No* Cost/Weight/Volume Useful Tools
*Or Almost No Cost/Weight/Volume Useful Tools
In my main tool bag are six very small, very light, and virtually free tools that I use all the time. They take up virtually no space, add no weight and cost nothing to at most a couple dollars. Yet I seldom see those tools in other people’s bags. Here they are.
Cut-Off Folding Rule Section
In my dad’s day all the tradesmen (it was all men in the post-WWII years) used what their dad’s had used for measuring: a six-foot folding rule. I don’t see anyone using them today outside of a shop environment, but many vendors still sell them so there must be a market. I cut two lengths (13-inches) off an old one and I find frequent use for it in measuring small distances, often into recesses in which the end of a tape measure is too bulky to fit. My cut-offed section includes the slim brass extender in the center of the first section that so many folding rules incorporate, making even tiny recess depths measureable.
Putty Knife
The one I carry is an old 1½-inch, medium-flexing, cheap putty knife. You can see from the photo that it’s seen a lot of use, although not better days. It’s always getting used for applying spackle, scraping, cleaning out cracks and corners, prying trim, and a million other tasks. You can slip it between two items and twist it to lever the pieces apart. Wrap a rag around the blade and clean up excess paint. A million uses!
Wire Clothes Hanger Section
This idea I stole from Rob. Cut the long straight section out of a wire clothes hanger and use it to probe behind a wall. The tiny hole that the stiff wire makes is easily spackled, and you can use it to probe and determine if there’s piping, romex, or anything else behind a section of wall that you want to drill or saw into.
Red Pencil
Most of the time we layout and mark wood with a regular black pencil. But sometimes we’re laying out two separate things over the same distance. Sometimes we make a mistake (“Whoops — I forgot about the 1½-inch offset.”) and have to re-layout. We could erase or sand off the original marks, or just put a squiggly line thru them, but often it’s easier, or more appropriate, or more fool-proof, to do the corrected layout in a different color (especially if someone one other than us will be relying on those layout marks). That’s why I have a red carpenter’s pencil in my bag along with several black ones.
Relatedly, some general contractors insist that their various subs do their layouts in different colors (black = framing, red = electrical, green = plumbing, for example). This costs no one anything, and only avoids confusion down the line when a worker comes back the next day, next week, or next month to do the next phase of the work.
Rubber Wire Ties
Reusable rubber wire ties are useful for all kinds of things. Holding coiled cords and hoses, keeping tools with their associated equipment, temporarily securing items out of the way, and so on. When you need one, they’re invaluable. You can keep a selection of them in various lengths and gauges on hand, or you can buy a spool of rubber wire (here’s an example) and save money. Just cut a good length, fold it, and stick it in your bag, and then cut whatever length you need for a task. If you aren’t using rubber wire now, I guarantee it will make your life easier.
16d Finish Nails
Anytime we work in a finished space we’re always trying to locate the studs behind the drywall. Stud finders are a big help, but don’t always work well, and tapping the wall is even less precise. Even when I’m pretty sure where a stud is I always verify that there’s “meat” where I want to drive a fastener by pounding a 16d finish nail where I think the center of that stud is. On a bad day, stud finders and tapping aren’t any help at all and I’m reduced to driving a 16d nail along a horizontal line every inch or so until I hit one. But whether verifying or searching for a stud, a 16d finish nail is essential. I keep a few of them in an old pill bottle in my bag. (You can see in the photo that the nails had gotten rusty while they were stored in a coffee can because I don’t have much other use for them in this age of finish screws.)
