Building an Inexpensive Toolkit for Beginners - Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project - 3/26/2013

welcome to still entitled the Adam Savage project I'm will I'm Adam I'm norm hey so we are here in the cave we are you've been talking about spacesuits we have well there's a lot of spacesuit action going on in my life right now oh that's a perfectly normal thing for MSA I threw through an etsy maker I have pulled the trigger on a commission for a mercury era spacesuit which is actually I realized I love the al7 your standard moon-landing spacesuit I worked on accurate izing one for years and I've got a really nice one but I've always loved the mercury suit because they didn't because they didn't designed its look or like its place in history Shanee silver that shiny silver which has sort of really helped both be informed by and defined what we think of as the future yeah right and then there's the fact that you know that silver suit was what was on all the test pilot guys right that's the right stuff dudes and those are the those are the early generation astronauts when everyone was still figuring what figuring out what an astronaut was so I just I love the it's being made exactly for my measurements I had to make so many measurements I'm sure like top of arm bottom of arm these kind of like really really because you want the palm of the hand yeah and I'll tell you you know it's and even then they get upset because I'm not they don't have me Yeah right like when I mentioned to a friend of mine who's a film costumer that I was having it made in absentia she like started to get twitchy about it how can you do that so is that is that the kind of thing that you can like go to a local film costumer and say hey can you measure me for as a favor to this other person across the country or is that probably not not so much that hasn't occurred to me strangely but I think that's actually a really good idea you've done that for like tuxedos or weddings before you go to one tuxedo shop they measure you they and then you get the tuxedo when you get to the other place one language yes yeah yeah that hadn't occurred to me I also just picked up on eBay for a really good deal a full Battlestar Galactica flight suit the new or old a new oh yeah with the green fabric and all the you know the attend it was like a Nomex looking thing I was there yeah it's a very special kind of fabric that's expensive and hard to get so and this is they only buy them in bulk when I do the production exactly cool spacesuit design is really interesting recently because NASA trying to we do a lot of it spacesuit design or try to modernize it well and it's funny because I was talking to uh I was talking to a friend of mine who's also obsessed with spacesuits and he was talking about the we were talking about the fact that NASA's always had these two camps one that wanted to make soft suits per astronaut yeah because that's an efficient way to solve the problem and then NASA's always wanted to make a one-size-fits-all hard suit which is a much more difficult problem to solve but I mean and with the ISS and long-term habitation and a lot of people cycling in and out of that station then the suit becomes more of a problem because they don't take their suits up with them right it's a you know you when you get up there when commander Hadfield on the station he goes out for an Eevee a he wears the same suits been up there for five years boy right ah but if you really want to go down a wiki haul go look at spacesuits from how they've changed from the shuttle period the beginning of the shuttle period in 1981 to today on the is really because there's been multiple generations across the 20 years that the shuttle flew you know we all remember that big MMU thing right remember that is looks like an enormous backpack chair with some arms and I made a model of that I have one upstairs yeah I mean I have a model of one of the stairs I've been meaning to put together but it was like they eventually over a period time shrunk that down and they changed the way the suits fit they worked to design the the one-size-fits-all suits on the shuttle now but then over you're right over the period time there were people that wanted to build like deep-sea diving suits like a hard body suits in those and there's a gun XPrize type competition that they run just for the components of the suits the gloves the helmets it's a fascinating endeavor I'm wondering I'm actually curious because I haven't looked into this how NASA started to incorporate potentially 3d printing in terms of making the suits because presumably now you could get incredibly accurate measurements and scans of your astronauts and refine and accelerate the process of making suit parts for them well but those suits are all sewn by hand by somebody in Ohio or something right there David behan but but there's a direct descendent of the best seamstress at Playtex which was the division that made the original al7 spacesuits because Playtex was the company that had the knowledge of how to fit hard things to soft body parts in ways that weren't chafing and difficult I'd love that as one of my favorite there's a great book on the spacesuit which is written in a non chronological fashion because they break down the suit in terms of the components and the design problems it's a beautiful book uh and I just read it it's it's lovely for any spacesuit aficionado it's calm I'll have to be after this okay we post it um it might just be called spacesuit uh well I know we always say this but I'll put it in the links at the bottom of the article excellent um let's talk about tools let's talk about speaking of tools I love tools another perfect segue um one of the questions we got a few weeks ago and I wish I didn't save it here where I could pull it up but somebody asked about a starter toolkit yes um sweetie really yeah and you know you talk about how you find materials but you got to use tools to manipulate those and the question specifically what someone asked was you know if someone is just building out their workshop right obviously if you have a project in mind you buy the tools for those that project right if you have two hundred dollars three hundred your patient your basic toolkit and what should be in there and you're just starting out well what do you buy yeah um first off I for some reason this is in my