I Need Elves

Now that I’m done writing important things for today, I will relax. With more writing.

I am still working on my indoors workbench. I got myself some Stanley pegboard hangers and installed them. They’re on the flimsy side, unlike the hangers that came with the workbench. That makes them look “off.” What can you do? Life isn’t perfect.

The hangers came with little plastic anchors that hold the steel hangers in place. One problem with pegboard is that the hangers tend to come out with the tools. Anchors prevent this from happening. Kudos to Stanley. Now they need to make their hangers heavier.

The pegboard hanger market is wide open. Almost everything made is junk. I’m not buying anything else until I find a good solution.

I have sad news to report. As much as I love my new Bondhus hex wrenches, I am getting new ones. The explanation is simple. Bondhus puts its wrenches in little plastic holders. You have to do a lot of pushing and pulling when you use them. Pull a wrench out. Find out it’s too big. Push it in. Pull another out. It sounds unimportant, but during a long session involving different screws, it gets old.

My solution: more Bondhus hex wrenches.

I have an old Craftsman folding hex wrench set. The wrenches are set in a handle, like pocketknife blades. If you fold out the wrong one, you just fold it back in and pop another one out. Bondhus makes something similar, but you get three sets. You get metric, standard, and Torx. Small, convenient, and tough.

I hate Torx fasteners. There is no reason for them to exist. Generally, in my opinion, they are used to make things hard to work on. I really believe that. If you buy a set of “tamper-proof” driver bits, it will include Torx bits. That tells you something. I hate spending good money for something and then finding out the manufacturer has sabotaged me in order to get me to pay someone to fix it.

When I work on my own property, I’m not “tampering,” but screwing with my property so I can’t fix it fits the definition pretty well.

The folding wrenches won’t replace the L wrenches I already have. The long wrenches have ball ends which are very handy. Ball ends let you turn fasteners when you can’t insert wrenches parallel to the fasteners’ axes. Sometimes I’ll need the long wrenches. Most of the time, however, the folding sets will do the job.

I also learned I needed a workholding device. I will tell you how I found out.

The other day I sold my dad’s NordicTrack ski machine. He can’t use it, and it was in the way. It’s sad, but sometimes I have to do things he doesn’t want me to do. There was no way he would have agreed to sell it, because he feels compelled to hold onto things. I put it on Craigslist anyway, and now it’s gone. AHHHHH.

The machine had a cheap electronic monitor on it, to provide pulse info and so on. It didn’t work because my dad didn’t change the batteries. It was corroded inside. I took it off to work on it, and it slid all over the workbench. It was very annoying. I wanted it to work for the guy who bought the bench, and he was on the way in his truck, so I didn’t need the bother of fighting with a slippery monitor. I also had problems when I tried to fix my Dremel’s armature.

You can screw a vise to a workbench, but it wouldn’t be appropriate for me. I want to have the workbench top clear most of the time, and I don’t need the solidity of an attached vise. I have such a vise in the workshop if I need it.

I found a thing called a Panavise. It’s a crazy vise that opens to 9 inches. The jaws are held on a ball mount, and the mount can be moved around and fastened in position. The jaws have rubber on them, so they would have worked fine on my dad’s plastic monitor.

You can screw or clamp a Panavise to a table, but they also make a base which is a weighted tray. You attach the vise to it and rely on the weight to hold it in place. This will work 99% of the time. The tray has little compartments for parts. SOLD! It ought to work very well for me.

Bonus: you can buy an attachment with four long flexible arms with alligator clips. It fastens to the base. The arms reach up to the vise and help you hold little things like wires. I need that. Obviously.

I haven’t sprung for the arm thing, but I’m getting the vise.

Panavise makes a special kit for soldering. I like the special clamp for circuit boards, but the other stuff seems gimmicky and useless. The full kit includes a solder iron holder and a tip cleaner. Every decent soldering iron comes with these things. The clamp is sold separately. I will consider it.

I also needed something to hold guns while I work on them. I learned this while working on my new rifles. I decided to get a Tipton Gun Butler. This is like the little housecleaning trays maids use. It’s a rectangular buckety thing with a handle in the center. It has two V-shaped mounts you can set up at the ends. You rest the rifle in the mounts, and you keep your cleaning stuff in the bucket. Yes. I want it. It’s cheap, and I think it will be perfect for me. It arrived today.

My previous gun cleaning kit was a cardboard box half-soaked with Hoppe’s No. 9 and Break-Free CLP.

As I think I mentioned previously, I also ordered a gunsmith’s mat. This is a rubbery mat you put down on a table when you work on a gun. The one I bought is just the right size for my bench, and it has a few plastic compartments for parts. I would want this even if I didn’t have guns. It’s okay to beat up the surface of a bench you made from raw lumber, but I don’t want to destroy a nice factory hardwood top prematurely, and I will really need those part bins. Also, the hard bench top can damage things, so a cushion is desirable.

Speaking of bins, I have discovered plastic bins that attach to pegboards. I plan to get some. I hate watching small parts slide off of workbenches. I hate having no place to put small parts I’m not ready to throw out or put away. A few little plastic bins would be very helpful.

I hate to say it, but a rolling tool chest is under consideration. I’m pretty sure I can get a good price on Harbor Freight’s new “Series 2″ chest. The first version was very good, and the new one has drawers that open farther.

I’m disgusted with the companies that make expensive boxes. Look at Youtube, and you will see people comparing Snap-On to Harbor Freight. The verdict? Harbor Freight gives 90% of the performance for 15% of the price, and 90% is more than you need. And Snap-On is manufacturing in China now! You’re not even supporting America when you let them gut your retirement fund.

You can get SIX Harbor Freight tool carts for one Snap-On. Not four. Not three. SIX!

I spent $400 on a gigantic Milwaukee rolling chest, and it has been phenomenal. It’s tough. It’s practical. You can stand in the bottom drawer. It has a power strip built in. If Milwaukee can do it, so can everyone else. A similar Snap-On product sells for…sit down…$2600. The Snap-On is 6” shorter and has a couple more drawers. It probably has some features the Milwaukee doesn’t. Good luck convincing me those features are worth $2200 plus shipping.

A rolling tool chest may be overkill for my little work area, but a total piece of garbage with much less capacity will run me about a hundred bucks, and Harbor Freight will fix me up for life for about $230. Tempting.

Harbor Freight boxes aren’t just very good “for the money.” They’re very good, period. Not great. Very good. And very good will do.

I wanted a farm, and now I have one, along with a big house. That means I find myself using tools a lot. I actually need the things I’m buying. I still need other stuff, like a trailer, fencing pliers, and post-hole diggers.

This sure beats spending money on things like golf and fishing, which are inherently frivolous. You can use a couple of poles to feed your family, but no one needs a seagoing boat and big-game reels.

Life is good, especially with tools. I will continue to report as my techno-arsenal grows.