So, what's the greatest tool you've bought.

[Morakot]

1 hour ago, Daffy D said:

Depends how far back in history you want to go.

[...]

So my vote for the best greatest tool ever would be for the power drill. 

 

 

Thanks for your insightful explanation of this traditional technique!

 

 

I had many electrical drills (with hammer drill function), but drilling into concrete, or even strong cement mortar, was always a pain and often resulted in not very precise outcomes.

 

All changed when I bought a small rotary hammer. It's very slow turning, almost "pounding and grinding" its way through concrete without real effort. This el cheapo number I got from a local chain store in Thailand, seems almost indestructible. I once used it continuously in pure hammer mode for 45 min; it has never failed throughout the years  on various projects.

Edited March 5, 2017 by Morakot

[ajarngreg]

Just now, tutsiwarrior said:

 

those compression testers with the hoses are nice but take time...better to use the hand held ones as it's simply a matter of comparing the compression from one cylinder to another...

 

ye ever tried to check the compression onna mercedes?...ye can't even get a screw driver in there much less a hose...on the V8s anyways...

 

the Isuzu pickup is laid out nicely in the engine compartment...everything very nice and accessible...and 4 cyliders as opposed to 8cyls is much more politically correct...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have you ever tried to change the plugs of a Porsche Carrera? Or certain American vans with a V 8, where you need to lift the damn thing up, or you have to lay on the floor and you might break your arm.

 

   Easy on a Benz, all you need is the right tools. My tester has the right part for these plugs. 

 

       But I'm not a  mechanic. 

[tutsiwarrior]

you said it with the benz...ye needed to have a special flat headed allen wrench to even get at the oil drain plug...and ye had to tap it in from below with a hammer as the chassis interfered with oil drain pan...

 

and them 6 cyl porches were a pain...needed to have a 'technician' with instruments to work on those mothers...the little 4cyl speedsters were a delight...they were like a go cart on steroids...

 

I gave bein' a mechanic a go fer a year but in the end I gave up and went back to school... it was hard dirty work fer an hourly wage and I reckoned that I could do better than that...

 

 

Edited March 5, 2017 by tutsiwarrior

[sipi]

Spectacles.

All my other tools are useless without them.

[cornishcarlos]

12 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

"Kitchen drawer" implies that your good lady has access to it. I love my wife very much, but allowing her to use tools (particularly power tools) is just too risky.

 

 

Risky doesn't even enter the equation, they're just MINE :)

[cornishcarlos]

I'm cordless Makita all the way...

Got a 600 euro compensation claim for a flight delay with Emirates last year, was spent on tools before I even landed !! 

Life is just so much easier when you're cordless :)

[cornishcarlos]

In Thailand, every tool is a hammer. Apart from a screwdriver, which is a chisel !!

[wayned]

Didn't buy it, made it myself.  A basin nut spanner wrench.  It only works on nuts with wings but saves you oodles of time and aggravation.  I replaced two bathroom faucets and a kitchen faucet with it last week and no 4 letter words were uttered during the jobs which took less than 1 hour total:

 

[canuckamuck]

I can't choose. There are times when you need a certain tool, and you have it, and it makes a job so easy. That tool becomes your best friend even though you don't need it again for a year. But then there are tools that you love because you use them all the time and they work right. And then there are tools that you bought eons ago that still work like the day you bought them.

I would say My cordless reciprocating saw has saved me the most work in the last few years (lots of PVC pipe work for irrigating) but it has hard competition with my cordless impact driver. And there is vice on my workbench that get used almost daily, it never gets any credit.

[JimShortz]

17 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

I have the Stanley 10" one (some of us like yellow tools). It's on its second blade after someone (no not I) tried to cut Conwood with it.

