Now that winter is drawing to a close and the evenings are getting lighter thoughts turn to servicing or re-building our cherished steeds. I came across this very useful reference work* that will be of use to every home mechanic:
Subject: Tools and their uses ......
Anyone with a shed will relate to these....1. DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching
flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the
chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against that
freshly painted part you were drying.
2. WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere
under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint
whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to
say, "SH**!!!"
3. ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their
holes until you die of old age.
4. PLIERS: Used to round off hexagonal bolt heads.
5. HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board
principle: It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable
motion and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal
your future becomes.
6. VICE GRIP PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is
available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the
palm of your hand.
7. OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for setting various
flammable objects in your shed on fire. Also handy for igniting the
grease inside a wheel hub you're trying to get the bearing race out of.
8. WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and
motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 14mm or
12mm socket you've been searching for.
9. HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering a vehicle to the ground
after you have installed your new disk brake pads, trapping the jack
handle firmly under the bumper bar.
10. 100x50 HARDWOOD WALL STUD: Used to attempt to lever a vehicle off a
hydraulic jack handle.
11. TWEEZERS: A tool for removing splinters of wood, especially
hardwood.
12. TELEPHONE: Tool for calling your neighbour to see if he has another
hydraulic floor jack.
13. SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for
spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for removing dog faeces from your
boots.
14. E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt
holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.
15. TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the
tensile strength of bolts and fuel lines you forgot to disconnect.
16. CRAFTSMAN 12mm x 500mm SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool
that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on one end.
17 AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.
18. TROUBLE LIGHT: The home builder's own tanning booth. Sometimes
called drop light, it is a good 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 40-watt light bulbs at
about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during,
say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark
than light, its name is somewhat misleading.
19. PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style
paper-and-tin oil cans and squirt oil on your shirt; can also be used,
as the name implies, to round off the interiors of Phillips screw heads.
20. AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a
coal-burning power plant 200 kilometres away and transforms it into
compressed air that travels by hose to an pneumatic impact wrench that
grips rusty bolts last tightened 70 years ago by someone at Ford and
rounds them off.
21. PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or
bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 20 pence part.
22. HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 10mm too short.
23. HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer is now
used as a divining rod to locate expensive parts not far from the object
you are trying to hit.
24. MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of
cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well
on boxes containing upholstered items, chrome-plated metal, plastic
parts and the hand not holding the knife.
25. ANGLE GRINDER: Designed for the purpose of seeing your own living
bone as it begins to dry and scab over.
26. CHAINSAW: A machine that checks whether you have enough bandages in
the medicine box and guarantees that you don't.
27. TOOLBOX: A container for every possible tool known to mankind,
except the one you are looking for.
27a. CRESCENT/SHIFTER: Tool that replaces the tool required under rule
27 and rounds off anything not previously rounded off.
28. FILE: For filing flats onto all objects that had flat surfaces
before being rounded. Laws of physics guarantee that new flat surface
is smaller and weaker than previously rounded flat surface.
29. COLD CHISEL: Tool of last resort, used for trying to turn remainder
of protruding round bolt head, usually resulting in bolt head joining
the one redistributed by rule 2.
30. BEER: Solves all problems created by previous 29 rules.
HAPPY BODGING & A HAPPY NEW YEARBoyd
* shamelessly lifted from
www.xrv.org.uk
