Hi Guys
I had an idea for a post. I know a lot of you are tool junkies, and I always like to know about those “specialized” tools that make a job go easier. So how about each of you pick one tool that you consider important, not one you use all the time but when you are doing a certain job you just don’t know how you got along without that tool. Tell how the tool is opperated, what it does where you found it and what it costs. And by the way take your time and think be discriminating, no ‘hammers’ or ‘speed square’ stuff.
AJH
Replies
Tractor jack for pulling post up.
ANDYSZ2
I MAY DISAGREE WITH WHAT YOUR SAYING BUT I WILL DEFEND TO THE DEATH YOUR RIGHT TO SAY IT.
my special tools are the cutting torch and the very very BMFH
The best employee you can have but you wouldn't want him as a neighbor " He the shifty type"
Um...a shingle ripper..like a sword that slides up an can cut copper slate nails..it has many uses.
Family owns a collision repair shop and have portable hydraulic jacks with extension tubes.They are air/hydraulic and my PC compressor works great for the air supply Every now and then I use them for lifting house for replacing sills. I use adjustable lally columns for safety and they make short work of lifting the framing.
The older I get the smarter I try to work.
I'm a trim carpenter. The trick that has saved me lots of time is to preassemble outside mitered sections of crown and when doing mantels I can preassemble the whole peice using "Collins clamps" and glue. The clamps are small enough to work on trim and easy enough to squeeze without pliers.
With the mantel crown you need to be exact in spots (returns to the wall and frieze) and a 1/32nd over (across the pillaster) or under (across the frieze)in other spots. The crown joints end up perfect and take a fraction of the time, unless you mess up and then it takes a little longer :0
Outside sections of crown are preassembled and allowed to dry while I am cutting the rest of the room. A bosch angle finder helps to make sure the angles are accurate. The preassembled peices go up first and the others get coped into them.
We become by effort primarily what we end up becoming
- Zig Ziglar
one example may be the "laminate flooring tool kit" I just got from Crain.
It's basically a strap/clamp system.
I don't do all that many floating floors ... but the one I'm about to start is 16oo ft sq
5/16th T&G ... can be either stapled or edge glued ....
this is gonna be glued to make for a floating floor.
up till now ... I've fought with wedged and blue tape ....
won't "make money" off this $500 or so purchase ....
it should make for a smoother .. faster ... maybe be even better ... install.
At the very least .. the customer will be happy with the faster.
Jeff
Buck Construction Pittsburgh,PA
Artistry in Carpentry
Jeff, I have 4 or 5 of those F-ing strap clamps.
Damn things are a huge pain in the azz.
Every time I look at them I wish I had the money I paid for them back.
They are the one tool that is (so far) good for nothing except what they were designed for.
Think they were about $25 each, something like that.
Joe H
paid a boat load for self-contained ones ...
no loose straps to get in the way ...
also came with suction cups that can be set anywhere in the field ... just stuck to a clean board ...that have a lip the straps can hang tight on ...
but still ... it'll all sit till the next floating job comes along.
JeffBuck Construction Pittsburgh,PA
Artistry in Carpentry
Sounds like new and improved. Hate those strap things as much as I hate that flooring.
Joe H
a pair of rachetting tie down straps, not the huge commercial truck ones but about 1 inch wide and 12 feet long with nice rachets
use them for all kinds of strange clamping, for me particularly, clamping miters in prefinished panels on kitchen cabinets on islands and peninsulas
and the're great for tieing product down on my trailer too
caulking is not a piece of trim
Yellow handled Klien cable/wire stripper. Probably old hat to pro sparkies, but these do the job of three/four tools.
This is the spring return kind that handles only 12 and 14 AWG, has:
> blades ground to the profile of the un-sheathed 12 an 14 guage NMB. You mark where the sheathing needs to be off, squeeze to score accross lightly, bend at the score, and the whole sheath comes off in one piece. Have to be careful you don't nick the wires underneath. (replaces utility knife for slitting the sheathing, or other stippers I never could get to work right) Makes for much neater job inside bixes and panels.
> Really sharp cutter that cuts through quick without making carpal tunnel act up (replaces other dull side-cutter)
> Good stripper holes to strip the insulation off, without nicking the wires, when preparing to bend hooks for under the recep/switch screws. (replaces other stripper that got dull and who needs 20, 18, 16, 10, 8, and 6 guage most of the time? Save for those smaller or larger sizes)
> Little plier jaws that work better than anything else to bend those hooks.
$18 at HD. Only complaint is the cheesy cog that is supposed to hold them closed...it gets loose (attached with a rivet!) and gets in the way and either wedges them closed or gets in the way of closing right amount.