head and I want to get it out which is that don't buy that set of twelve frickin screwdrivers like you mean the one that you roll out and it has like six different head size heads and I don't know this is like at every in every hardware area of every you know big-box store or in every hardware store they always have like the twelve screwdrivers truth be told you need four you need a big phillips small phillips a big flat head and a small flathead and really could then also invest in some we ha wi h a jeweler's screwdrivers which are really nice but again you only need like a couple so like i have this set of of basically take it apart screwdrivers came from iFixit or someplace like that right and they have brick 85 bits now that is actually those are pretty good it's great but I use like five of them regularly the other forty I ever touch and a lot of those replaceable head screwdrivers can tend to run you into trouble if you've got a piece of electronics with a deep screw yeah you won't be able to get the switch outta bed down into that cavity to open up to move that so that's always a problem yeah um so I I have one really long Phillips and one really long straight that just hang on the shelf and they're there yeah just when I need him yeah hardly ever use them so you know a big in a small plus a jeweler size of Phillips and yeah the jeweler's can be adjustable I think the jeweler's can totally be adjustable um you're gonna need a hammer you're gonna need a slacker I like I like how to have like a normal claw hammer yep and then I also have a kind of big rubber mallet just for knocking stuff loose a convinced er a mallet is really is really key and they're about like seven or eight dollars yeah incredibly inexpensive well so before we go any further we should say a lot of this stuff if you do some garage sale hunting you can or watch Craigslist garage sale is fantastic you can often buy toolboxes with tools already in them oh yeah and you'll get a probably about a 20 percent hit ratio with that 20 percent of the tools in those all-inclusive toolboxes will actually be good tools the rest will be a lot of crap but that's I mean you're probably looking at if you're gonna crush it you're looking at probably you know four bucks for the toolbox full of tools and that's how that's how I built up a lot of my early - it's it's a good way to kind of kickstart the collection the other thing is is that with things like screwdrivers you know you can buy cheap versions of some of these things screwdrivers as well you know a mallet and a hammer go ahead and buy the cheapest one you can get to start out because that's going to serve you just fine when you're starting out do you like a wooden handle or a fiber handle I had a more no preference in that regard interest I really don't I'm agnostic when it comes to hammer design a claw hammer is really good because prying is a really important part of making prying things apart is is totally vital it fixes mistakes yes great so a pair of wire strippers a pair of like adjustable wire strippers which are now there there are some that come with like little notches for every gauge of wire that there are I have a couple of those they're not that awesome it's much better like I wire snips are one of those things I spend a fair amount of money on I just bought a new pair cuz I did something dumb and broke the tip off my old one line right um but you want if you have good a good pair of snips because you could find control you don't need the stripper ah this is true this is true you could go with a simple pair of dikes which is what those wires and wire snips are clip those your offensive names across the board pair of dikes wire if you do have good control in a good sharp pair I'd happen to know that lows now cells are really reasonably priced well okay wait a second hold on I got a backup you're right a pair of dikes with proper control that are sharp or can be used as wire strippers and that's generally what I do use the bottom of the cutting jaws on a Leatherman are also fantastic for wire stores usually a little notch taken out if you want really if you want good wire strippers the kind that are actually adjustable that have a pair of these that meet at different depths depending on where you've set them those are great I have a couple pairs of those and those are great one of the first if you're going to do a lot of electronics wiring one of the first tools to invest in is to spend 40 bucks on a pair of greenly automatic wire strippers yeah they grab the wire and strip the end off and I love showing those to people who never knew they existed because they change your life well and they they do just the right depth yeah Jay the awesome part about the whole thing um but again that's not the $200 starter kit that's that's something to move up to now you're also going to need in addition to the pair of dikes those won't cut really hard things you should only use those for copper wire obviously alum wire aluminum but don't go use them for steel tie will ruin them on plant wire which is often a hardened spring steel zip twist ties to his ties also so for those for cutting that kind of stuff what you want is a a pair of snipper is made by wait for it night xkn IPE x okay and i happen to know that lowe's now sells nie pecks cutters for a really reasonable deal like 15 bucks oh wow I used to spend half spend like 60 or 70 dollars for a good pair of night X cutters yeah and they will cut everything they have these drop Forge hardened jaws that I have never met a thing they can't make it through you can like cut cut through sheet steel and all sorts of stuff yeah it's more for Wyatt oh yeah it's more for wire sorry they're not like they're not like scissors they're notice just like dikes but they'll cut through plant wire and spring steel they'll cut spring so cool they'll cut little bolts off I mean you know you're limited only by your hand strength on those they're fantastic that saw 'some so it's I mean a lot of this depends on what you want to do so if you want to do electronic stuff obviously investing in a good soldering iron is is important absolutely um Weller oh yeah you know a well or soldering station you want adjustable you wanna be able to adjust the heat on the on the end of the tip and do multiple tips as you mentioned those other men earlier you recommend multi-tool a multi-tool is