 

https://www.homepro.co.th/product/1035571

 

Crossy, do you have any opinion on the Stanley mitre saw?  It's next on my shopping list, and that's a very reasonable price...  Any input much appreciated  :-)

 

[wayned]

11 minutes ago, JimShortz said:

Crossy, do you have any opinion on the Stanley mitre saw?  It's next on my shopping list, and that's a very reasonable price...  Any input much appreciated  :-)

 

I had/have a Stanley 7 1/4" Circular saw that is still going after 18 years building two houses and many other projects.. I lent it to a Thai and he launched it from the roof of a building and broke the handle.  The part was no longer available so out came the arc welder and I now have a small table saw using the undamaged body of the saw.

[CGW]

8 hours ago, cornishcarlos said:

I'm cordless Makita all the way...

Got a 600 euro compensation claim for a flight delay with Emirates last year, was spent on tools before I even landed !! 

Life is just so much easier when you're cordless :)

Without a doubt the "best" garden tool I own (if there is such a beast!) is a cordless hedge trimmer, saves a lot of splicing, electrical tape and blown fuses!

[Wirejerker]

If you haven't got am impact driver in your tool box you haven't lived. I was one of the uninformed and used a cordless drill to drive my screws and I thought I knew my shit and one of my apprentices pull me up give me the drum now I have to keep my tools locked up to keep every Tom dick and harry from my Milwaukee impact driver and impact wrench.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Kinnock]

For me it was a Snap-on tools click-type torque wrench.  At the time I thought it was insanely expensive, but I wanted a quality tool as I was restoring a car.  I'm a demon over-tightener, and have snapped studs and bolts on many devices from pumps to bikes, as I always think a bit tighter is better.  Twenty five years later and it's still saving me from 'over-torqueing'. 

 

Just made me think - do they ever need recalibrating?

[tutsiwarrior]

8 hours ago, Kinnock said:

For me it was a Snap-on tools click-type torque wrench.  At the time I thought it was insanely expensive, but I wanted a quality tool as I was restoring a car.  I'm a demon over-tightener, and have snapped studs and bolts on many devices from pumps to bikes, as I always think a bit tighter is better.  Twenty five years later and it's still saving me from 'over-torqueing'. 

 

Just made me think - do they ever need recalibrating?

yeah...them snap - on click torque wrenches are nice...but cheaper click types have been available fer some time now, have used them recently in power station applications along with hydraulic devices the torques for which you wouldn't believe, usually fer big steam turbine intermediate and generator couplings...I useta rent one when I needed it...usually fer the big flywheel nut onna Volkwagen...needed to have a cheater on that mother...240 ft - lbs? otherwise use a small handled ratchet when working with non ferrous fasteners to limit damage when tightening...a small ratchet only allows 'hand tight'...

 

when working on big steam turbines they managed somehow to recalibrate the mechanical caliper micrometers...never figured that out...even the spirit levels that read 0.001 inch/unit of length...the erection contractors had to submit 6 monthly 3rd party calibr. certs and there was usually a sticker on the device...

 

 

 

 

Edited March 6, 2017 by tutsiwarrior

[grollies]

On 05/03/2017 at 9:07 PM, Denim said:

A mans best friend ( discounting dogs ) has to be his angle grinder. Electric screwdrivers may be handy but an angle grinder is worth every baht you spent on it. Before I had one ......many DIY jobs were too much effort to contemplate . Before I had one my horizon was limited. Now I've had and abused one there are fewer jobs that I have to pay a nincompoop to do for me.

. Why just today I had to install an extractor fan in the kitchen which involved cutting a 1 foot square hole in the wall. Angle grinder started the job ( making a fog of fine dust that was spectacular to hold ). Finished off using a small saw to cut through the aerated blocks. But it was the angle grinder that gave me the straight edge as a good starting point.

 

God bless the inventor of the angle grinder !

and what is the first thing a Thai builder does when he gets hold of an angle grinder?...............

[CGW]

41 minutes ago, grollies said:

and what is the first thing a Thai builder does when he gets hold of an angle grinder?...............

