Nickodell
Donation Time
(Moved from Tech Tips)
THE TRUE DESCRIPTION OF TOOLS
HAMMER: Automatically aims itself at expensive parts near the object you are trying to hit. Also used as the instrument of last resort, as in “NOW WILL YOU FIT YOU #@&%$$)!!!â€
BOX CUTTER: Used to slice through and ruin the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing seat covers and folding tops, and is popular with ER departments.
PORTABLE ELECTRIC DRILL: Used for spinning steel pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age or the hole becomes too big for future riveting, it also works great for making non-buffable skid marks on prominent finish points.
PLIERS and VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. They can also be used to raise blood blisters on hands.
HACKSAW and AVIATION METAL SNIP: Two of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle, transforming human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion. The more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
PROPANE TORCH: Used mostly for setting various flammable objects in your garage on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside things you're trying to remove by heating. MAPP works faster. Alternate use: checking smoke alarm.
WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars, they are now used mainly for impersonating SAE sockets so you can hurt your knuckles and round off those ugly corners.
DRILL PRESS: Useful for suddenly snatching the work you were too lazy to secure out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer can across the garage, unerringly at your car’s finish or windshield.
WIRE WHEEL BRUSH: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses from your fingers in about the time it takes you to say "Ouch....".
HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a vehicle to the ground after you have installed your new front disc brake setup, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front fender. Sometimes used to break fins off oil pans.
EIGHT-FOOT LONG 2X4: Used for levering a car off a hydraulic jack.
TWEEZERS: A tool for removing splinters from using the above item without gloves.
PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another floor jack.
GASKET SCRAPER: Useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise and getting dog-crap off your boot, preferably in that order.
E-Z OUT STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit, turning a simple job into major engineering.
TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup.
TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of the grounding strap and fuel line you forgot to disconnect.
16 INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined ½†screwdriver tip opposite the handle. Also useful as a makeshift punch.
BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER: Used for transferring sulfuric acid from a car battery to your car’s finish after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, which you knew in any case.
TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth, it is designed to fall just far enough to break its bulb. May be a source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin", which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume light bulbs. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading. Good for arm exercise by shaking it as the light goes on and off.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Used to stab the foil seal on oil containers and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads. Some cheaper models are designed to round themselves off in order to save screw heads.
AIR COMPRESSOR: Used to collect water from the air and mix it with paint. Takes energy from a power plant hundreds of miles away and transforms it into compressed air to power an impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last tightened 50 years ago and rounds them off nicely. Additionally, powers a nozzle to blow small parts into corners where they can’t be found until you come home with a replacement.
HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too short.
WIRE CUTTER: Ditto wires.
TORQUE WRENCH: A sophisticated tool to break various fasteners and threaded joints after you forget to re-set the torque setting from that 7/8" bolt.
ARC WELDING HOOD: Makes it impossible to see the work you're trying to weld until the welding rod sticks to the part until it glows red and melts.
TUBING BENDERS: Their purpose is to bend perfectly good pieces of tubing into various shapes good for absolutely nothing except modern art displays.
POWER BANDSAW: A device used to destroy circular metal bands with teeth on one side of them, or remove the first joint of your fingers.
CORDLESS DRILL and various other cordless electric tools. Developed to enhance the profit statements of the battery industry.
CHUCK KEYS: One of the most commonly lost tools. Not made by the same companies who design chucks, so you never know what type and size to purchase.
TORX DRIVERS: Formerly the mystery tool designed by manufacturers in collusion with repair shops, to prevent DIY owners removing like-named fasteners. Since they are now in the hands of the public, new mystery fasteners have been developed, and as retribution, several have been designed to at first glance look like Torx parts, but turn out to be a different type only after you ruin the fastener.
IMPACT DRIVER: An ingenious device with an internal two-way cam; used for loosening tight fasteners on old cars by using the natural muscle spasm of the operator holding the tool when struck on the thumb. Loud screams are mandatory during use.