totally key a multi-tool is a reasonable investment nowadays an investment if you're talking you only have a couple hundred bucks uh you're gonna spend $60 on a Leatherman it's a close call to me because it's got like 19 tools in there but they're not very good I think now dryers are great the knives are great but the rest of its kind of just you know or just okay in a pinch yeah absolutely but it's also great to have on your belt because it'll take care of a bunch of different things um I'm gonna move on to a drill you can buy a hand drill that plugs into the wall with an adjustable Chuck with a hand adjustable you don't have to use a Chuck key you can buy one of those now for like twenty-five dollars that is absolutely a critical tool to have I I have probably four drills in the in the garage most of mine at this point are cordless yeah but the the corded one is still there I would add an extension cord to your list because you're gonna want an extension cord if you're buying quarter double I think most people buy the cordless because they think it's it's more convenient but well again I'm thinking if you're if you're really if you're really on the tightest budget that's the cheapest really versatile drill that you can get it'll have a I think a 3/8 Chuck to it so you can fit a reasonably sized bit in there you'll obviously need a drill index those can cost everything from fifteen dollars up to hundreds of dollars for really high quality ones if you're just starting out you don't need the really high quality ones you can buy the cheap ones even the ones from Harbor Freight will serve you just fine yeah for beginning making in fact if you're standing there at Harbor Freight and you're wondering about those drills go ahead and get them go ahead and get the big set that's got the number drills the letter drills and the fractional z' all at once that will serve you for years because you'll have everything down to a size 60 number drill you'll have everything up to a half inch a fractional drill and everything in between well the other nice thing about the drill is if you get a vise clamp for your bench a bench vise even a small one you can get from fifteen or twenty dollars then you can put things like a wire brush or a sander on the end of the drill and use that as kind of an impromptu way to grind stuff down and in fact actually a one of the most versatile things you can chuck in to that drill is a drum sander and you can buy drum sanding kits for drill presses and hand drills and those are really useful for sanding and moving stuff around you can even clamp the drill in and use it as I am a prompt to a drum set probably that's not recommended I don't know I take no responsibility for that I'm not an advice podcast um when it comes to saws if you had to choose just a few saws I would say get the a hacksaw um it's a was a it tends to be a long time in-between that I use a hacksaw but I used one recently and I was reminded how freaking useful they are you can get a bunch of different blades you get a metal blades a hole they're inexpensive yeah um for wood honestly a jig saw is totally key and those can also be picked up for a reasonable reasonably low price it's what twenty bucks new or like I said if you're at a garage sale you can get them for $0.50 sometimes um and now for a handsaw for cutting wood I am going to go out on a limb and say it's worth investing the like thirty dollars in a Japanese handsaw they cut on the pole rather than the push okay uh and so when you're talking about how you're talking about sort of the ones that go twang when ya when you are talking about one it's what it's gets got a long bamboo wrapped handle and it has a trapezoidal blade with usually a fine fine tooth on one side and in rough too on the other and it'll cut through everything you take good care of that I still have the first one I ever excuse me I still have the first one I ever bought and three others besides it because you can do really really really fine cuts that's a good question how long these do you expect these last um so are you buying for things to last if you're spending 200 bucks or use buying so you I think if you're a beginning maker you're getting what you can afford if something breaks you definitely need to invest in a better one that's absolutely true there might um in general as when I was a beginning maker I would invest in you know a tool every few weeks that I could afford I didn't have a circular saw for years because I didn't really have a need for it it was more like a luxury tool I did much more small stuff than that for a long time and those are expensive those are you know minimum of like seventy to a hundred dollars can a circular saw for only 20 bucks now to if you get the back but really really Wow um I'll tell you for those for those electrical tools the Harbor Freight isn't often the way to go those tools those can be so cheap cheapy cheapy that it's not even worth that's where garage sales can be great so one of the things that I do when I'm working on a project is if if I need something that I don't have I'll either look at renting it maybe if it's something high-dollar like I like saying miter saws yeah like that or if it's something that's a hand tool or something relatively interest I've kind of build that into the cost of the project and then add something to my in addition to building building something cool I also end up with with a with a new tool at the end well so when I was when I was a beginning maker one of the deals I came up with and I don't sure if we've talked about this here mention where I would I would often take a job for just the cost of materials plus a little bit and that would afford me to buy like a tool yeah and the materials which was often one of the more difficult things to expense when I was you know making 11 bucks an hour well when I built shell I built shelves a few months ago in the materials with five six hundred dollars right and I mean that's a fair amount of money for a set of kids room shelves um you know it's it's also a great when when you're a beginning maker and I'm thinking of you know I'm thinking of a guy or girl who's like 17 18 19 years old birthdays and Christmases are great time to ask ya ask those near and dear to you for I'd like this saw I promise I won't cut my fingers off it's over yeah the ferrets asam $70 for a videogame or $70 for a