Re-using old tools

delta T

Old school sawzall finally died, found a good use for the old case!

warno

Very nice. Get you some foam in the bottom to help hold them from beating against each other.

I have some drill cases with other tools in them.

Tinman

If I could only get my guys to keep our dies that clean : )

Tom_133

Thats a great idea, thanks. I literally keep mine in the oiler bucket. I know I have a couple old sawzall cases.

New England SteamWorks

For my money there is only one way to go: Dewalt & Rigid mobile tool boxes:



Greatest thing since sliced bread. No more thousand trips back and forth to the truck. Wheel 'em in, go to work. Pack 'em up and wheel them out.

All done.

ChrisJ

RI_SteamWorks said:

For my money there is only one way to go: Dewalt & Rigid mobile tool boxes:



Greatest thing since sliced bread. No more thousand trips back and forth to the truck. Wheel 'em in, go to work. Pack 'em up and wheel them out.

All done.

That looks like it could get real heavy fast though.
Still have to pick it up and take it out of the truck and put it back.

hot_rod

Nice idea. Recycle a good old product. It's almost impossible to find new tools in metal cases anymore.

I like good quality plastic, but latches and handles tend to breakdown quicker than metal fastenings.

delta T

warno said:

Very nice. Get you some foam in the bottom to help hold them from beating against each other.



I have some drill cases with other tools in them.

Yep I was thinking that too, just had a thought and realized how well they fit in there. I'm also going to add a little divider on the right and make a compartment for spare teeth and the like.

delta T

Stephen Minnich said:

If I could only get my guys to keep our dies that clean : )

Well, when my Dad first started out in the trade, his boss made him drill a hole for a water service through an 8" foundation wall using a single jack and a star bit (his boss started working coal mines in the 30's when he was 12). It took him over six hours. His boss did this with all his employees to make sure that they would all take care of the power tools, because if he caught you being mean to a tool, you never got to use power tools again. Kind of rubbed off on him, and it was always drilled into us that we take care of tools. Our rigid 300 is older than I am (29) and still going strong, it gets greased regularly, and once every two years or so, we pull the whole thing apart and clean it, new brushes in the motor etc...thing runs so nice, my goal is to not buy a new threading machine in my lifetime.

ChrisJ

delta T said:

Stephen Minnich said:

If I could only get my guys to keep our dies that clean : )

Well, when my Dad first started out in the trade, his boss made him drill a hole for a water service through an 8" foundation wall using a single jack and a star bit (his boss started working coal mines in the 30's when he was 12). It took him over six hours. His boss did this with all his employees to make sure that they would all take care of the power tools, because if he caught you being mean to a tool, you never got to use power tools again. Kind of rubbed off on him, and it was always drilled into us that we take care of tools. Our rigid 300 is older than I am (29) and still going strong, it gets greased regularly, and once every two years or so, we pull the whole thing apart and clean it, new brushes in the motor etc...thing runs so nice, my goal is to not buy a new threading machine in my lifetime.

Very good lesson, my only question is who paid for that labor?

delta T

ChrisJ said:

delta T said:

Stephen Minnich said:

If I could only get my guys to keep our dies that clean : )

Well, when my Dad first started out in the trade, his boss made him drill a hole for a water service through an 8" foundation wall using a single jack and a star bit (his boss started working coal mines in the 30's when he was 12). It took him over six hours. His boss did this with all his employees to make sure that they would all take care of the power tools, because if he caught you being mean to a tool, you never got to use power tools again. Kind of rubbed off on him, and it was always drilled into us that we take care of tools. Our rigid 300 is older than I am (29) and still going strong, it gets greased regularly, and once every two years or so, we pull the whole thing apart and clean it, new brushes in the motor etc...thing runs so nice, my goal is to not buy a new threading machine in my lifetime.

Very good lesson, my only question is who paid for that labor?

Labor was cheap back then. I think my dad was getting paid $1.75 an hour. Knowing his boss i'm sure the customer paid for it, but it was 'just part of the job'.

The crazy part was that my dad's boss could do exactly the same thing in 2 hrs. He was a beast.

ChrisJ

I don't know if that was really cheap or not.

