Tools you hate using or just don’t get on with?

[renardiere7Participant @renardiere7]

Hacksaw it is then!

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

The important part of welding is to ensure that the weld penetrates both pieces and causes both to melt and fuse together as one piece.

My angle grinder then sees a lot of work bringing the excess weld back to flush with the surface of the parent metal. Outdoors, with full watering cans on standby, at the moment, to keep abrasive particles ouit of the shop and away from machined surfaces.

Which just shows that I am a poor welder (I plead lack of practice)

Howard

[Paul Mills 4Participant @paulmills4]

Taps, not the ones you cut threads with, but the modern ones water comes out of, in my bathroom and kitchen. For over 60 years they all turned one way to open and the opposite to close….. The new ones fitted rotate one way to open the hot water and the opposite to open cold, when I complained to the supplier I was told the are all like that, and that it was INTUITIVE. Actually just decided that its not just taps its anything made in this millenium

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Easily solved, just change the hot cartridge for a cold one.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Howard –

Oh, I know what welding is meant to do, and that skilled welders can work miracles (how the heck does a weld-pool stay there when upside down above the welder’s head?), but I am by no means skilled at welding! So I avoid it as much as possible: I know where I am with nuts and bolts. They are cheaper than electrickery, too.

 

Paul –

“All like that”… In that particular shop maybe. I’m sure you can still buy proper taps. Though many domestic fittings do now seem as if “designed” by graphic-artists who never do the washing-up, let alone use their creations in their own homes.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Howard, well wet paint stays on the ceiling by surface tension, as long as you don’t try to put too much on at once, welding above your head has a similar effect, providing you don’t try to put too much metal on at once, and of course as your weld is moving along the joint, it allows the weld to solidify quickly behind the weld pool, so it’s a matter of applying the right amount of metal at the right speed with the right  amount of heat. All part of the leaning curve and skill, I’ve done it in some fairly tight places, and even had to use a mirror in some situations.

Regards Nick.

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

Easily solved, just change the hot cartridge for a cold one.

Ahhh, Intuition convinced me that the thread would be left hand on the one that went the wrong way. Never actually realised they were interchangeable, trip to builders/ plumbers merchant on cards

[JuddyParticipant @juddy]

Gear/bearing pullers, the type with the three floppy legs and threaded centre shaft, they never work well for me, hard to keep on the pulley/bearing to start, have poor threads that strip, always tip over to one side never pulling straight and land in a heap if you manage to extract the pulley/bearing.  I hate them with a passion.

[HollowpointParticipant @hollowpoint]

Oooh yes! That type of puller is a real PITA.

[Nigel BennettParticipant @nigelbennett69913]

Going back to sink taps – why is it that the tap manufacturers are so deeply ashamed of letting anybody know which is hot and which is cold? On our kitchen taps there are utterly pathetic shallow-engraved “H” & “C” on the tiny little caps that hide the screws securing the knobs. It is not possible to see which is which unless you have really excellent eyesight, there’s really good illumination, and you stick your face about six inches away from the tap. I had to drill some dimples in the tap arms and fill them with red and blue paint. I’ve seen other taps equally badly marked. How folk with limited vision manage I have no idea.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Usual convention is Hot on the left and Cold on the right, but admittedly this is not always followed, particularly on new builds these days.

Rob

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

You can get more readable Hot and Cold indices if you feel you really need them.

More annoying issues with taps are getting a good seal between the base of a mono bloc mixer and a sink top when there is so little overlap of tap around the hole, the sink is bendy, and you have to tighten everything from below with that horseshoe washer etc., whilst ensuring that up above the tap base stays central over the hole and can’t shift out of position once people start flapping the mixer spout back and to.

Mono bloc mixers are related to toilet seats, but worse.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Juddy –

I couldn’t agree more about those pullers, having tried using mine not long ago. Clearly their designer has never used them. At least yours seems to have “Nyloc” nuts. Mine has plain nuts that work loose at the slightest touch. Must replace them!

 

Nicholas –

‘Twere me, not Howard, who wondered how welding upside-down can possible work. Paint is sticky by nature and the film is so thin that its weight at any point is negligible. Molten steel is heavy, runny and not sticky.

I struggle to make welding work when the work is horizontal and I am welding downwards onto a flat surface. I do appreciate it is very much a matter of practice though.

Worse, I’ve always had wobbly hands so using an ordinary arc-welder means I waste most of the rod. My GP says it’s an “Essential Tremor” when he prescribed pills for it. It’s not “essential” to me. I don’t want it….

 

Bill –

This is a case where fitting flexible tap-tails to the unit first may help.

+++++

I’ve to turn down and thread some stainless-steel rod ends. I know I have a stripping-tool (ex-capstan lathe) somewhere. All I’ve to do is find it…

[Juddy]

On Juddy Said:

Gear/bearing pullers, the type with the three floppy legs and threaded centre shaft, they never work well for me, hard to keep on the pulley/bearing to start, have poor threads that strip, always tip over to one side never pulling straight and land in a heap if you manage to extract the pulley/bearing.  I hate them with a passion.

