Tool Belt Setup for Framing

so these are my bags we've already talked about my occidental bags what I want to talk about today is what I put in these things if I'm gonna be framing that's different than how I set my bags up if I'm finishing or how I set my bags up if I'm forming but if I'm going to be doing some framing and I'm starting with the platform of my old Occidental bags which by the way are fixed okay remember I mean it was flopping in the breeze and you gave me a hard time I got about ten rivets shot in there there are a wide variety of ways that carpenters that builders construction workers carry their tools and fasteners to the worksite and then those systems morph and adapt over time in years past they were just canvas aprons that they hang around your neck and tied behind your back and a couple bags in front and there were and there still are coveralls with bags integral to the cover also that you pull your coveralls on and now you got pockets for your tools and each of these and then you know drywallers have sort of light roughout leather bags that hang on their hips because they carry screws on one side and nails on the other and a couple tools and then you know something like this and you think well that's clearly not a framers rig is it how do you know it's not a framers rig it's because it's in the front can you see that if you're wearing that in the front it's all about standing or maybe climbing a short ladder or maybe working at a bench but it's not about climbing up in the rafters or pulling yourself up through the joists or doing something that's athletic it's about maybe putting wire nuts on or for an electrician could use that maybe but not a framer and here's why framing is arguably the most athletic type of carpentry because you're building the frame the skeleton of a house that's essentially a jungle gym isn't it and you've got to be able to get from the bottom to the top and from the top to the bottom and slide between studs and stand on top plates and pull material up and so you want bags that are gonna tend to hang at your side you're going to want them to be in a place that you have full range of motion with your legs so you can climb so that you can work and move now drywallers like I said are similar but a framers rig has to be a rig that'll let you move the full range of motion carry boards and drag them across the front and and and and so with that in mind and understanding that every system is adapted to every individual let's talk about the things that you need to have in your bags if you're gonna be a framer now before I get to the specifics of that I want to point this beautiful set this beautiful bag out this came from Patrick lemon Patrick I am gonna try this I am gonna test fly out I haven't framed anything significant now for a long time but once the spec house starts I'll put this on and wear it for a couple of days and like we talked I'll tell you what I think in general I think it's beautiful and I think it's stout we'll see if the layout suits me so if you're just beginning as a carpenter and you're gonna go out and buy a set of bags so that you can run with the big dogs and so you can begin to learn the habits that will make you productive and employable something you don't realize is that the first set of bags that you buy is going to set you on a course of how you rigged your bags probably for the rest of your life because bags are laid out in a way that sort of dictate where the tools go and depending on where the tools go your patterns of how you use your tool than how your ax how you access your tools will develop the layout of the bag itself is going to dictate a lot of the routine of the Builder now when I frame and in my remodels and that sort of thing I don't use suspenders on my bags I use fenders on my pants but when I was in Las Vegas I used suspenders on my bags because I was doing a lot of commercial form work this was the rig I had then and you can see that that's where the suspenders clamped on and they finally you know they tear up the belt and so you ask well why did you use suspenders and now you don't and it's because suspenders are great when you're on the ground but when you're getting up in the air and moving around and ducking through trusses I the suspenders on bags don't have a lot of stretch they're a hard fast suspenders sometimes leather and I found it restricting my mobility and so I just wear my bags on my hips now and count on these to hold the pants up so there's one choice you're gonna make do I rigged up with suspenders or do I rigged up just on my hip part of the dynamic of using a belt and no suspenders is that if you use a belt and no suspenders and wear a belt on your jeans those two belts are in conflict with each other they will pinch you and so that's one of the reasons that young men frame because young men aren't fat and you don't really need that additional layer of support holding up your pants in any case you're gonna figure that out for yourself I'm a proponent of suspenders on my pants I have used suspenders on my bags I don't anymore because of the agility piece I got away from using the hammer loop that's on the bags for the hammer the reason for that is when you use the hammer loop on the bags and you're right-handed it's very convenient to your right hand but when you're walking or running that's slapping you in the knee and the end of a 14-inch handle just about intersects with my patella it puts bruises on ends on the front and the side of my knee particularly if I'm in a hurry so instead of that I put a hammer loop in the back now I've had people warn me that with that hanging directly over my backbone over in my you know right there on my hips that if I fall on that it's gonna hurt me could be right hasn't happened I try to remember to keep it worked around off to the side to minimize that but I like a hammer loop this is 26 years old it's gonna last considerably longer than I am my friend Warren - I have seen him take his hammer throw it up in the air it would flip three times and he would stuff the handle he would catch his falling hammer in the hammer loop on the back of his belt pretty tricky I never tried it you know the other more really obvious maybe it's not obvious reason that the leather hammer loop is not as desirable is because these were out it's a big point of friction and we're right there and it works great for four or five years but after about five years that's gonna tear out and you got to repair the one on the back is not gonna tear out and you know Patrick figured that out he's got in that a lower hung permanently fixed hammer Luke will try that so with the bags on your hips so you have full range of motion you're ready to put your tools in there let's start with the tape whatever tape you want you can figure out what I like with you look at my video about Stan Lee tapes but 30 foot Stan Lee tape lamp right there you need to carry two pencils because you're gonna break the lid on one and nobody wants to stand around waiting for you to sharpen your pencil while they're holding you into the board or the end of the tape or whatever two pencils I recommend one of them has a piece of keel lumber crayon whatever they call it where you're at attached you can attach that with the right size piece of rubber hose pencil size in one end keel slides in the other bam bam two pencils and a crayon you can put a