saw there are some there are some non-standard tools which I tend to really like and all mm-hmm just effectively a long spike you can use it to poke holes and things like sheet metal and leather and all is a fantastic tool it is a really useful useful tool um a pair of micro digital micrometer 's now that's like a digital caliper yeah you can now buy again when I was for starting out the minimum price on those was like $40 but now you can go onto Amazon and buy digital caliper for probably ten dollars I bought a really nice one for 25 bucks yeah and it's not expensive I'll tell you in general the cheap ones are every bit as useful to you as the expensive ones make sure it's made of metal don't buy the plastic ones they are really really in my experience interesting the cheap and expensive on calipers is that the cheap ones lose their zero and you have to keep Riis ear oh yeah which is fine if you're just going to make one or two measurements a day yeah have you just use it occasionally um we should we talked about norm you asked about the expensive tools versus the cheap tools and this is an important thing I believe in buying cheap tools when you start out whether they're used or going out because it you don't know what you what you don't know what you don't know yet I know that there's a ton of stuff in here that you probably went out about the cheap one it's been good enough cuz use it every three years and it's just sitting here but when you have when you when you start using stuff you find out okay this is something that I'm gonna use a ton I use my tables off ten times a day I'm really glad that I spent a lot of money on this it's a good thing it's a good tool I'll also drop this bit of knowledge on you there are some tools and probably come up with more as we're talking here but like a pop Riveter mm-hmm now there are lots of different pop riveters you can buy don't buy the cheap one okay will tell you it is so not worth saving the fifteen bucks to buy a $10 pop Riveter go spend the twenty five dollars and you will be so much happier they clear the pins that they pull on the rivets much faster they cycle faster there easier to adjust for different sizes of rivets by putting in different nozzle tips I have had sheep pop riveters they are not they're garbage absolute garbage go go ahead and spend and again even on an automatic pop Riveter I know that Harbor Freight sells one for like thirty dollars that's air-powered don't buy it you know spend a hundred dollars on the really good one you will be so much happier pop rivets is one of those things that I've been using since the very beginning of making rivets are a really inexpensive way of attaching things like sheet metal and leather and rubber to each other they're incredibly versatile learn to use backing plates it's not something that's often covered in books about making stuff with a rivet it's basically a an aluminum mushroom or a steel mushroom that you put through a hole and when you pull on the tool it pulls effectively what is a headed brad through that mushroom and makes it expand to pressure fit in the hole it's in if you use a backing plate you actually are grabbing it from both sides and vacuum plate is effectively just a little washer you put on the other side of the rivet so you've got a head of the rivet on one side the body of the rivet through the two pieces of material adjoining and a backing plate pressure fit on the other side so just just it distributes the stress it destroyed Conrad's plate rather than the material absolutely when I was 15 I made a full suit of armor out of aluminum using only pop rivets not Dom and promptly wore to school and passed out in math classes there you go true story turns out aluminum doesn't breathe so well no let's see we talked about wood work stuff Dremel hmm I like the dremel a dremel is really more it's often sold as a you can do everything with this tool and the answer is yes sort it's kind of like the Leatherman don't trust anyone that says you can do everything with a tool the Leatherman sorry the Dremel is really great for fine sanding and shaping and cutting hard edge model-making and cutting those blades will go through your fingers really quickly you've got to be very very very careful I'm not someone who would say that a dremel is one of the first tools you want because honestly I can do term and this amounts of shaping and sanding with an exacto knife and a toilet sorry uh nail files honestly nail files of the foam nail files that you can buy at the beauty store of different grits from like 80 all the way up to 400 you buy a bunch of those 80 grit ones and I use those more than almost any other sanding tool in my thing as they kind of Bend and flex you can get up-and-down round edges and all sorts of stuff like that um let's see we talked about um how exactly things everyone yeah exactly i salute lee one of the first tools you should have tape measure tape measure and in terms exact knives the ones the replaceable blades exactly yeah an exacto knife is a tooled handle with these replaceable blades they're crazy incredibly ridiculously sharp I'd also say have single edge razor blades like a box cutter blade kind of no no no no single edge razor blade is a razor with a back on it so that it's got a it's got a spine on its top to it yeah so you can put into a old old safety razor yeah yeah but the safety razor has a blade on both sides right this is a has a spine on a single edge razor blade is actually one of the first tools I ever used because my dad had tons of them in his studio and like Jamie rarely stalks them and it always used to unnerve me because I just think by using them they're very useful for you could shape foam with them you can cut cardboard with them and there they cost about a penny apiece so they're incredibly you know whatever three and they're made of old submarines maybe yeah really that's where a lot of the steel came from oh wow I totally the old old navy ships make some exacto knives and blades and single edge razor blades the box cutter there's like your standard carpet cutter is also good but I find those blades to be a little too fat for me I don't tend to use those a lot well the ones that use the trapezoidal blades it's so hard to get into where you're working with is what I usually find yeah they're great for things like leather and big things where you're working