Favorite tools

[230RN]

I aspire to have the only noise by my mansion being my butler dumping the empty beer bottles into the trash can.

[Fly320s]

Not really an aspiration for me; more like a wise choice.

I aspire to being useful and skilled with tools, but I am safer in the short term, and richer in the long term, if I put down the hammer and pick up the checkbook.

[Ben]

Not really an aspiration for me; more like a wise choice.

I aspire to being useful and skilled with tools, but I am safer in the short term, and richer in the long term, if I put down the hammer and pick up the checkbook.

Excellent way to put it.

These days, if I'm at least 90% sure I can do something without complications and it's not too back-breaking labor, I will still generally do it. If there's at least a 10% chance that I'll screw it up or something will go wrong (like a water pipe fitting replacement causing a leak behind the drywall) , I'll call somebody who knows what they're doing and who needs the money more than me.

That's been going up to around 98% for my rentals. Especially given that every time I go there to fix something for a tenant, they seem to take it as an opportunity to gripe about something else that's working perfectly fine that they want replaced. If I just send a guy, even at $100/hr, I think it ends up saving me money. 

[K Frame]

"Irwin vise grips because they are much better made than the generic locking pliers."

Leave my vice grips alone, ya handsy bastard!

[French G.]

"Irwin vise grips because they are much better made than the generic locking pliers."

Leave my vice grips alone, ya handsy bastard!

Irwin Vise Grips, now made off-shore. Channellock pliers, made in PA. Glad I have a lifetime supply of pre-
Irwin US made vise grips.

[Unisaw]

My favorite is a Delta Unisaw that I got back in the late 1990s.  My favorite (most sentimental) hand tool is a bench plane that was my grandfather's.

[RoadKingLarry]

I've got a 4" Makita angle grinder that I bought in 1988, still runs like a champ. I've used the crap out of it, dropped it several times and generally used it like a red headed stepchild. I loaned it to my brother once and he left it out in the rain for two days and brought it back to me still wet. I dried it out and went back to using it.

[41magsnub]

Red Milwaukee 1/2" chuck drill.  Unkillable, its stronger than I am.  It has threw me off a roof once screwing in a lag screw that bound up.

[HeroHog]

Red Milwaukee 1/2" chuck drill.  Unkillable, its stronger than I am.  It has threw me off a roof once screwing in a lag screw that bound up.

Watched my brother ride a "T" handled one one time drilling a steel something in a bench vice until the chord was wrapped around him enough to get yanked out of the wall. Laughed my butt off! He was using a large bit and was squatting over the drill putting pressure on it when it took bite and away they went!

[French G.]

I've got a 4" Makita angle grinder that I bought in 1988, still runs like a champ. I've used the crap out of it, dropped it several times and generally used it like a red headed stepchild. I loaned it to my brother once and he left it out in the rain for two days and brought it back to me still wet. I dried it out and went back to using it.

When does your brother get out of the hospital?

[HeroHog]

When does your brother get out of the hospital?

"Who cares? Once the Makita was extracted and found to still be in working order, I left!"

[birdman]

Red Milwaukee 1/2" chuck drill.  Unkillable, its stronger than I am.  It has threw me off a roof once screwing in a lag screw that bound up.

Milwaukee corded hole-shooter...yeah, that drill is the shiznit.  Totally forgot it!

[wmenorr67]

My brain.

[K Frame]

Wait...

No one said Fistful?

[cordex]

Wait...

No one said Fistful?

Of course not.
The thread is about favorite tools.

[K Frame]

Nowhere was it specified that it needed to be favorite USEFUL tool...

[AJ Dual]

A set of 1950's Starrett pin-punches, in the old-school turned wooden case. Except the wood of the case is blackened by fire from a house-fire my grandfather had.

I use them a ton on firearms, AR builds etc. but also because they were his, and what they've been through.

Like this... but burnt/black on the outside. 

[Cliffh]

Oh, take it apart and clean and lube it.  Probably full of sawdust. The blower sucks in air from the other end, bringing sawdust in with it.  Sawdust on the bearings absorbs the oil.  Take notes on how the washers came out and how the housings go together.

I'll have to give that a try. 

I'd have thought it'd have sealed bearings, to keep the sawdust out of them.  If they are, and they're bad, I could most likely figure a way to remove them and install new ones.

It's all a time thing - seems like there's never enough of it.