Double checks that the safety features are in place secure and fit for service?

[grollies]

39 minutes ago, CGW said:

Double checks that the safety features are in place secure and fit for service?

[grollies]

For labour-saving it has to be this.

 

 

[eyecatcher]

The end of a days work is the sound of one of those tumbling with six bricks inside it.

good times!....................end of a day I mean

 

I wish I had one now, one days hand mixing concrete means the next three days laid up aching and exhausted.

[Crossy]

5 hours ago, grollies said:

For labour-saving it has to be this.

 

Indeed, but if I knew then (when I bought one), what I know now (now I've used it to mix up a fair few cubes), I would have bought a full-size one, and bought it six months earlier :)

[CGW]

9 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

Indeed, but if I knew then (when I bought one), what I know now (now I've used it to mix up a fair few cubes), I would have bought a full-size one, and bought it six months earlier :)

This post made me think! I can't think of any tools that I have bought that I later regretted buying, I have regretted going for the "cheaper" option on more than one occasion though!

So, life's lesson is too buy any tools I feel I will need & to buy the best quality available!

[grollies]

2 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

Indeed, but if I knew then (when I bought one), what I know now (now I've used it to mix up a fair few cubes), I would have bought a full-size one, and bought it six months earlier :)

Yeah, thought about it but moving it around would be a pain in the arse.

[grollies]

3 hours ago, eyecatcher said:

The end of a days work is the sound of one of those tumbling with six bricks inside it.

good times!....................end of a day I mean

 

I wish I had one now, one days hand mixing concrete means the next three days laid up aching and exhausted.

5555 yep, thats what I do.

 

Got about 40m of foundation to do for some retaining walls this year, buggered if I'm going to mix it all by hand.

 

Two chicken sheds built that way until I got the missus to start mixing the cement.

 

She went to Global House and bought me one. She now has time to play cards in the afternoon. 

[cornishcarlos]

Its just as cheap to get a small truck in with pre-mix :)

[ajarngreg]

3 hours ago, eyecatcher said:

The end of a days work is the sound of one of those tumbling with six bricks inside it.

good times!....................end of a day I mean

 

I wish I had one now, one days hand mixing concrete means the next three days laid up aching and exhausted.

2

 Whiny? 

[ajarngreg]

8 hours ago, grollies said:

For labour-saving it has to be this.

 

 

 

It looks like a useful machine. Made in China, perhaps ? Then the problems are only a matter of time....... myself on this one. 

[grollies]

32 minutes ago, ajarngreg said:

It looks like a useful machine. Made in China, perhaps ? Then the problems are only a matter of time....... myself on this one. 

Yep, made in China, hence the modification.

[Crossy]

8 hours ago, cornishcarlos said:

Its just as cheap to get a small truck in with pre-mix :)

 

Possibly, I've never actually worked out the cost of DIY concrete. DIY isn't always about cost.

 

Even the small trucks have a minimum order of a cube or so, not so handy when you only want a few barrow loads.

 

And, of course, nowhere near as convenient, no way to get even a small truck "out back" of our place without considerable damage to Wifey's garden.

[Crossy]

11 hours ago, CGW said:

This post made me think! I can't think of any tools that I have bought that I later regretted buying, I have regretted going for the "cheaper" option on more than one occasion though!

So, life's lesson is too buy any tools I feel I will need & to buy the best quality available!

 

Yes, I'm in the (lucky I suppose) position to be able to buy any tools I need for the job.

 

I do have tools that only come out occasionally, but they are there should I need them. The 6" belt sander I bought a couple of weeks ago for a particular job will likely be one of them, but the additional speed and practicality over trying to use my 1/3rd-sheet orbital has already paid for itself in my time.

 

One tool that I rue buying (regret is too strong, it wasn't expensive) is a drill sharpener. By the time I've got it out and set it up I can do a faster (although probably not quite so accurate) job with a bench grinder, and it doesn't do small drills particularly well anyway