on an oh if you're a beginning maker get yourself a cutting surface oh that's a greater self a cutting board you can buy them in 8 by 10 you can buy them in 30 by 40 yeah and you don't have to you this is one of those things you can go to the kitchen supply place and get you can get you can get like kitchen cutting boards for restaurants for like ten dollars yeah that are enormous and that's going to be your beginning maker you don't have a shop you have a kitchen yeah and you probably have a roommate who doesn't want you to mess up roomate by house go buy a cutting surface and you'll be so much happier you can drill on to it you can hammer on to it you won't be hurting your kitchen table you know one of the things that I did when I was a kid that my mom did actually for me was made a took a TV tray like with handles and the little legs yeah and put a put an old chopping board on it was a wood wood at the time but that became the thing the place where projects live because when I was when I was done and needed to go away you just pick up the whole tray go put in the garage it was out of the way but it had legs so I could sit on the floor we're kind of nifty on the kitchen table whatever um I hate measure level a square a square is fantastic a level you're not going to need that as a beginning make it's a carpenter thing yeah it's a carpenter thing if you're doing the home repair stuff but it's really not an early necessary tool I will tell you you're going to want a box to store the stuff in mmm and with a single greatest piece of advice I can give a young maker is to put your tools back in the box when you're done with them yeah there is nothing worse than working at a project one part of your house and then another part of your house and I'm wondering where the hell the screwdriver is it's the only thing you need three weeks later when you've totally forgotten where you put everything it's like the thing where you take the DVD out you put the DVD in the box for the thing you're watching now yeah and then you have to backtrack through six months worth of it's just totally x-rated put your tools back this Christmas my wife asked for a tool kit for her okay so I put together a lovely tool kit for her what's hilarious is it's become the most useful thing in our house because my tools don't stay in the house I move them between the shop and work and all the stuff they're constantly in flux and motion I have three or four sets of most things but you know when I need something in the house this tool kit of my wife's everything goes back in it when it's done and it's always fully stocked it has everything that we need wrenches stuff like that box of a box wrench a crescent wrench is going to be again for your starting out your two hundred dollar budget a crescent wrench is going to supply you with most of what you need investing in box end wrenches later that's an investment you're going to want to you know even a small set of reasonable English and metric is going to run you 30 or 40 dollars that's that's a that's a real investment but two sizes of crescent wrench is going to supply you most of what you need a small one like a little six-inch and a large one like a nine-inch yeah those are going to handle all the bolt needs that you have socket sets are pretty inexpensive I can't stand the way they're all packaged I think I mean if you open it upside down then you have an incredible mess yeah they're all made in these big blow molded things they drive me crazy I've never loved socket sets I have always I'm still struggling I have designed the perfect transportable socket set carrier I haven't revealed it to the world yet because actually I want this I start on it yeah I want to release it as a product because I think I've got something that no one else has figured out that is a problem we should all pay for okay so we're at the point in the show where we've decide are we going to carry on or are we going to stop and call it a day here I think we should carry on okay I'm gonna what I'd like to do is pause here I'm just gonna go take a turn through yeah that's a good idea I'm not missing anything and come back okay and we're back so we've taken a turn around the shop we're gonna go down a list of some things that that again I think beginning makers who aren't sure what they want to make or where they want to focus just has ideas and energy exactly um tweezers yeah tweezers are great tweezers are really great I will tell you there are like three different kinds of tweezers there's your standard like hardware store tweezers which are kind of like big and they're chunky they're kind of chunky but maybe a little grip on the end so you can actually pick up like a big screw with it right then there are superfine like needle sharp tweezers which they sell at the beauty store tweezerman is the name of the brand that I use their jewelry tweezers there and tweezer man makes a pair that are honestly might they like almost like sewing needles out at the end they're so sharp but for superfine model-making they're fantastic so we used when I was a kid my grandfather is a watch repair right and he he we had tons of those yes as soon as you drop them they're done get the totally done time to take you have to put their eyes out some or not they're making fewer now of because fewer people use them I don't know I know that you can still get like there's a million different kinds of tweezers at the BD store the last kind is really good for removing splinters and it's got a kind of a chisel end yeah and then get eyebrows we go trip with them I brought tweezers Allen wrenches yeah set of Allen wrenches like so so there's two options with Allen wrenches you can get them all in like the little bag where they're just floating around loose or you can get the thing with the that looks like a fold-out it's likely it looks like a pocketknife with Allen wrenches so I would say you get them loose that pocket knife one tends to inhibit your ability to use again after years of making I will say beware of the thing that is like all-in-one yeah those all-in-ones tend to work for things that are out in the middle of nowhere but where you're doing close-quarter assembly and you've got to get a wrench in tightly don't use the all-in-one pocketknife allen wrench it's a good thing to have in the car in an emergency but it's not a regular everyday use tools as