Just a few in my toolbox. TAPE MEASURE: This device is used to measure length. It should be immediately dropped onto concrete several times so that measurements made with it will then agree with every other TAPE MEASURE in the world. 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 airplane part you were drying. ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age; with the proper accessories, used to destroy perfectly good wood in many ways. CHISEL: Multi use tool - good for making deep cuts in the hand. CORDLESS DRILL/POWER SCREWDRIVER: Used for rounding out Phillips screw heads at high speed. 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 you want the bearing race out of. NAILSET: Used to make small, round depressions around the head of a finish nail. Principally used for decoration. CLAMPS: These come in two sizes: too small and loaned to an in-law. 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, "Ouch...." PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. 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. SABER SAW: See Hacksaw. VISE-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. 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. HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new disk brake pads, trapping the jack handle irmly under the bumper. 8-FOOT LONG 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off a hydraulic jack handle. TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters. PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbors to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack. PHONE (alt.): Tool for calling your brother-in-law to see if he has your CLAMPS . TABLE SAW: Used to make wood slightly narrower than necessary. MITER SAW: Used to make wood slightly shorter than necessary. THICKNESS PLANER: Used to make wood slightly thinner than necessary. JOINTER: Used to make the too thin, too short, too narrow wood perfectly straight. Very useful for making two sides of a board perfectly straight but non-parallel. SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog**** off your boot. E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known drill bit that snaps off in bolt holes you couldn't use anyway. TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the tensile strength on everything you forgot to disconnect. CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large pry bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle. 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, it's 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. PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads. 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 last over tightened 58 years ago by someone at ERCO, and neatly rounds off their heads. PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50¢ part. 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 not far from the object we are trying to hit. HAMMER (alt.): Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer continues to be the tool of choice for making medium sized circular depressions in wooden surfaces of all kinds. 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. UTILITY KNIFE (alt.): Used to slice through the fingers. For purposes of sanitation, the blades are easily replaceable. 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 the next tool that you will need. EXPLETIVE: A balm, usually applied verbally in hindsight, which somehow eases those pains and indignities following our every deficiency in foresight
You forgot some. Combination wrenches: Used for driving your knuckles into the sharpest bolt within reach, with the power of a prize fighter. Alternate use to attempt to loosen bolts, but generally for rounding them. Breaker bar: Used to snap off the heads of expensive bolts that have to be ordered from the opposite side of the world, no matter what side of the world you live on. Section of pipe: Used over a breaker bar to increase leverage. Multiplies torque 2 to three times to help break bolts that cost many multiples more than anything you can break with a breaker bar alone. Also good for breaking expensive sockets. Pipe wrench: Alternate tool used like a breaker bar. Soldering iron: Primary purpose to drip molten solder into your shoe. Alternate use for melting carpet and burning leather. Side benefit to attempt to fuse two corroded copper wires together and burn fingers. Bench vise: Clamping tool used to hold delicate parts so you can break off a bolt in it with a breaker bar. To do this you usually need to crush the delicate part to some flattened form making it utterly useless. Tap and die set: Main purpose is to use up drawer space in a tool box. Side benefit is to purposely re-thread a bolt with the wrong thread, so you can go to the store for a new bolt. Oil filter wrench: Mostly used at fast oil change shops employing high school age boys. Main purpose is to tighten the oil filter so tight that no mortal man will ever remove it. Also used to destroy oil filters put on at fast oil change shops. Precision measuring tools: Tools used to make you remember why you hated 7th grade shop class and math. Jumper wires: Used for shorting out circuit boards and wiring harnesses. Battery charger: Used primarily to boil all the water out of batteries so they are less hazardous, the better more powerful ones are also good for burning out glow plugs on diesel engines, and light bulbs. Continuity tester: See jumper wires. Secondary use is to jab the sharp point into finger tips.
