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i love cool tools. we need a thread to talk about cool tools. today i got a nice tap wrench with sliding jaws to replace my old lovely kind with the stepped flexy jaws that never grip taps properly. it isn't as fancy as a starrett or anything, but it feels nice and solid and is machined well. looking forward to tapping some holes!  post itt about cool tools you have like or have gotten. what is your favorite tool? electronic tools are ok too but this is mostly about nice heavy metal things that feel good and do good jobs.
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Nov 30, 2022 01:27
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Queadlunn posted:
nice! i could probably use some new side cutters. right now i have an old set that i got at a yard sale that are quite elegant, but getting dull and i'm not sure if there is enough metal left to sharpen them properly. here are a few more of my tools i really like mitutoyo digital caliper. in college i got my first vernier caliper and i still have it and love it. i also have a dial caliper, but i eventually dropped it and it broke. i hated digital calipers for the longest time because i had only ever used lovely ones and i thought they were all that bad. this one is magnificent.  it is of course extremely well made, but more importantly it (1) does not lose power randomly, (2) does not lose its zeroing when shut off or power is removed, (3) updates extremely fast, and (4) has no power draw when off so the battery lasts forever. it's lovely. i also like these wera screwdrivers.  i prefer to not use philips or flat where possible, but if you have to, these are the best drivers you can get. they are laser etched on the tips so they grip really strongly and don't slip. they are the best thing to use on sketchy or partially stripped heads. they are also electrically insulated to 1000v and have nice comfortable handles. and yes, rotor, they do have robertson. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Nov 30, 2022 |
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Nov 30, 2022 01:50
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[ASK] me about the time i spent like 8 hours sweating and swearing trying to pull a bearing from a motorcycle wheel using every combination of the wrong tools i had, then finally gave up and drove to harbor freight and got a 30 dollar slide hammer, then came back and popped it out in literally 20 seconds. even cheap tools can be great when they're the right tool for the job.
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Nov 30, 2022 02:02
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echinopsis posted:it’s not truly in the spirit of the thread but I wanna give a shout-out to mains powered electric drills idk man. modern brushless lithium cordless tools are beastly. like yeah there are certainly benefits to corded tools, but 13 holes in drywall? come on. i have a makita cordless drill that will happily chew through brick on the hammer setting like there's nothing there.
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Nov 30, 2022 20:20
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i really want a robot arm for the shop but we've never been able to justify it. our standard curriculum maxes out at 3-axis machining and we can't argue that we need a $50,000 robot arm that will be used by one grad student and two keen undergrads per year. but i really want one.
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Dec 1, 2022 20:03
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dioxazine posted:i think i need a new solder. any recommendations?! kester 63/37 in whatever diameter you like. https://www.amazon.com/Kester-24-6337-0027-Solder-Alloy-Diameter/dp/B0149K4JTY did you mean a soldering iron? i have recommendations for those too! Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Dec 3, 2022 |
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Dec 3, 2022 04:25
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The three high quality power tool brands you can get at home depot these days are Makita, Milwaukee, and DeWalt. Milwaukee is manufactured by TTI, a holding company that also makes Ridgid and Ryobi. Milwaukee is the high end, Ridgid is mid grade, Ryobi is meant for lighter duty (though they're still fine tools imo). Similarly, DeWalt is the high end brand from a group that also makes Craftsman and Black+Decker. (I would not really recommend either of those two lower-end brands -- they're noticeably more cheaply made). Makita only makes Makita and they are very good quality. There are other good quality brands that only make a single line of tools, like Bosch, Festool, and Hilti, but you usually can't get those at Home Depot. Also hoo boy those Festool prices! Most other brands, especially if you're spending less than about $125 for the individual tool with one battery, are just going to be generic cheap stuff with some random house brand stuck on it. Fine for occasional use around the house probably but not much more.
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Dec 3, 2022 17:19
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I am fully bought into Makita and they're great and have never let me down. Also, only in Japan you can get them in pinkuu (pink) and I really kind of want to pick one up on ebay
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Dec 3, 2022 17:26
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echinopsis posted:big shout out to square drive you mean Robertson, of course.
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Dec 8, 2022 05:05
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i have a leatherman  but i don't carry a multitool around usually. they're heavy and i don't actually need pliers and screwdrivers in my bag at all times. my "EDC" (as the kids say these days) is a rather nice little snap-on branded 2" folding knife that i got in the checkout line at autozone.
