Dr Nathan Scott · July 2002
I went into my shed and took pictures of a few tools. You will have seen most or all of these at some point in your life. If you know about them already, go read something else. If you have seen the tools but never actually used them, you may need to hear what I have to say. I have tried to introduce the most fundamental features of each one so that you can get started with them.
Should you rush out and buy all these things? Probably not. You should buy the most important ones, and I have pointed these out below, but the other ones can wait until you actually need them. The point here is that you need to know these things exist, it will help you do better design work. The devices are good examples of design in their own right. The way they are used is also important because it draws attention to the detail of how materials can be shaped and joined.
I don't know why it is called a gun, it doesn't really shoot anything out.
Figure 1 General view of pop rivet gun. Note the extra tips stored on the underside (bottom part in the figure). These can be unscrewed and have different hole diameters. This allows a range of rivets to be used.
The handles are held closed by a wire loop which can be folded down. Then the upper handle can be moved through about 45 degrees. To use the tool a pop rivet is put into the end.
Figure 2 Pop rivet out of, and then in, the end of the gun.
The part of the rivet that you can see sticking out of the gun is then pushed through a 1/8" hole in some metal sheets. Usually two or more sheets of thin metal are joined by this method. The handle is squeezed several times. As the handle is squeezed the center of the rivet - the mandrel - is pulled back inside the rivet gun. The blob at the end of the mandrel deforms the aluminium body of the rivet:
Figure 3 Effect of squeezing the handle of the rivet gun.
Eventually the force on the mandrel becomes quite large and the mandrel breaks inside the aluminium rivet. The rivet is left behind and forms a strong connection between the metal sheets (not shown in the figures above). The broken mandrel is discarded.
Note that one side of the work ends up with a nice round rivet head on it but the other side gets a rather ugly, and slightly sharp, deformed rivet body. This is not a problem provided you design it to be out of sight and away from people's hands.
There are many kinds of pliers, these are just my favourite ones.
You have probably seen long-nosed pliers before. Here I want to show you the smaller kind which are used for electronic work. They are only about 120mm long and are quite delicate. They are ideal for trimming electronic wires and for positioning electronic parts during soldering. They can be found at electronic hobby stores and are dead useful. Note that this type of plier should not be used to cut hard steel wire. It could do the job but the cutting edges would be damaged.
If you need to cut hard steel wire, such as fencing wire or coat-hanger wire, you need fencing or linesman's pliers:
The fencing pliers have a specially designed wire-cutter on the side:
I have an unusual pair of pliers which were designed for work with glass (e.g. stained glass). They are called crosing pliers. That's pronounced "crozing", not "crossing". Crosing means "nibbling away at the edges of the glass by breaking it". I don't do much glass work these days but I find the pliers incredibly useful. They have a unique shape which makes them ideal for gripping small parts. You could get these at a stained glass supply shop:
A hacksaw is one of the most useful tools you can own. However you need to know some basic things about it. Most importantly, the teeth of the blade only cut one way. Traditionally the blade is put in so that the teeth cut when the hacksaw is pushed away from you.
The blade of the hacksaw can be tightened and it is important to keep it quite tight. The blade is made of good steel which has been heat treated to be hard only on the edge where the teeth are. So the cutting points are hard and last a long time, but the blade itself is not too brittle. It is still possible to break the hacksaw blade while making a cut, always be prepared for this to happen unexpectedly. Keep one hand on the top of the hacksaw body near the front and the other hand on the handle. Push down on the forward (cutting) stroke and don't try to go too fast. Lift up slightly on the backward stroke, it does no good to let the teeth drag on the work.
In most hacksaws the blade can be used in a number of ways. For example it can be set up so that it is at right angles to the body of the hacksaw. This is sometimes very helpful when working in a confined space or with an awkward shaped workpiece.
The hacksaw blade can cut steel and softer metals and can also be used on plastics and wood. However for big pieces of wood it might be better to use a traditional wood saw, it is much faster and can be more accurate.
Clamps must be some of the most important tools in the shed. It is most important to hold your work down properly when you are cutting or drilling. They can also be used to hold things together before fixing them with screws and/or glue.
There are also some spring-clamps which produce lower forces and are not as rigid. However they are good for some glueing jobs and other light duties. This one is made of carbon-filled polypropylene and it has a steel spring inside:
There are also "bar" clamps but I did not take a picture of one. Watch out for these, although they look great they can vibrate open, this can be dangerous if you are not ready for it.
Files remove material by cutting it with many small teeth. Various arrangements and sizes of teeth are available.
The rasp is useful for quick removal of unwanted wood, or perhaps plastic, but must not be used on metal:
Metal files tend to have quite small ridge-like teeth, and these teeth often form a criss-cross pattern. A metal file with large teeth, for quick but rough work, is called a "bastard". The next finer one is called a "second cut". I usually buy only "second cut" files, they seem to be the most useful. It is good to own at least a flat faced one and also a round (rat tail) one for enlarging holes. The triangular file is brilliant for cleaning up an internal 90 degree corner, and also for fixing damaged threads on bolts.
The correct use of files is hard to describe in writing. You should ask an expert show you, especially the "draw filing" operation and also the correct way to make a rounded surface. The file is usually held like a hacksaw, with one hand on the handle and the other at the other end. A file only cuts on the stroke where you push it away from you, like the hacksaw. When files are first made there is a spike called the tang sticking out where the handle should be and a lot of people seem to think this is OK. It is NOT OK and you should never use a file until you hammer a proper handle onto the spike. Handles can be found at hardware stores and only cost a few dollars. Using a file without a handle is about as safe as riding a bicycle with the seat post sticking up like a spear.
You will see in the picture above that there are little bits of metal stuck in the teeth of the file. This is normal but annoying. It happens a lot when you file aluminium, which is a very soft pulpy metal. You can scratch the blobs of metal out using a sharp scriber but there is also a fast way to do a whole file at once. It's called a file card, it's like a flat wire brush with very short bristles. You use it to brush along the ridge-like teeth, pushing quite hard, and it soon flicks the metal blobs out of the teeth. Stubborn bits can then be attacked with a sharp scriber. It's important to keep files clean otherwise they leave deep scratches on the work.
Professional metal artisans keep two sets of files. One set is used for steel, the other set is used only on brass, copper, aluminium and other non-ferrous materials. The reason is that steel seems to do something to the edges of a file. It is not exactly wear, they can look sharp enough, but once a file has been used on steel it is much less effective on non-ferrous metals. I don't know why this is so, I am just passing it on to you. I have not yet been able to afford to keep two separate sets of files, and I don't expect you can afford it either. However it is one thing to do the wrong thing through ignorance, and another to do it because of poverty.
Always store files and other tools in a drawer or a sealed box. If you leave them around on your bench then moisture from the air will condense on them at night, and rust will blunt the edges. It is hard work using blunt tools. In my experience most people seem to use blunt tools, with sweat pouring off them, because they have rarely had anything else. A little care can mean that a tool is always in good shape when you need it. Sorry to preach at you, but rust really annoys me.
Here's a picture of my electric hand drill. It's just a basic model but has served me well for many years. It has to be one of the most useful tools I own.
The chuck key is used to tighten the chuck onto a drill. Here is the chuck key being used. Never forget to take the key out before running the drill, it can fly across the room and hurt someone. In this picture you can also see a drill holder with a set of different sized drills. These sets are quite cheap, they are definitely a good investment. They are available in metric and imperial sizes, I have one set of each. This gives me a reasonable range of sizes.
Here is a large drill bit held by the chuck, and some smaller, two-ended panel drills:
It is worth looking closely at the detail design of a drill bit. Drills are actually precision made objects and a lot of technology goes into them. There are spirals up the side of the drill called flutes and these tend to help get the drill swarf out of the drilled hole. They are not perfectly effective so a deep hole requires pecking, which means drilling for a bit, then pulling the drill out to clean the flutes. The cutting edges of the drill have a precise angle. It is possible to sharpen most drills on a grinding stone but ask someone to show you how to get it right. Drills smaller than 3mm can't easily be sharpened by hand so it is probably best to just buy new ones.
The flutes of the drill look like they might cut but in fact they are not effective. A drill only cuts a round hole, you can't pull it sideways to make a slot unless you are drilling in something really soft like plaster. There are special drills for cutting slots and these have teeth on the flutes.
Before you start drilling any hole it is almost always a good idea to make a dent in the surface you are about to drill. The dent is called a center punch and it does not have to be very deep. It is just to help guide the drill where you want it. This greatly improves accuracy and also prevent unsightly gouges as the drill wanders all over the surface. Here is my little automatic center punch:
It is automatic because you don't have to hit it with a hammer. In fact it is not designed to be hit at all. You just put the point against the surface and push hard. A clever mechanism inside the device goes whack and the tip makes a deep mark. It is well worth taking one of these apart to see how the function is achieved, but watch out - there are small parts and springs! The punch shown above is a really good one, it came from the excellent Snap-on Tool company. It is an ideal gift to ask your family to give you one Christmas.
When you drill a hole, it is important to do it in easy stages. If you only want a small hole, you can just drill it. But if you want a bigger hole, for example a 10mm hole, you must first drill a small hole, then gradually enlarge it to full size. Why? Because the forces involved in cutting the material can be quite large, which means a lot of torque is required. This may be more than your drill press or hand drill can deliver. Also the big forces make the operation dangerous. Trust me, do it in stages, it is much better. When I drill a 10mm hole I start with one of the "double ended panel drills" shown in the figure above (1/8" is typical, this is just over 3mm). Panel drills are designed to make the first hole in things, they are extra tough. Also they are quite cheap and have two ends for extra value. After the pilot drill I usually use a 5 or 6mm drill, then a 7 or 8 mm drill, and finally the 10mm drill.
Drill bits are available in a truly mind-blowing range of sizes. The smallest drill made, to my knowledge, is only 5 micrometers in diameter. The largest I have seen was 200mm diameter but I am sure bigger sizes must be available. Even so that is a range of about 5 orders of magnitude! Interestingly they all seem to have the same basic design, if you scaled the largest one down you would have something very like the smallest.
Drill bits are available in fractional sizes. In particular it is worth knowing that the usual decimal sizes include tenths of a mm. So it is easy to get a 4.30mm drill, for example. Hardware stores don't have such sizes, they will only have half-mm steps like 4.5mm. Fractional sizes are available from Blackwoods tools and also Venables.
If you need a very accurate hole, you will need more advanced technology. A high precision hole is made by drilling undersize and then reaming. To make a precision 10mm hole, drill at 9.90mm then ream to 10.00, Reamers are expensive, but if you need one, there is no substitute. They look like drills that have straight flutes, and they don't have a cutter at the end because they only scrape the sides of an existing hole.
Be careful when using an electric drill. They are treated as safe devices but can still cause serious injury. Be sure to clamp your work down to something solid because if the drill jams in the hole, which is very common, the work could suddenly start to whip around, it becomes like a flying knife blade. At least put the work on the floor and stand on it with a tough leather boot. Also one time my long hair fell down onto my drill bit while drilling a hole and a big hunk of it was ripped out - ouch. It could have been much worse, I realise now that the drill could have pulled my head down onto the job and this could have been very bad for my eyes and/or my brain. Tie your hair back!
Please don't laugh, this is serious. Many people don't know how to use a hammer, make sure you do!
There are also other kinds of hammers, for example the ball peen hammer has a ball instead of the claw end. Peening means covering a surface with small round dents, this can be quite an attractive metal finish. Peening also means "rounding" and it is done to the heads of old-fashioned rivets (not pop rivets).
My dad passed on to me a saying of my ancestors, perhaps the only worthwhile thing any of them said: "Only use a hammer when you want to break something". I always repeat this to myself when picking up a hammer, at least it makes me feel better if I do break something.
Most people own, and have used, the classic shifter or adjustable wrench:
I am proud to own a Crescent(TM) brand shifter, the original brand. At one time in the USA this tool was always called a "crescent" wrench.
Shifters are good emergency tools because they can be adjusted to fit a range of nuts. However it is easy to damage a nut using a shifter. If the nut is very tight, the shifter will tend to round the corners of the nut. At that point you may have a serious problem because you now have a tight nut and no easy way to grip it! If possible, try to avoid using shifters. Instead try to use the correct size of open box spanner for the nut:
The open end of the open-box spanner can damage nuts too. Where possible use the ring-shaped end. This end can grip a nut or bolt head at many points and it is much less likely to cause damage. You can transmit a lot of torque to a nut using the ring end. There are, however, cases where you can't get access to the nut to get the ring around it. Then you have no choice, you have to use the open end. Old machines sometimes have square nuts on them, the open end of the spanner works well on those (and the ring end doesn't work at all!) - but these are now very rare.
Spanners are available in metric and imperial (inch) sizes. I've only got metric ones. However I do have a set of imperial sockets, see below. A set of spanners can be had for a few dollars from a hardware or "$2" store, it is not necessary to buy an expensive set.
There are several main types of nails and screws, and you should know the names and what they are good for:
Flat headed clouts are good for fixing thin sheet metal to wood.
Bullet head nails are good for fixing wooden planks to each other (but see below for warnings). The bullet head means the nail can actually be driven below the wood surface if necessary, using a thin punch, this has cosmetic advantages.
Wood screws are available with countersink type heads (conical) and also dome type heads. The countersink type can be made flush with the wood surface. The dome type must stick out above the surface but is good for fixing thin metal sheet to wood.
Screws and nails seem like a good way to fix things together but in reality they suffer from some problems. The main problem is that they can pull out. It is best to use screws and particularly nails, as though they are only shear pins and can only support sideways forces. They are quite good if used that way.
There is a separate class of screws for joining bulk metal objects together. These have metal threads which are much finer than wood threads. The same head types are available, plus many other styles. Wood screws can be driven directly into a suitable drilled hole but generally a metal screw hole must be tapped, which means that an internal thread must be cut using a tap. A tap looks like a screw but it is very hard, tapered, and it has flutes like a drill. Also it has a square end for a high torque connection. Sorry, I should put a picture of one here instead of talking about it.
Everyone owns and has used these but I think there are some common misconceptions about them.
There are two "cross head" screw types: Phillips and Pozidriv(TM). Pozidriv is a fairly recent invention and I am not convinced it is really necessary. It looks very much like Phillips but has slight differences in the angles of the blade. It is supposed to allow higher torque. Screws with Pozidrive type heads have a distinctive star pattern at 45 degrees to the cross shaped impression (sorry, I should show you a picture of this). In theory only a Pozidriv screwdriver should be used on such screws but if you don't have one, a Phillips screwdriver will probably work.
Phillips and Pozidriv screws - and screwdrivers - are available in a range of sizes. They are identified by a number. The smallest size I have seen is "00" which was in a set of jewellers' screwdrivers. The usual sizes you see in the shops are "No. 1" (small) and "No. 2" (regular) size. It is important to own at least a Phillips No. 1 and No. 2. Never try to use a screwdriver that is too big or too small, you will just wreck the screw head.
Flat blade screwdrivers also come in a range of sizes. It is important to have a range handy as screws come in a great variety of sizes. It is worth noting that the blade of a flat type screwdriver has a very specific shape. It is not sharp at the end, it is flat. The sides are not parallel but have a slight taper. Ideally the screwdriver will fit the screw slot very tightly and will almost jam in. In practice this rarely seems to happen, it is just not possible to own enough different screwdrivers to fit the bewildering number of different screw types. You should at least aim to own a small, medium and large flat-type screwdriver. Heck, just go out and buy a set of 5 or 10 screwdrivers in a plastic case. They are cheaper by the dozen and you won't regret owning them.
Here is one of my favourite tools. I am showing it to you because, to my amazement, not many people in Australia seem to know about this neat tool.
It's basically a 1/4" extension and can be used with 1/4" sockets. But it has a screwdriver type grip. A ratchet can be snapped into the hole in the handle and this turns it into a really high torque screwdriver:
It is so good you have to be careful not to break screws off when tightening them! The other good thing about it is that you can have a big set of screwdriver bits. These are very tough, they are made of really good steel, and they seem to be more accurate than the ends of your average screwdriver. All this means you can tighten screws tighter and get tight ones undone more easily.
You've already met the ratchet. Here is a closer view of the head:
For historical reasons the square shafts of these tools are fractional inch sizes. The usual sizes are 1/4" (small), 3/8" (medium) and 1/2" (large). Other larger sizes are also seen in industry. It is important to use an appropriately sized tool. A small ratchet could break if you tried to undo a really big nut. On the other hand, a big ratchet is heavy and long and it may not fit in a confined space under a car, where you have some small nut to undo. I have a small, medium and large ratchet and several sets of sockets.
Sockets have a square hole at one end and a hexagonal or a 12-sided hole at the other end. They are made of good steel and are heat treated. I always buy the kind that has a hexagonal hole as this allows the very best connection to a standard hexagonal nut. The 12-sided kind of socket is, for reasons I have never understood, the most common kind, but it does sometimes damage the nut by ripping the corners off.
If you want 6-sided sockets you may have to go to a specialty supplier such as Snap-on, Elora, Proto, Venables or Blackwoods. Your average hardware store will only have the 12-pointed ones, which I refuse to even show you.