What Are the Current "Best" Things in Your Toolbox?

Don from Oz:

10" Channel lock pliers

10" Channel Lock parrot jaw pliers

#2 Phillips screw driver

10 in one screwdriver

Channel lock diagonal cutters with strip notches for #12 and #14 wire

Small wire cutters

Scratch awl

Clamp on multi-meter

20 oz claw hammer

20 oz ball peen hammer

4" slotted insulated shaft screwdriver

8" adjustable wrench

Combination wrench set, 3/8" ---> 3/4"

roll of black electrical tape

3/4" x 15 ft tape measure and folding rule with outside extension

vise grip pliers

Most, but not all, 15-25 years old. Some sentimental favorites not used that often.

Good Luck, Old Salt

Beer bottle opener. Eventually with some other leatherman attributes.

Most useful is the multimeter, phillips and straight edge screwdrivers, channel locks, flashlight 18v, 5/16 nutdriver, 1/4 nutdriver, infrared, laser guided, remote temp sensor gun, 4 lb sledge, clamp-on ampprobe, capacitor tester, and the list goes on, almost without end....

Black and Decker Power file. You can sharpen just about anything, grind just about anything, drill a hole in the wall and many more, just brilliant.

all the right bits for the Makita: square drive, star drive, big and little phillips, big and little flat blade, allen bits....

Obviously you have lots of the 'best stuff' ... or maybe your van is your best toolbox?

Putting everything back where it belongs after a job is a total pain....agreed.

All those different tool requirements for different jobs is real enough and then you pick and choose and eventually one's work truck becomes a man-purse on wheels.

So really my toolbox is my truck and my truck is the best thing in my "toolbox".

It's my mobile, airconditioned office cum store room. Life support and refuge.

it' also not forgettimg to pack in the special tools - i had to fetch once such in record time (say i forgot) from behind 270 km ];T

5 ounce hammer! Big enough for the small stuff and small enough for the big stuff!

If you have none you are screwed!

A mallet, handed down from a grandparent. Still going strong after 85 years, albeit with two new heads and three new handles along the way.

Hammers of varying sizes and age seem to be winning!
What does that say about us and our use of the 'Irish screwdriver' when all else fails?

Continuous or smooth ratchet screwdrivers (no clicks; just turns one way not the other). I have a long shafted and a short "T" handled one.

Beam Clamps

Sorting Bins

Air Conditioner

Sturdy Work Table

Small Vice (8 lb?)

Shop Apron

30+ years of Shop Experience in Fabrication and Tinkering

Tools

You have an Air Conditioner in your toolbox?

Is that a folding table?

I like the way u dress!

I think that 30+ years weight its down!

Never seen tools in a Toolbox, u sure abutt that?

There are of course many interpretations of "Best".

In terms of longevity of electric tools, this is pretty hard to beat. It was given to me as a really major Christmas present in 1951, when I was 11. At 250 Watts, it's too big for most of the stuff I work on these days, but when I need the power, it really does the job! I use it as a magnetizer/demagnetizer almost as much as a soldering gun:

I still have at least one commercial spare tip for it, and have made several special-purpose ones over the years. The physics is far superior to the more common Weller style, where the tip is the thickest part, so heat has to conduct from the thinner part into the tip.

" best " being most useful

a 225mhz HP scope

large modified set of Xelite tools

left hand drill/extractors #6 through 1/2 in.

300w Wen soldering gun & t/c soldering pen w/vacuum solder sucker

various jewelers type needle nose pliers & hemostats

3/8 reversible drill/driver w/settable torque clutch

small butane jet torch

meerschaum and cherry tobacco

home made pemmican/jerky for break/emergency

My ignorance never ceases to amaze me: I've never heard of pemmican before.

The number 1 best item im my tool box is a magnet on a stick

That must be to fish the second best tool out from that very large box, isnt it?

Do you have AirCon in there?

Actually I suffer from "fat finger" disease and am always dropping that crucial screw/nut/washer in the most difficult locations...

Yankee driver with 1/4" hex adapter

Various sizes of stilsons

And the obligatory range of hammers & mallets

The internet, 'cos if I don't know how to do it now, I will by the time I'm finished!

You mean a real Yankee screwdriver? The real predecessor to the cordless drill? Boy, the times I wished I had the one my dad had when I was a kid. No battery to run down or wear out. Never thought about a hex (or 1/4 square) drive adapter for one.

The most useful single item in my toolbox is a $3 multi-bit driver from Tractor Supply. It has a holster with screwdriver bits (2 straight, 2 Philips, 2 or 3 hex), square drive adapter and 4 or 5 sockets, and they all fit tight enough into the holster that I haven't lost one yet. And it's decent quality. I bought 3 or 4 and gave all but one away. (Wish I had bought and kept more now.)

Yes, a 131A. Adaptor.

My Lupenbrille mit LED

(And, of course, my reading glasses.)

Now that you mention reading glasses, I have to say that the most essential thing in any one of my toolboxes is my AO loupe. I have five pairs distributed between home, shop, the car, and work, in 5x and 7x magnifications.

AO loupe?

I realise a loupe is a magnifying glass but what's the AO bit mean?

I have several pairs of 3x glasses from "poundland" (dollar_fifty_land) around but sometimes I need a bit more magnification, and, just stronger glasses would cause my nose to interfere with the work.

Check Book! Hire it done. No time for tools, wife, kids, airplanes or sleeping.

Best thing in my "toolbox" is a fat wodge of wonga. Best lube in the world.

Never heard of Sidchrome; I have only the slightest idea what a wodge may be, and that only because you imply that it is a quantity of wonga, which must be a solid lubricant of some kind. FWIW, my spell-checker knows wodge, but not wonga.

Ah! Thanks! Now I understand what kind of 'lube' he was talking about...

I was totally ignorant on the subject!

Thanks for educating others here on antipodean vernacular.

I tried posting a link to the Collins Dictionary definition but it didn't make it due to some CR4 posting problem which seems to have now been resolved. I was too slack to try again figuring someone else might actually look it up....

Good to see that it got some folk curious.

Wonga makes the world go around. That's how slippery it is.

A wonga web check also adds a bird to the list (that includes 'booty') in the toolbox. It maybe stretching the "current best things" to have cash/treasure/lube in the box and a curvacious girl sitting on the cover, but is does sound like a pretty reasonable package to carry around in the can ... err van!

But what would I know about such things ... I'm just an engineer?

Ken (in his wheel chair) and Rose of Wonnerup, Western Australia
have obviously discovered something in their tool box and done
something about it. Enjoy!