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What is the most useful tool you ever made?

dougw

There are many great topics that relate to tools, and there are endless numbers of tools to discuss, but inevitably we run into situations where we don't have a good tool for the job and have to cobble a tool together to complete the work.

I make some little tool to do a specific job all the time, but I never stop to think whether it is a remarkable tool. I don't even document that  I made a tool.

I don't think we ever asked the question - what is the best tool you ever made, so I'm asking now. If you are like me it is going to take some time to recall something significant. In fact I am posting this question before I even have my own answer, but give it some thought. I suspect the answers will be interesting.

My most recent tool was just a wooden needle to apply ink to a 3D print - much more precise than a paint brush. I'm sure when I scan through some of my projects, I will come up with something better....

  • in reply to scottiebabe

    Workbench - the ultimate multi-tool ...Thumbsup

  • in reply to bradfordmiller

    When someone calls me a tool, I'm not sure it is a compliment...Relaxed

  • in reply to dougw

     Laughing  I have refrained from a few responses because the double entendre of "tool". Laughing

    When the rewrites weren't any better than the original... delete.

  • in reply to rsc

    It sounds like butter knives make great spudgers - I'll have to keep that in mind...Relaxed

  • Hello Everybody, here's another...  More of an enhancememt than a tool, but it worked well.

    Once upom a time I used my wheel-to-wheel tape recorder to record a well-known pop music show on the BBC Light Programme, broadcast at about 5pm on Sundays. One Sunday I had to be elsewhere, so unavailable to switch the recorder on and start it, then switch it off at the end of the show. I decided that some form of automatic power-up and start system was required, preferably with a stop and power-down system when the programme ended. Obviously a timer was needed, but all I had at the time was an old clockwork alarm clock...

    The tape recorder used mechanical push-buttons to operate tape movement and function selection, and a switch on the volume control to switch it on. So with no power applied I could set it up to record as soon as power was supplied. There was a risk of creating a 'flat' on the pinch roller but I decided to go ahead anyway. Replacement pinch rollers were available if a new one became necessary. But how to get power to it...?

    Power was available from a nearby 3-pin 15 amp socket (round pins). It was mounted directly on the wall so the front of it was about an inch away from the wall. It had a switch, and I had a neon screwdriver. By twisting the 15 amp plug I could connect a wrong pin, e.g. Line pin to Neutral socket hole with the Earth pin in it's socket. Things get worse...

    I also had a length of lightweight chain that once held a bathroom plug to the wash-basin lug. I split it in two. One length went between the unoccupied Neutral socket hole to the perimeter of a plastic wheel, once used to tune an early transistor radio. The other length went between the perimeter of the plastic wheel 180 degrees away from the first wire to the exposed Live pin on the plug. The Line socket hole on the socket had the Neutral pin on the plug plugged into it. After winding the main clock up and the secondary key for the alarm ringer the 'butterfly' was unscrewed from the alarm winder and the plastic wheel screwed on in it's place.

    The clock was wound up, as was the secondary key for the alarm ringer. Setting the alarm to a couple of minutes after the time indicated by the hour and minute hands, I connected all the wiring and straightened the two lengths of chain across the floor next to each other and switched the wall socket on. Then I switched the switch on the volume control on and waited...

    The alarm went off, the alarm winder turned backwards taking the plastic wheel with it, The chains twisted together and the tape recorder started! My my, you should have seen the sparks running up and down the chains!

    I recorded Pick Of The Pops successfully while I was out. The auto-stop (fitted a year or so before) did its' job at the end of the tape. The Record button jumped up as it stopped, operating one of those big push-to-break buttons as found inside fridges. It was held above the button during recording by a bent steel coat-hanger. This switched the power to the recorder off, although it wasn't very safe with the two spade terminals sticking up vertically. Luckily perhaps, I never had to do any of that ever again! And clockwork clocks seem to be a rarity these days.

  • in reply to vmate

    Nice.  Although you can get some cheap PCBs these days you still have to wait for them to arrive.  Your modification must come in handy when you need something done the same day.

  • in reply to electronicbiker

    Ah, the good old days when 110/220V was available in insecure sockets!

    Hopefully no one human or animal was around at the time!

  • in reply to obones

    No humans, but it was an old house complete with cobwebs...

  • in reply to electronicbiker

    A complete programmable mechanical microcontroller - awesome.

  • What a good (and true) challenge (it really is), but let me give you a word from my people: "at home craftsman is like nowhere else". You will certainly not understand the meaning of the statement, it is a bit difficult, (?!?!?!!?!??!?!?), but I will give an example like this: a bricklayer builds a house for another, but at his house you will still see cracking walls.