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Dec 8, 2022 17:11
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dioxazine posted:this is somewhat far afield, but do any of you have a butt set? i do, actually -- a fluke ts25d. my landlord, who used to be the head maintenance guy at one of the big sf housing projects, found it somewhere and gave it to me. the bed-of-nails alligator clips on the leads are insanely fancy and well made. i unscrewed them and attached banana plugs so i can use them in my multimeter. i have no idea what to use it for, because i haven't had a landline telephone in fifteen years.
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Dec 8, 2022 20:02
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distortion park posted:Visited a house today my in-laws were looking at, owned by an old and extremely catholic couple (crucifixes in every room, pictures of the pope etc). In the basement they had a fun old school tool collection i will take all the files, the draw knife, and whatever is unlocked by the little key (hoping it's a motorcycle). tia rotor posted:tool tip: old files are made of good steel and should be repurposed, new files are just case hardened mild still and should not. you can still buy good quality new files but you pay through the nose for them.
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Dec 8, 2022 23:07
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did you know? every tooth on a rasp is made by hand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MtfBSt0oqY
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Dec 8, 2022 23:10
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i like it! i'd never heard of one before but i enjoy learning about tools used in other fields. i am trying to learn more about sewing and garment construction. i know a lot about making hard objects, but not much about soft ones. i'm trying to get the lab to pick up a cnc embroidery machine and i want to take some courses in making shirts etc at the city college.
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Dec 9, 2022 17:38
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old fashioned titles are the best. B-tier: pilot A-tier: aviator S-tier: airman
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Dec 9, 2022 21:41
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fart simpson posted:lol the most sargebrush way to do it. at least your true to yourself  but yeah no the embroidery machine is part of a larger thing with some other professors who actually know what they're doing lol. i am excited to screw around with it and try to make some merit badges at some point. but i'm starting with a basic garment construction class at city college. i assume i will be making some a-line skirts etc also my sister is an expert at this stuff and does professional tailoring so at least i've got help. fart simpson posted:extremely pro tips:  fart simpson posted:e: if a 57 year old woman gives you some advice about any of this stuff and her advice doesn’t make sense to you and you think you see an easier way, your probably wrong. do it your own way to instantly discover why her advice actually makes sense but now it’s too late man give me some credit, i have to deal every day with students trying to come up with their own "smarter" way of doing something i told them to do differently and having it all blow up in their face. i know to listen to the 57 year old lady
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Dec 10, 2022 17:50
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Progressive JPEG posted:what's the line on tools here, like is a chainsaw or a two wheel tractor allowed i'd say yes to both of those. a four wheel tractor is probably where the scope of this thread ends but post about one if you want! chainsaws rule. i wish i had an excuse to use one more often. feeling it pull itself into the cut is magic
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Dec 10, 2022 17:55
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If I were in charge of the government I would have appropriated the sawstop guy's patent, given him like 50 million for it or something, and then opened it up for free and made it a requirement for every table saw sold in the country. It is a total paradigm shift in safety for what is traditionally one of the most dangerous tools in a shop. I popped ours just last week as a matter of fact. Didn't touch it with my finger, though. I was doing a complicated angled cut for a student and accidentally dinged the miter slide into the blade. Doy
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Dec 12, 2022 16:48
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It is! It got a tiny nick in it less than 1mm deep. Actually a really good example now of how effective the system is
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Dec 12, 2022 17:00
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i appreciate that he spent all this time making the thing with period-correct techniques, but boy, if there was ever a part that you just send out for wire edm...
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Dec 20, 2022 22:38
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There isn't really much more to it than what you can see. Some insane guy in 1919 designed a wrench that would fit every fastener he could think of. It takes a totally absurd amount of machining to construct. Most of the design is pointless because he included a universal alligator wrench in the handle.
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Dec 21, 2022 17:45
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Bloody posted:saw stop brake cartridges are like $70? and you’re also out the blade. as opposed to being out tens of thousands and a finger, though.
