How to Understand Tools
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Posted in Friday Funny
Long weekend! Time to work on some home improvement. If you’re going to be successful at DIY projects, you need to understand the tools you’re working with. Here is a simple glossary:
Hammer: Originally a weapon of war, the hammer is now used as a kind of divining rod to locate body parts close to the object you are trying to hit.
Mechanic’s Knife: Used to slice through the contents of cardboard carton. Works particularly well on boxes containing soft, easily damaged goods.
Electric Drill: Generally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age. Also works well for drilling holes in fenders just above the brake line.
Pliers: Used to round off bolt heads.
Hacksaw: One of a family of cutting tools built on the principle of evil. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
Vise-Grips: Used to round off bolt heads. Also useful for transferring welding torch heat to the palm of your hand.
Oxyacetylene Torch: Used almost exclusively for lighting various flammable objects on fire.
Drill Press: A tall upright machine useful for snatching a flat metal bar out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your coffee across the room.
Wire Wheel: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them under the workbench at the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and calluses in about the time it takes you to say, “Ouc….”
Hydraulic Floor Jack: Used for lowering a motorcycle to the ground after you have installed your new front disk brake setup, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front fender.
Eight Foot Long 2X4: Used for levering a motorcycle upward off a hydraulic jack.
Tweezers: A tool for removing wood splinters.
Phone: A tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has a hydraulic floor jack.
Snap-On Gasket Scraper: Useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; mainly used for getting dog-doo off your boot.
Timing Light: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup.
Hydraulic Engine Hoist: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and brake lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.
1/2 x 16-Inch Screwdriver: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.
Battery Electrolyte Tester: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from a car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.
Aviation Metal Snips: See hacksaw.
Trouble Light: The mechanic’s own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, “the sunshine vitamin,” which is not otherwise found under motorcycles at night. Health benefits aside, it’s main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.
Phillips Screwdriver: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.
Air Compressor: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last tightened 40 years ago and rounds them off.
Pry Bar: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.
Hose Cutter: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too short.
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“A hacksaw is a saw for cutting metal or bones.”
Wikipedia’s definition! “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacksaw