Tools or 'things' as therapy

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Yep, completely with you on that one.

<atb,

<daniel

MMMMn depends on the tool!!! Nowt like feeling a good spanner, or feeling like one for that matter! Especially when you got bored with setting the dividing head and moved one hole too many and bu!"£"! up your latest creation.

Bri

Edited By Boiler Bri on 17/06/2019 21:20:03

I like the smooth hum of my lathe and the feel of latching in the power feed.

In my pocket there's an example of what I think's the best little 4" adjustable spanner made, with a nice Parkerised finish and all the handling surfaces polished by use. Sometimes I just run the worm up and down for the feel of it.

I have a nice, worn Mole wrench clone that feels just right as the toggle link locks up and unlocks. Occasionaly I've been able to recover a broken tap or drill with it by gripping the tiniest protruding shard.

I guess many of us have our own little amulets.

Mick, who makes that spanner please, I've been forgetting to buy one for a while!

Tools are very theraputic. For me its the old machine tools. At the end of a rubbish day using the lathe keeps me sane and leaves me tired and content.

And it works for babies too.

When my son was just months old I would return home from work and be handed a screaming lad wrapped in his 'Babygrow' and shawl.

I found the best answer was to quickly get changed and take him out to the workshop. There I would do some turning on the Myford, making parts for my Stuart Turner 'Real' engine while supper was being prepared indoors.

I had to drape a muslin over his head to protect hime from stray swarf and splatters of cutting fluid. He fell silent literally within a minute or two. (but returned indoors later smelling of suds oil as much as I did!)

My wife could never understand how and why I could calm him down when she had failed.

I suspect it is genetic and yes, he chose engineering as a career!

As the last suns set over the workshop the old chap is wrapped in a trust

with the love of his tools, belittled by fools, replacing a once urgent lust

for those lovely young fillies all fragrance and lace and so very, very enticing

NOW what stops me dead is a Swiss boring head, ground threads, silky smooth - so exciting!

Rik

Edited By Rik Shaw on 17/06/2019 23:15:39

Robert M Pirsig said (somewhere) in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" that when you work on your motorcycle, what you are really working on is yourself.

True words.

Tool lovers unite

That extends to lovingly cared for old wood too, I can't help just putting my hand on a patinated piece of furniture as I walk by...

Oh no Henry, thats just weird and kinky! You risk backlash for encouraging people to put filthy, oily fingerprints on priceless domestic treasures. Door handles and light switches are one thing, but furniture ..noooooo!

Well, it was Bahco who made the thing that I bought - but it took a couple of decades of riding in pockets, plus a string of situations where its availability was welcome, to make it what it is now...

.....I prefer to run my hands over a naked woman myself, but, gettting back to John Muir and 'How to keep your VW alive', that whole book should be an obliged read for all who make stuff and use tools......it IS the very essence of 'making' and craftsmanship in one volume. ...

......Highly recommended, and very funny to read as well!

The obverse of course is 'tool abuse'. Once witnessed a micrometer being used as a G cramp whilst welding and another, a Neanderthal swinging an shipwrights adze in his garden thinking it was a mattock.

Perhaps Esther Rantzen could be persuaded to open a dedicated hot line where such outrages could be reported?

Guy

I love all my tools, machines and assorted nick knacks.

It would be hard to pick out any favourite but I too have a 4" Bahco mover that seems to always be close by.

My current favourite is a Facom ratchet screwdriver set, which has a ratchet handle, bits, 1/4 drive adaptor and 5 sockets in a box 5 x 2 inches. It's so cleverly designed I just love using it.

The smell of a well used and oiled tool transports me to my shop where ever i am. Should i be disclosing this in open forum?

Mick

Probably because my Dad was a carpenter! I've had more than one final warning about mucky door handles and swarf on the carpet though John...

And here was me thinking that I was wierd, apparently it’s safe to come out of the closet but I don’t think that our other halves will understand our obsessions with metallic objects.

Dave W

My Gramps brought me up and I spent my childhood with him in his workshop and at his work as a signwriter, I have a Brylcream jar which has some mixture of polish in it, this resides in my workshop and a sniff takes me back to the 1950's and all is well with the world and before anyone mentions health issues I have been sniffing since 1982 when he died and I am still here to tell the tale at my mid 70's oh and just a quick sniff now and then

Mick 😎 🤔🇬🇧

I daresay that if one needs ‘therapy’, whatever works must be good.

Do these tools work better after being ‘caressed’? Fidgeting with a piece of equipment, object or tool is one thing, caressing seems to be entirely a different matter!

I certainly prefer a smooth, well designed and crafted tool to a rough and ‘awkward to use’ one - but that is simply on a technical level. It was the reason why I changed my lathe from a chinese heap to a Raglan, even though the latter was 50 years, or more, old.

NDIY the Raglan is a splendid manufacturer, I had a 5 inch and a loughborough as well as the vertical mill. I upgraded to a new Boxfod X10, that does not have back gear or auto carriage stop or one handed speed adjustment. Wish I had kept it now!

Mick