far as my all-time favorite Allen wrenches were these Japanese tea Allen wrenches that we got with an embroidery machine when I was a kid I use these bond who's serious welded steel tea handled Allen wrenches and I love them I love them they're expensive but again Allen wrenches you could buy a full set of Allen wrenches in a holder that are separate ten bucks if that yeah yeah if that scissors now I would recommend two different scissors if you're a beginning maker you need to have a pair for cloth that you write on them cloth or die only if you have a pair of scissors that you plan to use for cloth you need to make them only for cloth and cloth only because the moment you cut like a piece of paper with them they get dull in fact really paper is one of the worst things you can cut with a blade the the specific polymer chains that make up or the chains of molecules that make up paper are custom-made for dulling steel Wow so if you have scissors for cloth they're only for cloth and then you have another pair for paper and everything else and there some of them always yell at me when I use your scissors no you never I have several bears yes never touch any I once found a PA using my cloth scissors to cut plant wire Oh oh my god yeah so yeah the cutting steel like I the the one thing that we had the rule in electronics shop when I first my first job out of college was for the love of God don't use the wire snips on any kind of steel wire nothing but cop oh yeah yeah yeah okay so now moving into slightly into the electronics there is a thing called a clip lead which is effectively a length of wire with an alligator clip at each end if you're going to do any kind of electrical work at all by a set of clip leads it's like three bucks and fries for a set of you know ten of these they're a multi-colored they'll allow you to hook a 9-volt up to a light bulb it's just a way of testing a circuit before you put it together and clip leads or have been a staple of my toolkit for 25 years and it's it's to save you from having to solder yeah when you said something to solder or twist wires it's a lot to do you just connect this up to that you want to find out if a 9-volt will power the circuit you connect up the clip leads and it's just rather than sitting there holding touching two wires to each other takes two hands yeah and what else do you can't do anything else while you do have toes yeah um if you're gonna do and if you like real electronic stuff then like breadboards and all that so yeah that's a real specific thing don't buy that unless you're planning on doing totally by the time you're getting breadboards you already have purchased a multimeter yeah an electrical multimeter electrical multimeters they come in all shapes and sizes if you're going to buy one make sure you buy one it's an electronic device that allows you to read the voltage coming out of a battery or a circuit resistance resembling continuity is the biggest one some cheap multimeters do not come with a continuity alarm and continuity alarm means I want to make sure that this is connected all the way to that so when I touch both ends it goes beep and it tells me I have continuity across the circuit that is one of the single most useful parts of every multimeter and if yours does if the one you're looking at doesn't have it don't get it grip clips those um those the spring clips that are just like you grab the bottom and they open up they hold stuff they've got a rubberized ends those are crazy useful and like clamping it's going to be a key thing that most people don't think about I'm gonna begin making it yeah those are expensive right I spend 150 bucks on clamps green slips are great also C clamps cheapy little C clamps ones that are like 2 inches with the screw in the same way yeah just go get four of those I I have like 20 and I use them all the time there are there are more expensive ways to clamp stuff but go I hadn't get the cheapest way right now because clapping two pieces together so you cut them the same that's a really useful technique clamping something to a table so you can have a you know a safe surface yeah yeah well and the thing about clamps is you can always use more clamps so always use you never have too many cheap clamps even if you get better clamps that are easier faster or whatever online the cheap ones will still end up using and sometimes the cheap ones are actually better and the quick ones are not as secure as the SI ones I it's true no they're totally not a secure but I do know that Harbor Freight has tons of little ear where you pull the trigger and it clamps those are like a couple bucks apiece at Harbor Freight and those are just fine for model-making okay yeah um let's talk about tape tape should be in your toilet is a good thing to have um you're gonna need if you're if you're only choosing a couple kinds you're going to need masking tape okay you're gonna need duct tape mm you're gonna need double stick tape I can't stress enough how useful double stick tape can be and there are two kinds there's carpet tape which is effectively a double sided duct tape okay cloth tape with with stick them on both sides it can be incredibly tenacious but because it's really thin it doesn't fill any gaps so you have to have things that make perfectly to use carpet tape okay for things with gaps you go get foam double stick tape that stuff's awesome the white now I would I go with the white stuff that's super soft rather than the 3m stuff which is a little harder the 3m you do tell ray is nathie em it's got the green plaid okay is this that 3m Scott on the take a scotch thing get the foam double stick that is really pliable and that stuff holds things forever well if you if you don't need to stick both sides together you just need to fill some space you can get that that stuff in the in the it's like we use for some weather stripping right right and it's the same stuff it's just only one side sticky OH which is good yeah I use that a lot um what else what about a electrical tape Electric yes sorry electrical tape absolutely key that should be part of every but I'm looking at your tape wall right now and it's like 45 different kinds of tables yeah I mean I've got a fairly specialized ones I'll tell you for making as well if you want to make a metal surface plumbers aluminum tape which is used for wrapping pipes and stuff like that okay um is