favorite/hard to find tools?

Jezza

Active Member
Have a favorite tool that you can't live without up on the ladder? Have serious tool envy of some cool widget or wrench you saw that someone had at your last load in? Personally I'm a huge fan of my surefire l4 lumax...this thing has saved my butt a dozens times in the 2 months that I've owned it....one thing that I'm trying to find a wratcheting spud wrench that pits the lugs on most trussing...its made in Europe somewhere, anyone have any ideas??
 
Craftsman Clench Wrench. Best lighting wrench I know of. The stopped selling them a few years back. I need to get on ebay and start hording them because I could not imagine working without one.
 
I gave up the ladder a while ago - my feet are happy about that one. I refuse to check my bag so I don't get to bring my tools which makes it a lot of fun when I'm in Huckerbuck trying to load in expensive gear and the client has some cheesy screwdriver they got at Osco.

I end up sometimes bringing the gear with and then I have to check my bag and the TSA goes through it although so far they've let me keep my tools, nice of them. Obviously I don't travel with anything expensive in there.
 
Of late, I find it hard to live without my two APEX 2" magnetic-locking bit holders for cordless drill 2" locking bits. The type of quick release power bit holder that you use one handed to exchange bits, and acts like a rotating ring you can hold near the bit. This yet un-like the Black & Decker similar version (reverse direction of to release) that there is still a magnet involved - at best, at least given it fell off the other brand at worst, never came with it. Got one of them, but it's not very useful.

It's locking ring is only about 1/2" in overall dia as opposed to other similar quick release type bit holders. Difference between seeing what I'm doing and for me at least what I'm used to. No doubt, very much what I'm used to granted.

Anyway, I used to have two of them to go with each of my cordless drills. Don't know what happened to them other than my drills and the other two shop drills in my tool box are often loaned out to shop staff. Somewhere floating about the building are my bit adaptors. As opposed to a missing 5/16" socket that I can just McMaster Carr, Neither them or Grainger sells what I have been using for years now and must have to drive screws. Could do a special order or given I didn't have to be at work six days a week go to the area's tool store - some thirty miles away, but it does not happen realistically. Not just one but my "while missing" second bit holder is missing.

Drives me crazy with each and any drywall screw or other phillips screw I attempt to drive that I don't have this part so as to quickly change between say pilot hole counter sink bit and phillips bit, much less use the magnet to hold the screw. This is the tool I'm used to and use, I bought them anyway, where are they? Serious bummer for me. Most at the shop just deal with a phillips bit chucked into a cordless and expect no more. I'm used to better than this and am by way of others forced to deal with it. Of late that is what I am missing and can't live without.

Otherwise on an hour to hour basis = especially around 11AM every day when I get my daily Christmas presents for the day delievered (the UPS van shows up about that time every day), I find the folding utility knife on my belt impossible above all other tools, to live without. I constantly have to open boxes of stuff, cut something etc. Day to day it's the utility knife I am constantly using and tend to get lost without it being at ready axis.
 
Of late, I find it hard to live without my two APEX 2" magnetic-locking bit holders for cordless drill 2" locking bits. The type of quick release power bit holder that you use one handed to exchange bits, and acts like a rotating ring you can hold near the bit. This yet un-like the Black & Decker similar version (reverse direction of to release) that there is still a magnet involved - at best, at least given it fell off the other brand at worst, never came with it. Got one of them, but it's not very useful.
It's locking ring is only about 1/2" in overall dia as opposed to other similar quick release type bit holders. Difference between seeing what I'm doing and for me at least what I'm used to. No doubt, very much what I'm used to granted.

I'm trying to picture this ... I'm thinking of the set I have with the quick change reversible bits that have a drill bit and countersinking ring on one side and the phillips head on the other, but this doesn't seem logical given what you're doing.

Otherwise on an hour to hour basis = especially around 11AM every day when I get my daily Christmas presents for the day delievered (the UPS van shows up about that time every day), I find the folding utility knife on my belt impossible above all other tools, to live without. I constantly have to open boxes of stuff, cut something etc. Day to day it's the utility knife I am constantly using and tend to get lost without it being at ready axis.
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Oh I miss the days of the daily visits by UPS, Fedex and DHL. I used to get to have Christmas everyday too.

I got really hooked on having the mini mag on my belt a few months ago. My cell phone carrier has an elastic loop that the minimag fits nicely in. I find myself just pulling it out all the time and using it. I can see really liking having a knife there too, but, given I tend to work in government buildings with metal dectors and the airport I'd probably go through the things donating them to the government everytime I forgot to leave it at home before I went to work.
 
In the SBHS theater things are quite rough, we dont have favourite tools because we can never find the proper tool to get the job done (nobody ever puts things back), so we improvise with whatever we can find. But when hell freezes and I can find the right thing I definatly go with a good Craftsman crescent wrench.
 
As said, I lost my second one which is more like my fourth or fifth one I have owned - having lost them a lot over the years. Not the slide over version with a shaft that slides over the bit and screw in supporting it, this version used the magnet to hold the screw and the lock to hold the bit. With such a version you could easily switch between hex base drill bit, counter sink and Phillips bit by way of it locking into the adaptor - yet still see what you were working on.

Same as the Black & Decker version if they still make it but reverse direction of quick release. The last Black & Decker version I still have but it either lost it’s magnet or never had one.

In practice or description, it’s a normal magnetic bit holder. Has the 1/4" hex adaptor area with locking recess at the bottom of the 2" hex shape, than a say 3/8" shaft that has internal magnet about 2" long that accepts the bits with a magnet at the bottom. In the case of a normal bit adaptor, there is the C-Shaped locking ring that does not work well with 2" power bits having the recesses in them getting stuck.

The old Black & Decker and current APEX tool - can’t find it on the website if it is the correct website. Nor is it easy if at all on the Black & Decker website.

So what for the most part looks like a normal magnetic bit holder has at it’s tip a ½" dia by ½" long locking ring that replaces the C-Shaped one on the just magnetic versions. These use ball bearings of something similar to lock into the 2" bit recess at it’s bottom. Push or pull up or down on this ring - dependant upon the brand and your bit is released from the locking ring.

No frills, lots of similar locking products on the market, just that this one has a much smaller O.D. than normal but slightly longer length than say what DeWalt offers in their own quick release bit adaptor. Much larger the DeWalt version and harder to see around.

Amazed, as with circuit breaker panels and neutral bus bars that are very limited, McMaster seems to be limited in offering this. Suppose that I just have to wake up early enough one weekend to make it to Berlands' House of Tools. This or take an anfternoon off work.
 
Not a lighting tool, but a cool brand of tools you probably have never seen. Check out Spring Tools by Noxon. They are these cool little spring powered hand tools for wood and metal work. They are really strong little guys you would be amazed at the power of a spring! I've had the nail starter and set for years, it's great. It's the perfect tool for driving a finish nail. They also make a variety of spring powered chisel and punch products. I found them at a home show but they have a website with all kinds of products. Here's the link to the tool I have, but check out the whole site for all kinds of cool gadgets.
http://www.springtools.com/gShop/GroupView.aspx?id=117a5a91-255b-4407-aeba-246296228f99
 

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