a bucking bar to fall from the top of the jig and land on my head. My partner wondered why I had stopped drilling and came around to my side of the jig. I said, "Something hit me on the head." He was looking at my drill motor. I followed his gaze and saw a clump of hair wrapped around the chuck.

I said, "I'm going to First Aid".
 
twosheds, yah they crank lightnin fast! a-10 tank killer great ship, when i worked for gulfstream in savn. geo. airport they where always flying around low and slow in very steep banked turns very cool. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif
 
anthony7777 said:
twosheds, yah they crank lightnin fast! a-10 tank killer great ship, when i worked for gulfstream in savn. geo. airport they where always flying around low and slow in very steep banked turns very cool. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif

Yes, ugly and slow, they are the only airplane to receive a bird strike from behind.

Yet they can turn on a dime and take damage without complaint.

Built very sturdy.
 
Saw photos of one with a three foot long piece of its leading edge missing. Tail all shot up... Young lady AF Captain flew it home. Lost hydraulics and had to moose it along. Tough kid!!
 
DrEntropy said:
Saw photos of one with a three foot long piece of its leading edge missing. Tail all shot up... Young lady AF Captain flew it home. Lost hydraulics and had to moose it along. Tough kid!!

Manual Reversion! If you lose both hydraulic sysyems, flip a switch and the hydraulic actuators disconnect from the flight controls. The stick now moves what are normally trim tabs like servo tabs. Will get you home. Wish I had a nickel for every time we tested manual reversion.
 
Yup. She was all of 5' 5" and about a feather over 100 pounds, and managed to get the bird home on manual!! A quick assessment was that about 40% of the control surfaces were just GONE...

...all I could think was: Do NOT get *her* PO'd at ya!!!
 
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