Tool Definitions
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.
BELT SANDER: Used for making rectangular gouges in
wood.
PAD SANDER: Used for easing the edges of the
rectangular gouges.
RANDOM ORBIT SANDER: Used for removing the marks left
by the PAD SANDER, usually on any surface
perpendicular to the original gouge. May also be used
to make semicircular gouges in wood.
DETAIL SANDER: Makes triangular gouges, generally in
blind corners.
BISCUIT JOINER: Tool used to misalign wood in a very
consistent manner which can then be sanded heavily
(See BELT SANDER).
CHISEL: Multi use tool - good for making deep cuts in
the hand.
CORDLESS DRILL/POWER SCREWDRIVER: Used for rounding
out Phillips screw heads at high speed.
ROUTER: Used to darken wood by friction and make
smoke. For this latter purpose, it replaces the
incense used by primitive woodworking cultures who
wished to influence the woodworking deities. When used
with a ROUTER TABLE this tool can be used to make
varying profiles using a single bit and a single depth
setting.
TAPE MEASURE: This device is used to measure length.
It should be immediately dropped onto concrete several
times so that measurements made with it will then
agree with every other TAPE MEASURE in the world.
UTILITY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the
contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front
door; works particularly well on contents such as
seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles,
collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or
plastic parts.
UTILITY KNIFE (alt.): Used to slice through the
fingers. For purposes of sanitation, the blades are
easily replaceable.
CUTTING TORCH: Used to ruin perfectly good metal
while attempting to cut bolts from (said) metal,
and setting most everything combustible afire in
a 50 ft. radius.
ARC WELDER: Wonderful way to turn 1/8" metal rods
into floor filler.
PIPE WRENCH: A great tool to relieve a sore back,
after dropping on foot, squashing fingers, or slipping
off pipe and crashing into wall with arm.
NAILSET: Used to make small, round depressions around
the head of a finish nail. Principally used for
decoration.
CLAMPS: These come in two sizes: too small and loaned
to an in-law.
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, "Ouch...."
ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop
rivets in their holes until you die of old age; with
the proper accessories, used to destroy perfectly good
wood in many ways.
PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.
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.
SABER SAW: See Hacksaw.
VISE-GRIPS: 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.
OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting
various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also
handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub you
want the bearing race out of.
WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older
British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly
for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2 socket you've been
searching for the last 15 minutes.
HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile
to the ground after you have installed your new disk
brake pads, trapping the jack handle firmly under the
bumper.
8-FOOT LONG 2X4: Used for levering an automobile
upward off a hydraulic jack handle.
TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.
PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbors to see if he
has another hydraulic floor jack.
PHONE (alt.): Tool for calling your brother-in-law to
see if he has your CLAMPS.
TABLE SAW: Used to make wood slightly narrower than
necessary.
MITER SAW: Used to make wood slightly shorter than
necessary.
THICKNESS PLANER: Used to make wood slightly thinner
than necessary.
JOINTER: Used to make the too thin, too short, too
narrow wood perfectly straight. Very useful for making
two sides of a board perfectly straight but non-
parallel.
SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a
sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly
for getting dog**** off your boot.
E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times
harder than any known drill bit that snaps off in bolt
holes you couldn't use anyway.
TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the tensile
strength on everything you forgot to disconnect.
CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large pry bar
that inexplicably has an accurately machined
screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.
AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.
TROUBLE LIGHT: The home mechanic's own tanning booth.
Sometimes called a 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, it's 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.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids
of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on
your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies,
to strip out Phillips screw heads.
AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced
in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and
transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose
to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty
bolts last over tightened 58 years ago by someone at
ERCO, and neatly rounds off their heads.
PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding
that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to
replace a 50 part.
HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the
hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to
locate the most expensive parts not far from the
object we are trying to hit.
HAMMER (alt.): Originally employed as a weapon of war,
the hammer continues to be the tool of choice for
making medium sized circular depressions
in wooden surfaces of all kinds.
