Re: Tool Abuse Stories...
If I told yall all the times we abuse our tools, and trucks, I would be here all night.
We go through cordless drills like nothing. Back when we were building one of our houses, dad was putting the 5v roofing on, and to start the screws (not self drilling) he would slam them with the back of the old panasonic drill we had for a couple years. That drill also managed to slip off the 2 story roof of that barn a few times too. We have since worn out a couple nice bosch ones too, but they are without a doubt, the best drill - have 3 right now)
Back when dad was building a cabin for my granddad, he went to pick up all the 6 x 8 beams from the mill, on an old 14 foot tandem trailer. Well, that old truck is rated for something like 4000 on the bumper (didn't have a frame hitch at the time) and that trailer was something like eleven thousand. Truck was riding the bump stops for about the first five miles. He could barely turn, as the front wheels would lift up. He then parks it in a parking lot, and since the old trailer doesn't have a jack, uses the trucks jack. Well, that jack broke under the tongue weight (jack designed for 4000 pound truck + cargo) They then made loaded about a quarter of the beams in the back, and brought them up to the site, an hour each way, in 4 trips, the last one with an empty trailer on what was left of the bumper. Needless to say, we have a frame mounted hitch now, (this was about 13 years back) and that truck is pushing 400K miles. That truck also got a new clutch at that time, and is about ready for its next one.
I have been hit in the foot by a flinging maul head, with half the handle attached. Guess you can't leave them in the woods for a year, and hope they are still sound.
Our little palm sander has hit the concrete shop floor more times than I can count. Sturdy lil thing.
A lot of our wrenches have been heated and bent way too many times. Amazing how long an old Craftsman wrench will last.
Parting out a car we inherited earlier this year, and needed a 12 point metric socket to remove the cylinder head. None of our impact sockets were 12 point, but we had millions of those little chinese cheapos that appear, but are never bought. Broke about 17 of those on the 12 bolts we had to remove.
I bent a breaker bar last year. Impact socket wouldn't budge it. I couldn't get a breaker bar to budge it either. Put a 10 foot stick of thick wall round tubing over it, and bent the bar, just as the bolt came loose (welded in captive nut on the other side)
I'll hush now.
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