phenom dominoe for like when you're making early props and you want to make something look metal it's basically a sticky aluminum foil and you can cover it and you can cover it in multiple pieces and you burnish it down weather it down with a little black and no one will know that the thing that you covered is not metal it will look and feel like metal it'll be cold to the touch it'll be awesome it's a conductive it is conductive and I've actually used it for circuits it's hard to solder to you've got to kind of put a screw into it yeah but it is totally conductive and fantastic you can also buy it in copper I actually got a big roll of copper it's that's expensive cool I also want to talk glues if you're going to use if you're gonna get only a few kinds of glue my recommendation would be Elmer's glue like white school glue white school glue contact cement so like like a like epoxy stuff where you put on both sides and then jam them together oh yeah but that's not epoxy okay contact cement is a rubber base glue like a rubber cement okay the best contact cement there is is called barge glue they build shoes with it okay with contact cement your general methodology is you want to join let's say leather to metal which means they're coefficient of expansion is totally different in hot and cold and they won't want to grab on to each other oh I'm actually about to give a little advice and gluing here first you want to make sure your leather has some tooth to it that means you want to sand the leather where it's going to be glued so more surface area more surface area and more places for the glue to grab then you paint the metal surface with some contact cement and you paint let's say the leather surface with some context cement and you let them dry now you don't let them dry too long if they drive overnight you won't be able to stick them together within like 20 minutes they'll dry to be tacky and then you put them together and they'll be bonded it'll be really really nice glued forever absolutely glued forever very good um and then uh saya Krazy Glue cyanoacrylate great and every hardware store carries every hobby store carries it is super and then you have a secret on that too I do have two secrets on that in a hobby store you'll also be able to buy what's called an accelerator mm-hmm which makes cyanoacrylate Set instantly you spray it on it just it makes it set in like 5 sec it's totally amazing but if you want to go the really cheap route baking soda you put down Krazy Glue and you sprinkle some baking soda on it and it instantly will set really yeah not only that it'll set and it'll be dimensional so I've actually used that to build up gussets inside of like a styrene construction to have some more bonding strength that's fantastic yeah um okay uh that wd-40 wd-40 your basic machine oil like a three-in-one plus a can of spray wd-40 those will get you out of a lot of jams um wd-40 isn't isn't really good for maintaining let's say your bicycle chain because it's mostly meant to get water out it actually stands from water displacement really WD dunno that uh it's their 40th attempt at making the right yeah yeah absolutely Wow um and three in one oil is absolutely the thing to maintain your bicycle chain or to make sure that the you know the machine or bearing that you're working on stays over squeaky doors yeah anything that's metal rubbing on metal that is making an oily I can't stress enough having a good toolbox having a good box that you like if you want something non-standard you could look on Craigslist for things like a radio tube sales box which are actually these kind of great big sample case suitcase size not suitcase sizes a sample case size thing with the compartments in it um those are awesome they look beautiful they're vintage they're usually not that expensive old toolboxes show up on Craigslist constantly and again garage sales estate sales all that kind of stuff absolutely needle and thread needle and thread are really entering a basic sewing that is totally totally key and like about three dollars it can or it can be the thing that you lift from the hotel when you go shoe polisher I save those hot assembly a hotel they've got a sewing kit I save it I've got like 40 of his own kits and shampoo exactly I'm sure there will be other suggestions that will be good yeah we'll we'll revisit at some point back and we have to turn this into like a written story so people can yeah I'll do we'll all go through and pull all the links as we go so there will be a thing untested which is the site that's attached to the pilot is watching said you YouTube iTunes right um we'll have a whole list of all the stuff that we talked about here yes maybe with pictures and this may take too much you get to making um and also yeah success stories like if I'd love to see comments on things like the the tools that aren't worth the cheap versions like the pop Riveter I'm sure that's great we'll have versions of tools that they're like don't waste your time with the cheap XYZ or why is that you can get away with the cheap XYZ well I will also tell you that like if you're buying screw assortment kids don't buy the cheapest ones they're made of some kind of pot metal that strips out so fast screws and nuts and bolts are not something to totally skimp on I've found alan alan cap head screws that were really cheap that literally stripped the first time you use yeah there's really nothing that'll ruin your day more than having to get out find the tiny drill bit and drill out a 3 a 3 millimeter screw it's so good so i guess that'll do it for us yeah if you have if you have let's see there's a lot we're asking for a lot of feedback today if you have stuff that we missed yep things that you shouldn't buy cheap or that they're okay to buy cheap yeah picturing your tool kids made great versions of that are still inexpensive exactly um it maybe post pictures of your tool casts we'd love to see that stuff could I love pictures of tool kits it's like nerd it's like it's a nerd or nog Rafi yeah yeah so I guess I will do it for us this week thank you guys for watching and listening as always over your comments on you die to all the places iTunes comments reviews youtube comments likes remember you want to do um thank you guys we'll see you next week alright for a complete list of tools mentioned in this episode visit tested comm slash toolkit