Hi, those type are really only good for lightweight work, the better sort are the hydraulic type like Toolstation hydraulic kit which is like a kit I have, yes I know they are pricy, but they are far better than just a screw type, and I’ve not had problems using these types.

Regards Nick.

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

Nick, the none-hydraulic type are fine if you get one that is a). decent quality and b). with its legs interlinked so that they open and close in unison and there’s no flapping around of individual legs to contend with. Sykes Pickavant do a range of such pullers.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Bill, yes a decent puller like the one you’ve shown may be OK, but that has three fixed legs, the type I’ve shown can be used with two or three legs, and I believe it’s a good price for DIY jobs. I’ve used many screw types in my day jobs, but the screw threads aways become sloppy in time, and you don’t get a true straight pull with them, plus many people will hang a long spanner on them or put a bit of tube or something for extra leverage, and put far to much load on the poor old thread.

Regards Nick.

[Nicholas Farr]

On Nicholas Farr Said:

Hi Bill, yes a decent puller like the one you’ve shown may be OK, but that has three fixed legs, the type I’ve shown can be used with two or three legs,

You can get self-centering 2/3 leg versions if that is what you want. And you have a choice of mechanical or hydraulic.

 

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

As already mentioned, easy outs and bearing pullers are high on my list.

I bought a left handed digital caliper to make measuring of work held in lathe chucks easier to manage but have never been able to get on with it after using right handed digitals, verniers and dial calipers for 60 years, and I’m left handed to boot.

[old mart]

On old mart Said:

As already mentioned, easy outs and bearing pullers are high on my list.

I bought a left handed digital caliper to make measuring of work held in lathe chucks easier to manage but have never been able to get on with it after using right handed digitals, verniers and dial calipers for 60 years, and I’m left handed to boot.

I am left-handed too and have wondered about left-handed calipers, but have not seen any in a shop to try: what did you find to be the difficulty?

I do find that I cannot get on with left-handed scissors at all, but left-handed rulers are a real help.

James.

[James A]

On James A Said:

I do find that I cannot get on with left-handed scissors at all…

That’s interesting, I am left handed but never got on with left handed scissors either. Although I write left handed I do many things right handed. I fly right handed; right hand on the stick, left hand on the throttle. Apart that is from the Auster in which I used to have a share. Despite being side-by-side seating the Auster only had a single throttle in the middle of the panel. So for takeoff and landing from the left seat it was left hand on the stick and right hand on the throttle. I don’t have any specific left handed tools in the workshop, just use what is standard.

Actually I am ambidextrous; I use a mouse right handed and often switch tools from one hand to the other as one hand gets tired. As a kid I used to do two drawings simultaneously, one with each hand. The teachers told my parents it would eventually settle down and one hand would become dominant.

Not sure that’s happened, even now! I am typing this using both hands on the keyboard.

Julie

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I think it’s fair to say that left-handedness lies on a spectrum

There are mechanical and cognitive elements to it

Left-handed scissors are a mechanical solution to physical bio-mechanical issue

Left-handed [sliding] callipers are more to do with ‘presentation’ than ‘mechanics’

Both are important, of course.

MichaelG.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

From some lefties that I know the L/H callipers are mechanically a lot easier for them to operate with the left hand rather than what side the display is on.

Just try holding a conventional one in your left hand ( assuming you are right handed) and open & close it. Then turn it round so the display is facing away from you which replicates a L/H layout and it will be easier to operate in your left hand

[peak4Participant @peak4]

I can’t find them now, but I did see some calipers with a display on each side, so they could be read from either side.
They were a similar idea to this micrometer.
https://digitalmicrometers.co.uk/dml-0-30mm-ip54-double-display-micrometer-dm3030dd

DML also sell their own brand left hand vernier, as well as the more expensive Insize one
https://digitalmicrometers.co.uk/dml-150mm-left-handed-digital-caliper-dc04150l

Insize also do a dual reading vernier mic, but I think in metric only
https://insize.com/verniermicrometers/3236.html
And for those who can’t make up their mind, a vertical digital one
https://insize.com/digitalmicrometers/3565.html

They seem similar to these, but are a wholesale supplier only

At a price, and not small in size, the Fowler Quadramatic looks interesting, left/right, up/down dual display

Bill

[John MCParticipant @johnmc39344]

In defence of those cheap, horrible, floppy, very low quality three legged pullers.   Very frustrating to use, under heavy loads they would rather distort than pull.  Usually need three hands to fit.  Awkward to arrange something to react the torque against.

But, for once, it actually worked!   Because of space constriants I had no option but to use the smallest of the set of three I bought many years ago to remove a sprocket from a motorcycle gearbox.  A third hand would have been useful while fitting it into place.  Once in place and with a squirt of gear oil on the thread, it pulled the sprocket off without the usual drama.

I think its going to revert to type, with a vengance, next time I use it!

 

 

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