colored mark or a graphite mark very easily when your pencil pencil gets dull you're gonna have to sharpen it you're gonna have to cut Tyvek you're gonna have to cut visqueen you're gonna have to cut string line if you don't know how to do it with your bare hands and so get some kind of utility knife I don't really care what you get because you're gonna lose it anyway if you're hurrying because it's gonna fly out of your bag sometime when you're climbing around in the trusses so that goes in right there where I can get it with my right hand personal preference is really evident here these are pretty much your three choices this is a tri square or a combination square lots of guys use them but production framers do not often have these these are more for the guys that do finish work and framing and remodeling more of an all around kind of a thing you can scribe with those there's a little vial so you can get a level reading they're great I love them these are the tools that a production framer may have and of the two in the overlap of skrang goal and a speed square and of the two you're going to overwhelmingly see more of these angles square gauges measurements and a built-in pocket BAM on the side where you need it now this old tool this squiggle I go to the truck and get this out if I'm gonna be cutting rafters this is the only tool that I still own that I bought with the initial set of gear that I bought when I was 19 and started as a carpenter I bought a Vaughn hammer and a combination square and a tape measure and a set of bags and this and I still own this if I'm gonna be carrying this it goes right back here and you can see I don't carry it that often but there's a yeah you can see I don't curate that often but there's a slot right there where it'll go don't fall on that okay but it won't fall out so that's that's superfluous unless you're cutting rafters my chalk line goes right over here I almost never have any fasteners in that pocket I've kind of dedicated that to chalk lines I could probably make a chalk line go in there but I just never got in the habit I hang my Spencer tape on there sometimes when I'm working down on the ground chalk line goes out there it's the same deal the tapes over here the chalk lines over there it's a right-left right-left thing now where I am used to working you don't see too many framers with steel handled hammers you'll see some a steel handle is kind of hard on your elbow it transmits vibration right up it's dampened by that rubber grip but it's a little hard on your arm but you're never going to break the handle I used one of these for years this is a Stan Lee I used a plumb a lot of people are horrified to think that anyone would try to do anything worthwhile with an axe but they are a great tool this is what I use now this is back to where the hammer loop in the back is about right and you just get the hang of the hammer just kind of comes out and it just kind of goes back hammer choice is very is a very personalized thing the weight and the handle length and the problem for young guys is that this is the age of pneumatic hammers and I don't know how you're gonna learn to hammer now but try to do it because it's important and put your hammer somewhere where you can get at it lots of guys carry their hammer in their bag okay there is nothing wrong with that and in many ways it's just handier then reaching for that loop all the time it's there you can get it out it wouldn't go on the left-hand side unless you're leftie but particularly a rigging axe dropped really nice into a bag it's a problem going between studs I mean you've got to crawl between studs or let yourself pull yourself up between joists now that's a hang-up but don't be afraid just to drop your bet your hammer in your bags and keep moving cat's paw where you gonna carry your cat's paw same thing drop it in the back now I've seen guys that carry them like this that's okay just don't make the mistake of fallin on that hip okay I mean that creates a real hard spot and the fact is you should go a week and never use this anyway if you find yourself wearing out a cat's paw you need to grab a different gear and think a lot harder about where you're putting those nails but I just dropped the cat's paw in with the utility knife and with a chisel now this is not the right chisel that's a one-inch chisel I've lost my inch and a half chisel inch and a half so good width to have for rough work I mean if you got to dig some wood out you might as well get with it and these bags have a little slot and goes right in there protects the edge so we're getting down to where this is most of what you need to be a production framer it's kind of nice to have a nail set that's smaller than you would need it's a framer I mean you might need that to clear a jam on a nail gun or something but get something that's you're gonna be able to hit you're gonna be able to reach in and drive something far enough down that you can really you know maybe punch a hole through a Simpson hanger or something seeing something pretty stout you've got special little slots in there now there's no limit to the number of things that you could carry if you want to but why carry them if you're not gonna use them you can't make any money just with the dead weight you know the the tare weight on your load is not payload anything you don't carrying tools you can carry in nails the fastener that I'm using most whether it's whether it's gun nails whether I'm carrying racks of 16s or racks of eights go right there the second most widely utilized nail goes in that outside pocket right there in this case it would probably be the 16 penny sinkers now it used to be that this bag would be full of 16 penny sinkers and I had a dedicated pocket in the back for racks of gun nails but where I'm at now that usually doesn't happen over on this side in the bottom of this pocket I have a few eight-penny nails you know maybe maybe a half a pound or something so what we get back circling back to pounds there are some things that I don't carry when I'm framing when I carry a cat spy carry it here usually I don't carry a cat's paw I've learned to not put nails where I don't want them ok as you can see there's not a lot of miles on that I don't carry a plumb bob if I need a plumb bob I'll go get it but usually there's a level leaning up on the job somewhere so I don't carry a plumb bob I don't carry the saw wrench with me I don't change the saw wrench every 15 minutes so that'll be wherever the saw blades are usually I take care of that early in the morning if you're not gonna use it before lunch don't carry it with you all morning there's a fairly a torpedo level I don't carry a torpedo level when I'm framing it's just redundant nonsense I don't carry a fifty or hundred foot tape with me when I'm framing now sometimes I wish I had it but most the time I don't need it I carry a 30-foot Stanley that's enough when I'm framing and then once your bags are loaded and you've got them on and they feel good go to work thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Essential Craftsman

Views: 1,205,579

Keywords: framing, framer, frame, build, building, construction, contractor, occidental, bags, tool, tools, pouch, belt, leather, apron, set, up, how to, diy, pro, tips, pro-tips, essential, craftsman

Id: wDZa2ZNmy78

Length: 14min 51sec (891 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 23 2018