Several weeks ago, on my other Blog - PRC-77.com - I put up a post about how I'm cleaning out several decades worth of old hand tools, and re-setting for my new interests. I wrote this follow up, but then decided to move the tool discussion over here to A Fine Blade because it's a better subject fit, and I need to re-invigorate this blog.
When I published my Hand Tool Renewal post, I thought it was a one-and-done; I didn't think there's be anything else to discuss. But the last few weeks on this tool renewal thing have been very interesting, and even this old dog learned some new tricks. Thought I'd share.
Mechanical systems have always fascinated me. I've been turning wrenches on things like cars, boats, motorcycles, bicycles, fishing tackle and firearms for over half a century. My fascination is a bit odd because while my Dad was an incorrigible tinkerer, he was mostly into wood working and small home repair, and keeping his sailboat up to snuff. I honestly don't ever remember him looking under the hood of a car except to curse at the blasted beast for not working the way he thought it should. Dad loved cars, and loved driving them, but as far as I can tell never had any special interest in working on them. He left that to 'the guy' who ran a gas station and service shop just up the street from us. And on occasion, me. On the flip side, I have very little interest in wood working. I can saw, hammer and drill with the best of them, but taking on anything larger than home maintenance projects just doesn't interest me.
Early in my driving career I inherited a well used '68 VW Beetle. I drove that thing through almost four years of college, commuting back and forth every day, and driving it to the various jobs I had in the Toledo area. Dad wasn't going to put a single dime into it, so it was up to me to keep it running. Having to keep a car running in order to make it to school, and to various jobs to be able to afford school, resulted in one hell of a compressed education in automotive maintenance. With the help of the classic 'How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive' manual by John Muir, and a Haynes manual for the VW Type 1 I became a fair-to-middling home mechanic. John Muir's manual is an absolute classic, done in a funky 1960's 'hippie style', but was a remarkably complete, expertly written and humorously but precisely illustrated. This book is a classic, still in publication and still sells well, even though most of the millions of VWs it was intended to help keep on the road have long since gone to the crusher.
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| The original manual, published in 1969, had only black & white illustrations and covered drive trains from the early 50's right up to 1969. It became THE bible on VW maintenance & repair for the owner/tinkerer |
There were some maintenance problems beyond my skills, and for those I took the car to 'a guy' named Alan on the north end of Toledo, who did a garage-level business in VW repairs. I ended up working for him for a few months one summer in the mid-70s just to get some experience. He had me doing mostly brake jobs and carburetor rebuilds, but I learned a whole lot from him just by watching and asking questions. One of the things I took note of was his collection of tools. This guy had retired out of a commercial automotive maintenance shop in Toledo and a lot of his tools were old brands that I can't even remember. One thing I do remember is that he had a lot of Craftsman wrenches laying around. I asked him one day if Craftsman were the best, and Al's response was interesting. He said they were good, and he liked the warranty, but the main reason he bought Craftsman was because Sears was just up the road, and was one of the few places you could go that offered a comprehensive line of metric tools. It was easier to go to Sears to buy a Craftsman wrench than drive across town to a specialty tool shop.
I took Al's comments to heart and began buying mostly Craftsman metric tools. Although often tempted by the sexier offerings from the tool truck guys like Snap-On and Mac, they were far beyond my means, and Craftsman offered the quality, range and availability I came to count on.
Fast forward half a century (oh God, am I that old!?) and while my tool focus has shifted, my appreciation for (and ability to afford) very good tools is unabated. In my last post I covered what was a refresh and expansion of tools to support my electronics bench work. That upgrade is about complete. Now I'm going after the larger tools I use for home maintenance, light automotive maintenance, and maintenance on our camper. In my car port storage room I've got a roll-off tool chest that is packed full of a mish-mash of old stuff - hammers, tap & die sets, wheel pullers, specialty tools, pry bars, hatchets, sharpening stones, at least two, and sometimes three, semi-complete socket sets for both metric and SAE bolts, some old Craftsman screwdrivers with the clear acetate handles that have developed the classic 'funk' coating (that phenomenon is an interesting story in itself, but suffice to say there's no real cure) and other odds and ends.
Then there's electric tools. I'm switching completely from corded tools to cordless. I donated the last of my corded tools to our church rummage sale a few months ago. For several years I've been buying into the Ryobi line of battery powered equipment, both for their power tools like drills and saws, but also for the wide variety of accessory items they make, such as portable fans, sprayers and lights. While Ryobi makes good DIY-grade gear (and it really is well designed and manufactured stuff), what they make often doesn't provide the necessary 'oomph' that pro-grade power tools offer. This came to light when we burned out a Ryobi drill when using it to lower and raise the stabilizers on our camper. Right now I'm teetering between two replacement brands for heavier duty power gear - Milwaukee and Harbor Freight. I know many of you are stroking out at the mention of 'Harbor Freight', but their Hercules line of cordless tools gets excellent reviews, even occasionally beating the comparable Milwaukee tool (example, a 1/2" cordless drill) but at about half the price. I don't want to support three battery systems (Ryobi, Milwaukee and Harbor Freight), so I'm taking a hard look at the Milwaukee and Harbor Freight offerings to make a decision.
So what do I need to keep in that old roll-off in my storage room? Since my heavy automotive wrenching days are over, remarkably little. A set of screw drivers, a 3/8" & 1/2" metric socket sets that take me from 10mm to 23mm, a few specialty wrenches for things like tightening ball hitch nuts, an adjustable wrench or two, some slip joint pliers, linesman pliers and... that's about it. Now, this roll-off cabinet isn't the only place I keep tools. I have a 5 gallon bucket inside my house with common use home repair tools and I also keep a set of tools in my truck - cheaper Harbor Freight versions of socket sets, wrenches, pliers, etc. Considering it all, I guess I'm 'well tooled'.
This has left me with a lot of spare tools. The broken, rusted or unserviceable stuff (like the screwdrivers with the funky handles) got tossed. The serviceable excess got put into 5 gallon buckets. Drop in a Z-Rust tab, snap on a lid and put the buckets in the corner of my storage room for any future need. If in a few years I find I don't need to dip into this spares stash, it will all get donated to a worthy cause.
Shopping for new tools has become an interesting lesson in global manufacturing shifts in the Era of Trump. Before Trump and the tariffs, communist China was the leading hand tool producer, and to be fair, they made some pretty good stuff. I've already discussed this in regards to knife manufacturing. Taiwan and India were the other two hand tool production centers. Taiwan has a long history of making high quality tools (and knives) but their production costs were always a bit higher than communist China or India. Long ago I made the personal decision to not buy anything from China; they are at war with us, and every purchase fuels their efforts to undermine us. But the tariffs, even just the threat of tariffs, have forced US tool retailers to shift production to other locales. We are now seeing an increase in production coming out of Taiwan and India, and Vietnamese made tools are becoming increasingly common. The tools made in India area still somewhat crude. I recently looked at a set of Craftsman combination wrenches made in India, and they were rough - poor stampings, lots of metal flash, poorly broached box end sections, etc. A corresponding set of Taiwan-produced wrenches, just one display over, were very nicely forged, finished and chromed. Yes, they were twice the price of the India-produced set, but still well worth the cost. I don't have a lot of experience with Vietnamese produced hand tools, but the few I've looked at (brands included Husky, Milwaukee and Channellock) seem well finished. While Vietnam is still a communist country, at least they cooperate with the US, and are not trying to undermine us. So, I'll keep an eye on Vietnamese tools.
That's it, for now. My next focus needs to be measuring tools, to include things like calipers and tapes. But, I'll leave that discussion for another day. For now...
Stay sharp!
