Glossary of tools

[Burnerboy]

HAMMER
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive parts close to the object we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE
Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door. Works particularly well on boxes containing clothing.

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL
Normally used for spinning rivets in their holes at high speed, but can also be used for drilling oval holes in just the wrong place.

PLIERS
Used to round off bolt heads.

HACKSAW
One of a family of cutting tools built on the original sin principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

MOLE GRIPS
Used to round off bolt heads.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS
Originally used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they can now be used for rounding off metric nuts and bolts.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR
A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.

HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST
A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of the engine mounts you have forgotten to release.

BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER
A handy tool for transferring sulphuric acid from a battery to the inside of the battery box.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER
Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.

PRY BAR
A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50p part.

HOSE CUTTER
A tool used to cut hoses exactly ½ inch too short.

STILLSON ADJUSTABLE WRENCH
A better tool than mole grips and pliers for quickly and easily rounding off bolt heads. Like all good tools can also be used as a hammer.

[Steve Cureton]

LOL - you forgot to include the electric heat gun that is more often used by mechanics to soften materials to make them more pliable - which usually results in a melted blob.

[smithy]

Most excellent - and I'm doubly pleased to see that my name's not listed.

[Mj17]

I'm not sure I agree with the pliers entry.  I've always used them as something loosly grip split pins with before hitting yourself in the face with.

[Bob Bowling]

CIRCLIP PLIERS
Ideal for launching important little springy steel clips into impossible to reach places

[willcolumbine]

SCREWDRIVER

See 'chisel'

[valencia1]

willcolumbine wrote:

SCREWDRIVER

See 'chisel'

also see....paint stirrers :)

[bodders1]

willcolumbine wrote:

SCREWDRIVER

See 'chisel'

CHISEL

See 'screwdriver'

[shedmonkey]

Bench grinder -used for implanting small rusty bolts into your eye/garage roof

[smithy]

WD40
Liquid which makes spanners fly off nuts twice as fast, hurting your hand/head/face much more efficiently and painfully.

DRILL BITS
Spinning rods which over time generate more heat and less hole. Never available in the correct size.

HARDENED DRILL BITS
Shrapnel.

HAND DRILL
Operates exactly as the name implies.

ANGLE GRINDER
Amusingly inaccurate device for grinding the wrong angle too deeply and in the wrong place whilst also producing painful sparky bits. Works much the same as HAMMER in respect to causing damage to components near the chosen target. Amusing when dropped.

SAFETY GOGGLES
Handy wall ornament. Magically invisible when required, easy to locate and stand on otherwise. Should be kept safely out of reach, next to ornamental INSTRUCTION MANUALS or HAYNES MANUALS or any form of literature from a parts supplier.

FIRE EXTINGUISHER
Must-have accompaniment to safety goggles. Magically empty when required. Painted Red for extra invisibility.

SMOKED WELDING GLASS
Completes the H&S set. Must never be used. Breaks when dropped. See "WELDING GEAR".

COMPRESSOR
Noisy garage addendum which makes destroying fasteners easy and much faster. Handy for driving:

AIR-TOOLS
A louder way to do things wrong more quickly and painfully

and SPRAY EQUIPMENT
Inaccurate messy way to apply the wrong colour to the wrong place whilst generating a by-product hideous smell.

WELDING GEAR
High-tech method of burning components, flesh and occasionally whole cars. Successfully fastens metals together on a random basis - never neatly or at the correct angle. See "ANGLE GRINDER" for negating it's effects - possibly. Fastest and best way of learning a whole new range of swear words.