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 464,298

Keywords: building a workbench, tools for woodwork, drill bits, beginner's tools, power tools for beginners, Savage, The Adam Savage Project, Adam, Still Untitled, saws, tool kit, buying cheap tools, Best Of, collecting tools, tools for beginners, starting out with a workshop, Project, building a workshop, power tools, tools for children, Tool (Quotation Subject), garage sale tools, The

Id: Nprbd76FFFI

Length: 41min 44sec (2504 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/Mykol225]

TL;DW:

Full List:

• Big Phillips Screwdriver
• Small Phillips Screwdriver
• Big Slotted Screwdriver
• Small Slotted Screwdriver
• Pliers
• Needle-Nose Pliers
• Wiha Jewelers Screwdrivers
• Claw Hammer
• Rubber Mallet
• Adjustable wire strippers
• Wire Cutters
• Soldering Iron
• Corded Hand Drill With Hand-Adjustable Chuck
• 25-Foot Extension Cord
• Set of Drill Bits (aka a Drill Index)
• Hacksaw
• Jigsaw
• Japanese Handsaw aka Ryoba
• Tape Measure
• Awl
• Digital Calipers/Micrometer
• Pop riveter
• Xacto Knife
• Single Edge Razor Blade
• Nail Files
• Adustable Crescent Wrenches
• Socket Set
• Jeweler's Tweezers
• Plier Tip Tweezers
• Eyebrow Tweezers
• Allen Wrenches
• Scissors for Everything Else
• Clip Lead
• Multimeter (w/ Continuity Tester)
• Spring Clamps (aka Grip Clips)
• C Clamps
• Electrical Tape
• Duct Tape
• Masking Tape
• Doublestick Carpet Tape
• Foam Doublestick Tape
• Elmer's White Glue
• Contact Cement
• Cyanoacrylate
• WD-40
• 3-in-1 Oil
• Basic Sewing Kit
• Safety Glasses

Optional Tools and Upgrades

• Knipex Snips
• Greenlee Automatic Wire Strippers
• Multitool - Leatherman
• Bench Vise
• Drum Sanding Kit
• Circular saw
• Scissors For Cloth (or die)
• Cyanoacrylate Accelerator (or baking soda)
• Respirator (appropriate for the job)

[u/hollerforapoopdollar]

Open video

Alright, 41 minutes, nope.

Close video.

[u/Shockwave8A]

Hammer, mallet, tweezers, crescent wrenches (6" and 9"), 4-ish screwdrivers plus a jeweler's sized screwdriver, allen wrenches (separate, not the fold up ones), tape measure, clamps, maybe alligator clips, a multimeter (be sure it beeps for continunity testing), masking tape, 2-way tape, maybe aluminum tape, and I'm probably forgetting a bunch of others.

[u/carebdayrvis]

This podcast is great. Anyone who thinks Adam Savage and making in general is interesting should check this out.

[u/whichcraft]

I'm curious about the spacesuit book they're talking about in the beginning- anybody find which one it is?

[u/[deleted]]

TLDW?