According to an inflation calculator "What cost $1.75 in 1925 would cost $23.97 in 2015."

delta T

Well this was in the early 70's, so more like $10 now.

Crazy how things change. If you want some sobering economic data, look at the ratio of the average cost of a single family home to average household income in 1970 vs now, or even better the average cost of a 4 year college tuition compared to average income in 1970 vs now. Us millenials don't have it so easy.....its the reason so many of us still live at home! (I don't, but quite a few of my friends who have college degrees do.....so glad I learned a trade )

BobC

A new house in the mid 50's cost 13k. In the mid 70's a house on my street cost 25k, by '81 it was 50k and now they go for over 400k. These are basic early 20th century houses on small city lots.

On the education end a semester of college cost $400 in the mid 50's now the same school is over 10k and that does not include housing.

Bob

delta T

The first house my dad bought was for 40k in 1976, put some work into it, turned around a year later and sold it for 80k thinking 'Damn, did really well on that deal!!! The same house recently sold with very few changes for 1.2 MILLION. It is a two level 1800 sq ft house built in the 30's on a small lot. Basically what was an OK part of town in the 70's became 'quaint' and super desirable in the early 2000's and up went the prices.

When I went to college, my first semester ( in 2005) cost $2200 not including housing. I dropped out for one year after that, and went back and it was up to $3700 a semester. Did that for two more semesters and decided that this trade was what I was going to do and a pure math degree was not worth the time and effort and expense. (Not saying we don't need math for this job, but I don't think I have ever needed to do a lebesgue integral to figure out any heating problem in the field )

My kid sister is in her second year at the same college, and her tuition sans housing is 12k per semester. 11 YEARS AND IT MORE THAN TRIPLED!!!

There is a song, can't remember who, but one of the lines in it goes: "the rich get richer 'till the poor get educated" seems to be ringing true so far. I guess only the rich will get educated now....or at least a poor person will be kept poor with crippling debt for the rest of their life if they want an education.....

Or they could just learn hydronics.......

Solid_Fuel_Man

As a millennial myself (33) I find that our generation is not willing to actually do real work. So many just want what their parents have and an iPad too. We all have to put things into perspective. The gaming thing and Facebook etc simply amazes me. Out generation as a whole complains about having it so hard. I have three Master licenses in three trades all of which I work in. When the going gets tough, find some more work and do it. Sometimes my wife and kids have to give up a Saturday with daddy so he can go make some bucks to pay the bills.

Math would be helpful for people to actually figure out what things with reoccurring bills cost. Like that 83 dollar/month cell bill costs 1000 bucks/year etc.

It won't always be that way, and I love to spend as much time with my family as I can. But we all gotta do what we gotta do. And all those electronics and bills for said electronics can go out the window as far as I am concerned.

Taylor

delta T

I would agree with that up to a point, I do know my fair share of people our age that do not know the meaning of work. I feel lucky that i grew up knowing nothing else.

That being said there are plenty who work very very hard every day and struggle to scrape by because there is very little prospect of advancement.

Of the people who I know who still live at home, one has put 5 years of 60 to 70 hour weeks in at his manufacturing job, excelling at making his machines run more efficiently and more productively than any one else had been able too, has gotten yearly raises, and is just now making 15 an hour. Another has put in similar hours, along with another 15 hrs per week of school in preparation for a possible position in a very specialized medical job. IF he gets the job it will pay 45k per year. He is an unpaid intern currently. The jobs available as a whole are not even close to keeping up with what it costs to live. Our industry is fairly unique, in that it will never be replaced by robots and call centers. As such there is a demand for skill and hard work.

I won't defend our entire generation, there are plenty of ****y millennials, and electronics and Facebook do have a lot to do with it, but the economic reality is that we are working for less pay with fewer opportunities on the whole than people were 30 and 40 years ago. Hard work and diligence no longer guaranty prosperity.....though they do still help of course. I have no respect at all for people who don't try harder when it gets tough.

FWIW I do play some video games on occasion.....though that's usually only when fishing is out of the question

I adamantly refuse to do the whole Facebook twitter thing.

BobC

Email and HH are enough for me, Facebook and twitter are just vast time sumps. I do have accounts but use them ONLY when I have to get in touch with a manufacturer who doesn't have any obvious way to respond to an email.

Bob