5 Tools To Throw Away (And What To Replace Them With)

when I realized that I wanted to do a video on the tools that I just didn't like and needed to throw away I realized that in most cases I had already thrown them away but I sorted through here enough to figure out here are some examples of some tools that either still need to be upgraded or have been upgraded and why the upgrades now increase my satisfaction in the work that I have to do so acknowledging that you know life is too short to work with poor tools if you can get around it even though a poor tool is better than no tool at all a lot of the differences between a tool that I love and the tool that I hate are entirely subjective and maybe it's that way for you so in the comments please put it in there however you can something about a specific tool or a class of tools or the tools that you use at your work that makes you love them that maybe wouldn't appeal to anyone else or maybe the rest of us can't even understand but it's a subjectivity in what connects us with our tools that I think is a big part of why we love them so much but in any case I've got here a pile of stuff and I want to start with the tool that I don't know why it's still on the property cuz I truly hate it I truly hate it maybe it's because it reminds me of my past processing 16 cords of firewood for my dad every year and he brought home a monster Mall because he was tired of me breaking the handles out of splitting malls who can blame him for that I never broke this handle and I never bent it it's because I never used it the balance is all wrong the handle length is all short and the center of mass is so far above the pivot point that when you hit it wants to spin over and no that doesn't help me split the wood so for the record just so my descendants know I hated a monster mall now let me show you there are other ways to go but the classiest alternative was sent to me by buckin Billy Ray Smith he sent me a buckin special which is a six lb splitting M head on an axe eye configuration you see that that old ax ey configuration with a great big knob of a fawn's foot at the bottom and it is sharp unlike the splitting mols I grew up with this is sharp it's a great tool bucking if this was 4 in longer it would be a better tool but I'm just pleased and I'm proud of punch to have not one but two splitting implements that were sent to me by buck and Billy Ray Smith he's got a splitting ax over there that he sent to me that he's pioneered I'll show you that sometime none of the rest of these are hated but I look with disdain on a few I never did enjoy these and I know that if you're in the upholstery business or a lot of other businesses you got to be able to shoot a staple but in construction it's a hammer Tacker that does it and I don't think I had been in the trade four months before I saw Steve Hood pull out a hammer Tacker and just spank putting the tar paper down on the roof and I thought wow I'm glad I didn't get my dad's staple gun out of the truck I mean tools are time honored they've been around for a long time and not many have been around longer than a crowbar you've probably heard them called a Rooster bar now I don't know if that's connected to the crow or the fact that so many times when you stick that onto a nail and pull it it squeaks as it comes out sounds like a rooster crowing but in this age of fully developed pry bars and crowbars you don't need to have a crowbar anymore I mean there's all kinds of gorilla bars and wonder bars and it's just better I mean it's the same thing improved so think hard about your attachments to your granddad's Rooster bar and maybe put it on the mantle cuz they are beautiful if you're a blacksmith Forge it into something useful because it's high carbon steel and it's really good material and I don't need to get it out because a a Burk bar is so much bigger than a crowbar that you would say well it's too big but there are many many other little pry bars and crowbars that surpass the old rooster bars in so many ways so you don't need to keep it anymore buy a forge get an anvil turn it into something cool okay back back to uh Framing and I'm not here to brag about the utility of a speed square because everybody knows how great a speed square is and everybody should know how great a Rufus is they are an upgrade I've talked about that and we you know you can check that out on the channel Rufus is a great tool but when I was in Las Vegas I thought well however good a speed square is and since I'm cutting a few roofs I'm going to get a big speed square okay problem is it's big you can't really carry it up onto the roof and every time I ever dropped this it landed out here and the Magnesium or the aluminum or whatever it is chipped off the end I don't think I've used this half a dozen times and I don't think I've enjoyed using it twice so there are so so many other including the immortal Steel Square um it's absolutely a go-to tool it's never going to be obviated there are a lot of different adaptations that reduce it in size and increase it in convenience you got a big Square you got a variety of small squares for my money I don't need this clunker of a speed square so this thing in my humble opinion wins the award for the the ugliest most unwieldy and least useful Hammer I've ever held in my hand now if you've got one that's worse let me know and I'm not just talking about whether or not it's ugly because here's an ugly little Hammer just as basic as a hammer can be and it is one of the sweetest feeling little hammers I've ever picked up it's a function of the length of the handle the swell on the end of that hammer handle and just so I'm not judging this on appearance it's a bad habit of mine to do that but I'm not judging this hammer on appearance nor am I judging this Hammer solely on appearance but something this ugly doesn't deserve to exist so if you've got an ugly Hammer that you never use well you please get rid of it because it just gives hammers generally a bad name so these last four tools two items it's kind of a first world problem to complain about anything on the table right now these these uh Irwin Irwin plum know it says Plum yeah Irwin Irwin augur bit Company Wilmington Ohio USA these are classic they're reliable work hes I have snapped miles of chalk line with this chalkbox and others just like it but as I look at this languishing in my tool bag I think you know I probably ought to give this to somebody that's newly married and a little tool kid I do that once in a while I set up a little tool kit for a young guy newly married cuz he's going to need it so I'm probably going to give that to the next young man who finds a wonderful young woman and makes that wonderful foundational element of society a family starts on that worthwhile Quest I'll probably give that to one of those guys because since Nathaniel gave me this teima I just can't see myself using anything else is it a luxury is it lavish is it yeah maybe but this beats that every day so my old friend thank a million early retirement and uh going to put this guy to work every day all right the last item in this exhaustive and depressing list is slip joint pliers and uh yeah I got this actually I think Neil grobes gave me these and these were in my dad's toolbox they're Craftsman slip joint pliers and they're great and until nipex came along everybody would have thought that these were perfectly presentable tools and they are they will do the work but will not do the work as well well as nipex so here's my beef with slip joint pliers even good ones sometimes they kind of lock up sometimes they kind of lock up right there right I mean you can always get them in there you can always do the work and you can always squeeze down and sometimes they're just perfect at whatever scale you know I mean you know they they just sometimes they're a little clunky and the it's hard to get a parallel grip that see it's locked up they're great but they're not as great as these these things change so easily and can slip easily into exactly the space that you is required and you can see the entire juncture of the joint that's forming it's not a it's not a plier that has the two operating sides and that's it this bottom jaw penetrates you see that it penetrates that's a much stronger connection it takes out a lot of the wobbling and that the configuration of those jaws gives you a lot of different ways to get a hold of something including a hex nut or the end of a a pipe fitting or something so I I don't know it's just they have enough weight back here to keep from you know I don't know I can't explain every Nuance but I can tell you this when you pair pick up a pair of nipex you have to force yourself to pick up a pair of regular slip joint pliers so if you don't want to spend the money for it tell your family you want this in your Christmas stocking let them know when your birthday is this is the only size of these that I've got but I think I'm going to gear up and get a big set because I guess just like so many things in the modern world as people have bright ideas and Implement them our work lives get better if we're able to afford the tooling but if you're not here's the big deal if you're not it's a poor Workman that blames his tools because any tool in the hands of someone who intends to do a good job will produce good work and that's the key isn't it that when you show up to use the tools that God has blessed you with you should intend to do the best job you can whatever tools you're bringing to the party and then save a little out of each paycheck stop by the tool store on the way home when you get a tax refund or a windfall or you sell a motorcycle by the way go ahead and sell your motorcycles and change them into tools if you can I recommend it but however you do it when you buy a tool buy the best ones that you can afford take take as good a care of them as you can in order to produce the work that your family needs you to produce in order to provide for them what they ought to have that's what tools are for thanks for watching essential Craftsman and keep up the good work

Channel: Essential Craftsman

Views: 488,616

Keywords: anvil, forge, blacksmith, forging, craftsman, mentor, trades, tradesman, career, smith, carpetner, builder, wisdom, workbench, fabricate, tools, tool, tips, trick, hacks, protip, tools that I hate, buying tools, buy the right tools

Id: u7_KpD4QiG8

Length: 10min 52sec (652 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 02 2024