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Dec 31, 2022 07:49
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any crumbs that fall into the hole get annihilated and emitted as x-rays, dummy
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Jan 10, 2023 16:26
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cross post from where it put it in the wrong thread; i bought a set of adam savage's favorite helping hands after he showed them off a few weeks ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTLwlrk7oF4 they arrived today and are indeed rad as hell.  can't wait to use em link is here if you want your own and feel like splurging 80 dollars on a pair of helping hands lol. but they are really good and feel like they'll last a lifetime https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081Z7N9JP
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Jan 11, 2023 00:10
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i haven't figured that out yet lol. maybe just workstops? they don't slide or anything though so idk. i took them out and will maybe come up with a little vise mount for them or something. they're just m5 through holes
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Jan 11, 2023 01:50
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DELETE CASCADE posted:i do some jewelry welding and i like the look of these. but i'm curious, what are the screws on the base for? the ones with the little corner of sheet metal under em no luck figuring this out incidentally. 
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Jan 14, 2023 19:25
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I ordered some nice looking 4mm bit drivers from AliExpress. I have a shitload of the bits but only one handle, and after a job where I needed 4 different kinds of bits and I just kept swapping them again and again, I thought: why don't I just buy several handles so I can have a bunch of bits loaded at the same time?? Like a classic set of mini screwdrivers but more flexible?? https://m.aliexpress.us/item/3256804464424061.html  Shortly after I put in the order I realized that right now it is Chinese New Year. Maybe I'll see my stuff in March 
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Jan 24, 2023 00:01
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phone numbers you remember is not tool talk. please keep it on topic
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Jan 29, 2023 03:41
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at home i have a regular claw hammer, a rubber mallet, a ball peen hammer, and a chipping hammer.rotor posted:in my experience, anything can be a hammer are you one of my students
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Jan 29, 2023 22:53
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swarf
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Jan 29, 2023 23:54
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rotor posted:it absolutely is, unfortunately the router is the worst woodworking power tool. what's the scale here exactly like it's right up there for potential to maim, but it does do good work. lots of things that a router is good at that would take forever with any other tool. i think the worst tool is the panel saw because ours is unbelievably loud and annoying. or maybe the jointer, which is like you fed a moon stone to a table router and it evolved into something far scarier. a router will lop off a finger but a jointer will chew away your whole hand Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Feb 2, 2023 |
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Feb 2, 2023 01:12
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Fortaleza posted:I keep my jointer set to .5mm, would take a while for it to eat my whole arm not at 3000 rpm it wouldn't
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Feb 2, 2023 01:28
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rotor posted:what? the bandsaw is by a wide margin the safest woodworking power tool. that's why i keep the orbital sanders under lock and key. you let your guard down even a little and BAM
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Feb 2, 2023 01:35
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you turn them on and they immediately start scooting away to do their nefarious deeds
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Feb 2, 2023 01:36
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once when i was in college i was trying to ask the shop manager to turn on the power to the spindle sander. but i didn't know what i was called so i said "the machine that goes like this" and imitated its motion with my hand he punched me in the shoulder and said to never make that gesture in his shop again
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Feb 4, 2023 00:18
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i added the three (3) claws from my old set of helping hands to the two (2) fancy new claws i got and now i have five claws.
Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Feb 4, 2023 |
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Feb 4, 2023 06:51
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Enderzero posted:that is fully sick. what do you use it for? mostly holding stuff in position for soldering, but anything where i need an extra set of hands. very useful. Raluek posted:is that the countycomm one or is there a good generic the big ones and the base are this from amazon, the small ones are from my old radio shack hands i got when i was a kid https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081Z7N9JP?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details i was not aware of countycomm, looked them up, seems like they're priced about the same (25 for one arm vs 70 for two arms plus a base). the clamps look similar but i think the ones i posted have more sturdy arms. https://countycomm.com/products/custom-hobby-hand-kit-stainless-steel-by-maratac?_pos=1&_sid=8bf12dc2e&_ss=r Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Feb 4, 2023 |
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Feb 4, 2023 19:32
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Achmed Jones posted:
this is literally what they teach you in business school
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Feb 7, 2023 00:35
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i fixed my dial calipers today! dropped them a few too many times and the hands weren't lining up at zero anymore. they are just 35 dollar amazon ones but i liked them and was bummed. today i took them all apart and realigned everything and reset the geartrain preload and they are back to working great, zeroing properly and hitting within .001" of my expensive mitutoyos, which is about as good as you can expect from calipers anyway. stoked
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Feb 11, 2023 20:16
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I've got a couple more on order from AliExpress, will update when they get here
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Feb 17, 2023 12:40
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