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Can you relate?!?

Joined
Mar 13, 2005
Messages
231
Likes
1
Location
Newville, PA (south of Harrisburg)
Website
www.torne-lignum.com
Tools and their uses:

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, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

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 calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, 'Oh SH-- '

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.

BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up 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.

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

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.

BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

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

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or 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.

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

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.

UTILITY 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.

DAMN-IT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling 'DAMN-IT' at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.
 
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Heh,heh,heh.....Yeah, that's funny, Ruth......

Sometimes, it seems like the only reason I'm still alive today, is because God doesn't want me dead yet!!!! 😀

ooc
 
You must have at least three mondays a week to have that much "fun" in the shop .... wait a minute .. the last bowl I turned hit the roof ... another patch job required.

Some days I think if it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all. 🙁

Bruce
 
Ruth, your list is pretty thorough, but it wouldn't be complete without that indispensable tool, the propane torch. Shortly after getting into woodturning, I saw what some turners were doing with pyrography and just knew that I had to try it for myself. The results were so spectacular that I had to sit down and write a C & W song about it -- goes like this here:


My Bowl's on Fire

Propane is a burning thing
And it can start a fiery ring
Bound by foolish desire
I turned my bowl into a ring of fire

CHORUS:
I turned my bowl into a burning ring of fire
It burned round, round, round
And the flames went higher

And it burned, burned, burned
My bowl is on fire
My bowl is on fire

I turned my bowl into a burning ring of fire
It burned round, round, round
And the flames went higher

And it burned, burned, burned
My bowl is on fire
My bowl is on fire

The smell of burned wood is a treat
When turners come to my shop to meet
I played with the torch like a child
Oh, that’s why the fire went wild

CHORUS
I turned my bowl into a burning ring of fire
It burned round, round, round
And the flames went higher

And it burned, burned, burned
My bowl is on fire
My bowl is on fire

I turned my bowl into a burning ring of fire
It burned round, round, round
And the flames went higher

And it burned, burned, burned
My bowl is on fire
My bowl is on fire

And it burned, burned, burned

My bowl is on fire
My bowl is on fire
 
ruth,
you forgot the most important tool.

Lathe - heavy large iron capable of launching heavy wood object to all parts of the shop, and testing your ducking capabilities. also known to deplete bank accounts with its need for accessories.

IAN
 
Hi, Ruth,

Here's a few more for your collection:

HAMMER: Properly applied, a tool that will give precise locations of structural wall elements. But, notwithstanding its obvious utility, it is unsurpassed in adding real weight to the 60-70 lb “Roy Rogers 2-gun†tool belt rigs used as primary tool storage props by PBS homeshow actors. They have traditionally been a high-profit item for U.S. Defense contractors rivaled only by semi-articulating sanitary seating-surface equipment.

PLIERS: Primarily used to add razor sharp burrs to knurled knobs, they are also handy for crimping allegedly child-proof screw caps on metal cans of various liquids to make said caps completely non-removable by anyone of any age.

VISE-GRIPS: See “Pliers.†If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat from the workpiece to the palm of your hand.

WHEEL PULLER: A device resembling a 3 or 4-legged steel Tarantula on a mirror which, after its initial use of attempted removal of a pliers-crimped child-safe can cap, can be effectively employed to impress the hell out of friends and shop visitors simply by being hung prominently on the garage pegboard.

LEVEL: Affectionately referred to as “The Bubblestick,†it is usually employed after-the-fact to determine the average percentage level of any number of psycho-active substances in the collective bloodstream of a given structure’s original framing crew that being a function of the resulting slope in floors and departure from vertical of walls.

FRAMING SQUARE: A real-world example of an oxymoron, they are prominently placed in lumberyard tool displays but sold exclusively to homeowners to perpetuate the myth that one was ever used by the idiot/alcoholic/drug addict who built their residence.

ADJUSTABLE SQUARE: Another real-world oxymoron, it’s employed by altered-state carpenters to refute any assertion that their work is not square. Also used with a protractor as an adjunct measuring device similar to a LEVEL.

EIGHT-FOOT SPRUCE 2X4: A favorite framing member used in vast quantities by handyman-remodeling contractors with the word “Doctor†in their business name. Most commonly installed in the prized “wet/green†state, they are unsurpassed for producing the ever-popular “undulating wall†effect, and are economical in use because they only require a single toenail at top and bottom.

OIL FILTER WRENCH: One of a family of tools that will not fit the filter on your current vehicle. Often hung compass point fashion around the WHEEL PULLER.

MITER/CHOP SAW: A portable electric cutting tool usually employed to screw up a maximum amount of crown molding in a minimum amount of time while still making near-perfect 90̊ and 45̊cuts.

SELF-RETRACTING TAPE RULE: One of a family of precisely demarcated measuring instruments used to quickly determine the exact length needed to cut an EIGHT-FOOT SPRUCE 2X4 precisely 1 inch too short.

😀😀
 
Ok, can't resist this.
Bowl gouge- A tool used to create a deep, spiral groove on the inside of a bowl while simultaneously breaking one side off the tool rest.
Round nose scraper- Same use as a bowl gouge only different tool shape.
 
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