The Difficulty of Simple Choices

June 18th, 2018

Grace is the Key

When you’re a tool person (or a “tool queer,” as Youtube machinist Keith Fenner puts it), life is never simple. Every time you try to add to your collection, you learn there is more to it than walking into Home Depot and reaching for a box. A huge percentage of the tools sold in the US are so bad, anyone who buys them will have regrets. You really have to look around.

Case in point: hooks and picks. Everyone needs a few hooks and picks. When you work with small objects, you need to be able to get into them with tools smaller than your fingers, and hooks and picks are what you use.

Simple, right? A hook is like a skinny screwdriver with a hooky bit at the end. A pick is a skinny screwdriver with a bent pointed bit at the end. A monkey could make them. You would think.

I found out that most sets either come out of the handles when you put pressure on them, or they bend. Who wants to deal with that? That’s pathetic. Even the crappiest screwdrivers will generally work fine for a decade, so it’s not that terrible if you buy them, but who wants a tool that bites the dust and puts your project on hold the first time you use it?

I’m really mad now. I will think of my happy place.

Oh, wait. I’m sitting in my happy place. I’ll just look around.

I’m about to get mad again, because I’m going to tell you who makes the pick set everyone loves the most. Snap-On. Of course. Everyone says their set is magnificent. A typical set–even American–is under $15. Guess what Snap-On charges.

Wrong. They charge over $50.

You’re mad, right?

I’m not paying $50 for four pieces of bent wire.

A company called Ullman supposedly makes good picks, but–and you won’t believe this–they thread them into their handles. If you apply pressure in the wrong direction, the picks come loose. Come on. What were they thinking?

An American company called Pratt & Reed makes picks that look okay.

I decided to give Grace a shot. This is the outfit that makes the gunsmithing screwdrivers everyone likes. They use good steel in their screwdrivers. They use square wooden handles that don’t roll and are easy to turn. Their picks and hooks appear to be exactly like their screwdrivers. They cost about $20, which is a lot for picks and hooks, but you get 7 tools. Most sets only have 4 tools.

We’ll see what happens. If they stink, I’ll throw them out in the pasture.

Now I’ll look even more cool when I work on guns, because I’ll have Grace screwdrivers plus a set of Grace picks and hooks that match.

If you decide you need your own set, and you don’t trust my judgment (unthinkable), read reviews, because a lot of otherwise-okay companies get serious complaints. I like Gearwrench wrenches, but their picks draw a lot of whining.

Picks are the sort of thing that set tool people apart from doofuses. Everyone knows about hammers and pliers, but there are certain important tools most people don’t seem to be aware of. Fish tapes. Punches. Timberjacks. There are a lot of tools you need, just to make other tools work the way they’re supposed to. I come from a long line of doofuses, so I’m doing the best I can to recover.

I think I’m doing okay. I have two oscilloscopes and four routers.

In other news, I’m getting a six-foot-long table to match my workbench. I already know it will fit in the room, because I’m using a cheap table which occupies the space it will take. It will be nice to have, because it will fill the corner my bench won’t fit into, and the height is an exact match. I’ll have an L-shaped work area that takes up the whole corner instead of leaving me with an awkward empty space I can’t really get to.

I may also get a gooseneck LED lamp and attach it to my pegboard. I can get a 24″ IKEA gooseneck job with a flat base, and I can take it off the base and attach it to a clamp. Then when I need it, I can put it anywhere I want on the shelf at the top of the pegboard.

Right now, lighting is a problem. I have an LED strip over the bench, but obviously, it’s on the other side of the work, relative to me, so it’s illuminating the wrong side of everything. I need a light that comes from my side.

It’s not easy being a mad scientist. You never have enough stuff, and it’s impossible to find a good hunchback.

2 Responses to “The Difficulty of Simple Choices”

  1. Steve B Says:

    Look into a headlamp. You can get a decent LED head lamp with a Omni directional swivel for not terribly much. Some even have variable brightness and a focus ring to narrow or widen the beam. Allows you to get good illume in some tight places without having to do yoga.

  2. Titan Mk6B Says:

    Surprisingly the pick set from Harbor Freight that sells for about two bucks work very well. I have never worn any out.