Sparkies...if you use these, how many average size residences do they last before geting dull?
My Hilti Rotory Hammer sees minimal use but nothing in the world could replace it when it's called for. I bought it used from a going out of business contractor for $180 with a whole box full of bits.
A duct jack that belongs to a friend of mine has been invaluable on the SIP house I'm building for lifting panels in place. Free to me but he offered to sell it to me for $1,000 and I'm still considering it. It's a real valuable helper for lifting heavy stuff way up there. It has about a 400 pound capacity and extends over 30 feet.
The same friend brought his tractor over with a rock drilling auger on it that we used to drill 6" diameter by 2'-0" deep holes for steel fence posts. Most of my property has solid limestone slab rock at 4" to 8" deep. That rock drill was an expensive and infrequently used toy for my buddy but it's the only thing that will do the job when it's called for.
I like having friends that don't mind sharing their infrequently used and expensive toys like that. :-)>
Kevin Halliburton
"I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity." - I.M. Pei -
I don't know how "specialized" this thing is, but it certainly made replacing sections of my roof a lot easier. My roof was of a type that supposedly is common in the San Francisco area but probably not in colder areas. It consists of a 2'x8'x3" fiber Homasote panel. I needed to pull the nails out and salvage some of the panels. The cats paws, hammers, etc., were tearing the fiber up so that they were getting way too much damage. I happened to remember this old timey nail puller and hit a lot of tool stores, home centers, and lumber yards before finding one at Truitt and White in Berkeley for, I think, $65. Still, it probably saved me $500 in the roofing sections I was able to salvage.
<View Image
The pinchers are pounded down over the nail head with the sliding hammer section of the tool. A slight sideways motion locks the jaws on the nail head and continued leverage pops the nail out. Some of you guys are probably familiar with these, but the tool store, hardware, home center, & lumber yard guys certainly had no clue when I was describing it...
http://www.1-home-improvement.com/nail-pullers/Cooper-Group-56-B00002N7SD.html
hey, they just featured those nail pullers in the latest JLC.
I just bought one at a farm auction a couple of months ago. Pretty old - was made in the USA - for $20. Works great. The one I bought in Berkeley 2 years ago was, of course, made in China... I am about to start on dismantling some old buildings on my place and my mom wants the wood for picture frames, so both nail pullers should see lots of action this summer. Hmmm, wonder how they will work for pulling off ticks this spring...
hey frenchy that groove cutter you talkin about - think one could cut overhead - want to put chandelier wires into ceiling and walls
it can and has.. slickest tool in the world for running wires into timbers..
Mikita makes it it's model number 3803A timberwolf tools sells them they are onthe internet at http://www.timberwolftoolsoffreeportmaine.com try that
Edited 1/13/2004 8:07:14 PM ET by frenchy
Frenchy,
Didn't see your last post. That link wasn't working.
Timberframin' tools..
stuff like a groove cutter (think of a mag 77 Skil saw with a giant dado head) or the chain morticer that makes cutting a mortice pocket for a timber a couple of minutes work rather than hours of chiseling,
obviously tools large enough to handle timbers in one or two passes rather than making it an all day affair to cut a timber to length or plane it smooth.
Frenchy,
What kind of groovecutter do you have? Is it one of the old modified Skils that you can use for gang cutting rafters?
No, it's made by Mikita for the timberframing industry.. not normally sold here in America but a few are imported by timberwolf tools. I'm certain they aren't legall since the ground on the power is a little alligator clip and everything is in Japaneese.
great tool, I bought several cutters for it and I can not only cut wire chases but also do dado's and other such work.. It really came in handy when doing the header over the garage door.. I needed to cut a groove into the 12x12 beam once the beam was in place and had settled in order to mount the 6x12 black walnut beam even and level.
I was able to cut a 2 inch wide by 2 1/4 inch deep groove the whole length of the timber in a couple of minutes using a simple guide and that tool..
I just picked up a set of five 6' x 3/16" glow in the dark fiberglass rods with threaded ends. They can be screwed together to make a rod up to 30' long. The use is for pulling wires in existing construction, by pushing the rods thru to tie the wires onto. They're very specific to the task, not good for much else that I've been able to think of, but there aren't any better ways of doing what they do that I can think of either.
And to go with the rods, there's a 3/8" x 6' flexible drill. It has holes in both ends so you can tie wires on and pull them back with it.
Another trick I've heard of for long pulls over suspended ceilings, like in movie theaters, is to use a big radio controlled toy truck to pull in a piece of monofilament fish line. But the toy, of course, has another common use.... ;-)
-- J.S.