THE TRUE DESCRIPTION OF TOOLS
HAMMER: Automatically aims itself at expensive parts near the object you are trying to hit. Also used as the instrument of last resort, as in “NOW WILL YOU FIT YOU #@&%$$)!!!â€
BOX CUTTER: Used to slice through and ruin the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing seat covers and folding tops, and is popular with ER departments.
PORTABLE ELECTRIC DRILL: Used for spinning steel pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age or the hole becomes too big for future riveting, it also works great for making non-buffable skid marks on prominent finish points.
PLIERS and VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. They can also be used to raise blood blisters on hands.
HACKSAW and AVIATION METAL SNIP: Two of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle, transforming human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion. The more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
PROPANE TORCH: Used mostly for setting various flammable objects in your garage on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside things you're trying to remove by heating. MAPP works faster. Alternate use: checking smoke alarm.
WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars, they are now used mainly for impersonating SAE sockets so you can hurt your knuckles and round off those ugly corners.
DRILL PRESS: Useful for suddenly snatching the work you were too lazy to secure out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer can across the garage, unerringly at your car’s finish or windshield.
WIRE WHEEL BRUSH: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses from your fingers in about the time it takes you to say "Ouch....".
HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a vehicle to the ground after you have installed your new front disc brake setup, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front fender. Sometimes used to break fins off oil pans.
EIGHT-FOOT LONG 2X4: Used for levering a car off a hydraulic jack.
TWEEZERS: A tool for removing splinters from using the above item without gloves.
PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another floor jack.
GASKET SCRAPER: Useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise and getting dog-crap off your boot, preferably in that order.
E-Z OUT STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit, turning a simple job into major engineering.
TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup.
TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of the grounding strap and fuel line you forgot to disconnect.
16 INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined ½†screwdriver tip opposite the handle. Also useful as a makeshift punch.
BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER: Used for transferring sulfuric acid from a car battery to your car’s finish after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, which you knew in any case.
TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth, it is designed to fall just far enough to break its bulb. May be a source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin", which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume light bulbs. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading. Good for arm exercise by shaking it as the light goes on and off.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Used to stab the foil seal on oil containers and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads. Some cheaper models are designed to round themselves off in order to save screw heads.
AIR COMPRESSOR: Used to collect water from the air and mix it with paint. Takes energy from a power plant hundreds of miles away and transforms it into compressed air to power an impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last tightened 50 years ago and rounds them off nicely. Additionally, powers a nozzle to blow small parts into corners where they can’t be found until you come home with a replacement.
HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too short.
WIRE CUTTER: Ditto wires.
TORQUE WRENCH: A sophisticated tool to break various fasteners and threaded joints after you forget to re-set the torque setting from that 7/8" bolt.
ARC WELDING HOOD: Makes it impossible to see the work you're trying to weld until the welding rod sticks to the part until it glows red and melts.
TUBING BENDERS: Their purpose is to bend perfectly good pieces of tubing into various shapes good for absolutely nothing except modern art displays.
POWER BANDSAW: A device used to destroy circular metal bands with teeth on one side of them, or remove the first joint of your fingers.
CORDLESS DRILL and various other cordless electric tools. Developed to enhance the profit statements of the battery industry.
CHUCK KEYS: One of the most commonly lost tools. Not made by the same companies who design chucks, so you never know what type and size to purchase.
TORX DRIVERS: Formerly the mystery tool designed by manufacturers in collusion with repair shops, to prevent DIY owners removing like-named fasteners. Since they are now in the hands of the public, new mystery fasteners have been developed, and as retribution, several have been designed to at first glance look like Torx parts, but turn out to be a different type only after you ruin the fastener.
IMPACT DRIVER: An ingenious device with an internal two-way cam; used for loosening tight fasteners on old cars by using the natural muscle spasm of the operator holding the tool when struck on the thumb. Loud screams are mandatory during use.
