There hasen’t been a single tool mentioned here that I wouldn’t love to have, or already have, and would use in any case, except the Epilady, of course. What the hell do y’all do if you don’t use tools? In the past year I’ve:
Replaced an alternator in my car. ( In the breakdown lane of Rt. 1, no less)
Installed a floor in the basement
Installed an in-the-wall entertainment center
Built a new bookcase
Put in a new door on the bedroom
Replaced a sump pump
Built 3 new raised gardens, 2 veggie and one rose
Installed cabinets-one to a cement wall
Rewired part of the basement
Ran cable to another room in the house
Replaced the plumbing in 3 different toilets
And a lot of other stuff I can’t think of right now. This is basic stuff, people, I mean come on!
Useless tools…has sort of an oxymoronic ring to it doesn’t it?
My ‘favorite’, most useless tool?
That would have to be a nifty claw-type gear/pullley puller that was given to me.
I soon learned why I got such a deal on it.
It’s one function is to remove the outer ring of your harmonic balancer. It performs this feat flawlessly.
Unfortunately, you should NEVER pull the outer ring off your harmonic balancer.
The next step is to rent or buy the correct puller, and get a new balancer.
I also submit as a runner-up, my crusty, Black&Decker radial arm saw. There is about ½ inch of slop in the arm.
You can’t get a straight cut out of the thing at all.
If you own a FWD vehicle, KEEP THAT TOOL! Those are excellent for removing a halfshaft. You put the claws on the hub and the pokey middle in the divot in the halfshaft. Stick a wrench on there, and that thing pops your halfshaft right out. Excellent!
I thought of another one. I have this HUGE wrench. The thing is almost as long as my arm. I could practically unscrew my own head with it. I have never and probably will never need that much leverage EVER… even if I could fit it onto the thing I was getting at.
Though actually… I use it rather frequently–as a hammer when I can’t find my hammer.
Right on about the barf-smelling tools, but I’ve only noticed it in tools that come in a vinyl pouch, so I assumed it was the POUCH that was the offender.
I don’t really have any useless tools, but am constantly purging my kitchen of useless items, most notably an electric ice cream making machine that makes about a third of a gallon of ice cream at a time, that costs approximately 3 times what it would in the store, which is right down the street so why bother? We got this as a wedding gift, used it once and it sat on the shelf for 4 more years until I was recently able to palm it off on someone.
I have a question about Allen Wrenches (I assume that’s the correct spelling.) Why do they sell them? Everything I’ve ever bought that’s required assembly has included an Allen wrench in the package, and I now have a half dozen or so. They are hard to resist, though, when you see them in the store as a set in a little vinyl pouch – that will smell like VOMIT, of course!
Now ya folks got it wrong. There’s no such thing as a ‘useless tool’. Every tool in your collection has the potential to be used sometime in the future, so they’re not useless. That’s why you collect them. There’s no shame in that !
Ok, maybe I have a few ‘less than popular’ tools….
I have safety wire pliers, that were given to me by a friend. They were used to secure safety wire in the fasteners on F-4’s, (probably some other models too) but I’ve never been an aircraft mechanic, so their use to me has been limited.
I also have a pig ring plier, it’s used to attach ID labels to the ear of a pig. Ok, I forget where they came from and I’ve never been to a pig farm in my life, but you never know when they’ll come in handy.
I have a few other tools that haven’t seen a lot of use (or the light of day), but by god they’re there when I need them, and that’s the point !
(insert Tim Allen grunting here)
I’m with KP235, all tools are usefull.
The only way you could consider a tool useless is if it can’t do the job, and then, by that account, you are probably using the wrong tool.
So remember, it’s not the tool that is useless, it’s how you use your tool.
I went to a Chinese master in the art of Kung Fu tea today, and she had about ten different wooden spoons and sticks to stir and scoop the tea at different stages.
It looked hella cool and apparently disciplines the mind, but for practical purposes they were pretty absurd.
Hmn, not really the kind of tool you’re thinking about though.
— G. Raven
p.s. Dy girlfriend DID always tell me I had a useless tool, but I could never figure out what she meant since I don’t even have a toolkit… heeyyyyy… WAIT A MINUTE!
