:grin: DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for 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 that was drying. WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned guitar calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, "S4!." ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes. PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters. 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. VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to further 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: 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 an 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 brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper. EIGHT-FOOT LONG PINE 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off of a trapped hydraulic jack handle. TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters and wire wheel wires. 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 prybar 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, 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. PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids and for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing 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 which were last over tightened 50 years ago by someone at Ford, 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 cent part. HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses too short. 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. MECHANIC'S 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. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use F4IT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "F4IT" at the top of your lungs. It is also the next tool that you will need. EXPLETIVE: A balm, also referred to as mechanic's lube, usually applied verbally in hindsight, which somehow eases those pains and indignities following our every deficiency in foresight.
Here's another one for Electric Hand Drill: Device used to test the breaking point of any drill bit, and upon succeeding in doing so, immediately tetsts nearest finger/thumbnail hardness. ou:
Hee hee, I saw this list before. And a few more from myself & others: PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack. SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog**** off your boot. MICROMETER: A $75+ device used to hold things together when you can't find your $5 C clamp. PIECE OF PIPE: Used when you can't get enough torque to bend your breaker bar, break your ratchet (or socket), or if you didn't like the bolt you were tightening/removing. SCREW REMOVER: A curled, tappered tool used to ensure you have to go to a machine shop when it breaks inside that bolt you carefully drilled out. See E-Z out above. SOLVENT TANK: A vessel used to test a Mechanic's fishing abilities. BOTTLE JACK: A good tool to make divots & bumps in the underside of your car as it slips off its support point. GRINDING WHEEL: A great tool used to make small bumps into large gouges, parts that are too large into parts that are too small, and takes off excess layers of skin. LATHE: A tool used to wrap shop aprons, ties, and long sleeve shirts into a ball. LOCKING COMPOUNDS: A chemical that allows the Mechanic to mate 2 totally different sized fasteners. NEEDLENOSE PLIERS: Used as an ice pick or centerpunch. SNAPRING PLIERS: Tool for measuring your coordination and hand stength as it wears down snaprings. BRAKE SPRING TOOL: Usefull for turning non-metallic brake linings into semi-metalic linings as it scrapes metal shavings off of brake parts. BATTERY REMOVER: Allows instant acid treatment of Garage floors, streets, & driveways. BODYFILLER: Miracle compound that removes any trace of the results of trees, posts, or parked cars that suddenly move. PB RUST BLASTER(tm) : Works wonders on rusted bolts but has a bad after taste when sprayed against gravity and you're below it. PLASMA TORCH: Set it a bit low and use the proper angle to give yourself a Cleansing and refreshing shower of white-hot slag. TIN SNIPS: A tool designed to quickly pinch the skin on one's palm without warning, resulting in blood blisters and profanity. SANDPAPER: Use this for removing that super glue that's hardened all over your finger. CNC MILL: A hands-on course about the importance of the emergency stop button (I can vouch for that one!). FLASHLIGHT: Used to hit your helper in the head as you shake it to try to get it to come on. Also handy for filling very deep, narrow holes in machinery you are working on. :Smarty:
