Tools and the lifelong collecting of them

[Supa Dexta]

So living on a farm I've inherited and amassed a pretty broad set of tools and even made some of my own, not to mention the metric tons of scrap junk that hangs around 'just in case' you need that some day..

But Im always on the look for something new and different. I quite enjoy being the guy people think of when they go 'I know who might have one'... And then the surprise on their faces when I know just where to dig in my mess of a shop and pull one out, or something close enough that we can make work.

So that said, what do you own - or wish you owned that's not very common in your everyday back yard shop?

I'd love a better tire machine off the top of my head. Lately I've been gathering up more and more carpentry tools with the hope I may build my own house sooner than later. Ive got a sawmill, a cement mixer, a bull dozer.. So I'm on my way to... something.. lol

[Graham_A_M]

Oddly enough, being farmers ourselves, we just have a shit ton of the regular stuff.
There are a few odd farmers around that have just a TON of old equipment and tools thats borderline junk. We've gotten rid of all that clutter and garbage many long decades ago. Yeah, maybe someday it'll come in handy, but if its essentially worthless and will likely never be used, it gets hauled to the scrap metal yard pretty quickly. Its nice having a clean quonset without it. Seriously.......

Some of the more "odd" items would be

-20 (or so) ton hyd press that my dad and I scratch built when I was 12. (works amazing, we still use it all the time)
- (tractor driven) cement mixer from the late 60's, which hasn't been used in, wow at least 18 years.
- One of those crank style manual drills and a bunch of equally old drill bits for it
-Sickle for harvesting crops.. (yes that same thing the grim reaper has, and it works quite well for 100 years old).
- One of these super old school AC welders from the very early 40's. Its by "Smiths Co." made in the good ole' USA.
http://auctionimages.s3.amazonaws.com/268/8859/3157482_2OY0XS31Z.jpg
Ours is identical to this one ^, just 5 times cleaner and in way better shape.
For Voltage "selection" you have to plug the lug end of the welding cable into one of the voltage banks... such as 25 volts, 35 volts, 65 volts (etc). Finer selection comes from using different welding rods. :rofl: yeah, super old school.
Still works very well. My bro (who is a journeyman welder) claims its a quite a decent welder, even today. Its our back up welder if our Lincoln MIG ever shits the bed for whatever reason.


We also have a shit ton of old farming equipment, like this John Deere horse driven plow from the early 1900's.
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii312/Graham_A_M/th_null_zps973d483e.jpg (http://s267.photobucket.com/user/Graham_A_M/media/null_zps973d483e.jpg.html)
I hoped to bring this down to "EnglishBob" on here to use as lawn art after he paints it up, but never got around to it this fall.

A bunch of old threshing machines, hoe drills, and on and on and on, about 50 tons of that sort of shit. Im trying to get rid of it all next year as scrap, probably get a small fortune for all that.

[cam_wmh]

Originally posted by Supa Dexta
So living on a farm I've inherited and amassed a pretty broad set of tools and even made some of my own, not to mention the metric tons of scrap junk that hangs around 'just in case' you need that some day..

But Im always on the look for something new and different. I quite enjoy being the guy people think of when they go 'I know who might have one'... And then the surprise on their faces when I know just where to dig in my mess of a shop and pull one out, or something close enough that we can make work.

So that said, what do you own - or wish you owned that's not very common in your everyday back yard shop?

I'd love a better tire machine off the top of my head. Lately I've been gathering up more and more carpentry tools with the hope I may build my own house sooner than later. Ive got a sawmill, a cement mixer, a bull dozer.. So I'm on my way to... something.. lol

God that's awesome. Do you have an acreage?

For a grown man, I have an embarrassing amount of tools. A toolbox with the essentials -- live in a condo.

I find more & more, that the next place I buy will be a townhouse, again close to downtown where I can have a proper place to accumulate tools (A GARAGE!!!)



Originally posted by Graham_A_M
Oddly enough, being farmers ourselves, we just have a shit ton of the regular stuff.
There are a few odd farmers around that have just a TON of old equipment and tools thats borderline junk. We've gotten rid of all that clutter and garbage many long decades ago. Yeah, maybe someday it'll come in handy, but if its essentially worthless and will likely never be used, it gets hauled to the scrap metal yard pretty quickly. Its nice having a clean quonset without it. Seriously.......

Some of the more "odd" items would be

-20 (or so) ton hyd press that my dad and I scratch built when I was 12. (works amazing, we still use it all the time)
- (tractor driven) cement mixer from the late 60's, which hasn't been used in, wow at least 18 years.
- One of those crank style manual drills and a bunch of equally old drill bits for it
-Sickle for harvesting crops.. (yes that same thing the grim reaper has, and it works quite well for 100 years old).
- One of these super old school AC welders from the very early 40's. Its by "Smiths Co." made in the good ole' USA.
http://auctionimages.s3.amazonaws.com/268/8859/3157482_2OY0XS31Z.jpg
Ours is identical to this one ^, just 5 times cleaner and in way better shape.
For Voltage "selection" you have to plug the lug end of the welding cable into one of the voltage banks... such as 25 volts, 35 volts, 65 volts (etc). Finer selection comes from using different welding rods. :rofl: yeah, super old school.
Still works very well. My bro (who is a journeyman welder) claims its a quite a decent welder, even today. Its our back up welder if our Lincoln MIG ever shits the bed for whatever reason.


We also have a shit ton of old farming equipment, like this John Deere horse driven plow from the early 1900's.
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii312/Graham_A_M/th_null_zps973d483e.jpg (http://s267.photobucket.com/user/Graham_A_M/media/null_zps973d483e.jpg.html)
I hoped to bring this down to "EnglishBob" on here to use as lawn art after he paints it up, but never got around to it this fall.

A bunch of old threshing machines, hoe drills, and on and on and on, about 50 tons of that sort of shit. Im trying to get rid of it all next year as scrap, probably get a small fortune for all that.

Just fucking rad. I miss being on the farm.

[roll_over]

Do you own a fuck stick or something similar? Lol

[Rat Fink]

.

[corsvette]

We built our own farm built tire machine lol! Started with this huge chunk of I beam (Dad claims it actually an anvil), welded a chunk of exhaust pipe on it to put the rim through. Add a custom ground bar and a 8ft length of pipe for leverage for breaking the tire bead. Works great! Thing weighs about 300lbs, just sits in Dad's shop ready when we need it.

[klumsy_tumbler]

My dad is totally one of those people. He is so bad, in fact, that he recently bought a CRANE, because it was pretty much the only thing missing from his "collection". :dunno:

[legendboy]

I could use an overhead gantry crane myself
Quite often I am moving equipment 500-4500lbs all by myself which sucks and is dangerous.

I bet if we were measuring pure weight per sq.ft. I might win :D

[schurchill39]

I knew a girl in university who's dad was like this. He just bought everything he could for the sake of "maybe needing it one day". If you could name it then he probably had it stashed away in one of the buildings on their farm. The last time I was out there he had just acquired a tackhoe to go along with the rest of his heavy machinery. Guess he wanted to dig slews quicker?

Funny story, he had more than one quad with tiny vice grips in place of the thumb throttle lever.

[Maxt]

http://www.oldengine.org/members/hammink/bearingscrapers.jpg
The set of babbit bearing scrapers I have is probably the rarest tool set I have.
Other than that, some more off the wall stuff, old school tune up machine/scope, chassis dyno, rotary engine compression tester...

[03ozwhip]

I also have an embarrassing amount of tools, but the only reason that is, is because my father in law is down the street and probably has everything I will ever need and won't ever need. He just bought a steering wheel puller especially to pull my wheel on the mustang, hell probably never need it again lol

it's awesome to have him so close, I don't know where my cars would be if it weren't for him, he's helped me so much because hes got everything and has a ton of knowledge.

he's just a regular car guy with a killer collection, he had to build an oversize triple garage in his back yard just to accommodate his tools and his cars...and mine...and my brother in laws lol

anyways, ya, tools, he's got everything.

[legendboy]

Hey Max have you ever used the bearing scrapers?

[Alak]

I don't have anything incredibly unusual being a heavy duty mechanic. But there's certain tools on certain jobs that really make things easier to access. When someone is working on hydraulics in close quarters, they come see me for these babies.


http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/objects_lg/images/VS828A.jpg

[Maxt]

Originally posted by legendboy
Hey Max have you ever used the bearing scrapers?
A couple of times, its a lot of work. apply prussian blue paste, fit part, scrape high spots, rinse and repeat.
I don't think its done much anymore, with the advent of mass production high accuracy cheap machining. They can afford to stock all sizes of babbit bearings for machines and they probably fit way better to.

[legendboy]

You hit the nail right on the head

I am hoping to go to a scraping class this summer in Vancouver run by some machinery rebuilding experts/machinists.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

I have a decent set but my dad has far far more, including a lathe and metal working tools. I've seen him design and build his own tools for specific things if he couldn't find what he needed when I was younger.

He still doesn't have air tools though, prefers to do everything mechanically/by hand.

[legendboy]

^ I do the same sort of work

Here are 2 tools I bet nobody else on beyond has
A small German made ultra precision level and a 3/8-40NS tap

http://members.shaw.ca/corey.s/Tools/IMG_0482.JPG

The bottom of the level hand scraped to near perfection

http://members.shaw.ca/corey.s/Tools/IMG_0485.JPG

[Sentry]

Was doing a tranny service on an F150 this afternoon and was inspired to take a picture of one of MY favourite tools.

Normal swivel socket would be too big to fit here. Super skinny swivel extension. Piece of cake. ;)

Also brings the point of swivel much closer to the fastener head.

http://i.imgur.com/jn5q0q1.jpg

I have a 10mm, 12mm, and 14mm. The 10mm is glorious for a lot of stuff, and the 14mm kicks ass for exhausts and driveshafts. The 12mm doesn't get much love compared to the other two but still great to have on hand.

http://i.imgur.com/jwf0eaj.jpg

[legendboy]

Those are pretty nice. Can't tell you how many times I have nearly lost teeth because of flying swivels :D