My ball peen hammer memorial thread.

The other day I had to warranty a snap-on ball peen hammer i have had for years. It was the dead blow kind that has the molded handle.The handle had cracked and then just started to dissintegrate. Anyway I decided to do what "normal" people would do and have it replaced. When i handed it over to the dealer I looked at it and said "man I've beat a lot of shit with that thing" he threw it in a box with some other broken stuff. I felt like I was putting a pet to sleep. I think I might be way too attatched to my tools. I figured I would post this and see if anybody can relate with it. If not i think I should see a doctor

 

I can relate to the broken tool attachment thing. I have some I keep around even though I can trade it in on a new one, just for the fact that the conversation surrounding what it took to break the tool outweighs the replacement value. Plus I have a shitload of screwdrivers, etc anyway.

Bob

 

I can relate. When I inherited the ol' man's tool box I found a lot of tools that actually belonged to me at one time.

There is a snap on screw driver in the screw driver drawer, it has the handle twisted off ( the handle is still there). It was a brand new screw driver and I twisted the handle off when I was in my early twenties. I guess the ol' man couldn't bear to loose it. Gawd knows I won't be giving it up any time soon. Its usless but it is history.

 

Although I can't come up with any specifics at the moment, I know how you feel! Every tool I own has been some where and done something significant at some point. Out of hundreds of tools that I own, I can still tell you where and roughly when each came into my possesion, and what the circumstances or needs were at the time. Most have drawn blood at some point as well... So maybe there is just a little bit of me in each?!

 

I know.... My Dad died in '94 and I got his tools. The Craftsman 1/2" drive ratchet locked up one day and I took it to Sears...they gave me a brand new one...after I got home, it hit me that Dad had bought it new 40 years ago. No, I didn't go back to retrieve it.

 

N.L
I can relate to that. Without looking I can tell you I have a Thorsen (sp?) 1/2-9/16 box that I have drug all over the world. I had been living with some old hide that sold my tools when I was out of town working and split. I managed to scrap up enough tools to tune my bike and I was going to hit the road myself. A little bummed about my tools for sure.

Anyway long story short my little brother (rest his soul) came by to see me off. he went digging though my road bag and said you dont have one of these. He gave me that wrench out of his tool box. The was the spring of '77. Damned cheap ass wrench but it was what he had. It is still my go to wrench 99 out of 100 times.

 

I hear that! My father passed away about 10 years ago and I'm having a hard time parting with some of his tools. Mind you I'm not talking about his wrenches, tools he used daily or his bigger equipment like the lathe I'm talking about weird ass shit he picked up at yard sales and NEVER used!

Recently I've made a box the I intend to eBay and I keep throwing weird tools in. For every five I throw in I fond myself going back and pulling out one. I have issue.

~ Carl

 

I received a set of Craftsman tools for Christmas in 1966,and they have served me well until the 1/2" ratchet quit working.

Having worked at Sears through my high school years in the shipping & receiving department,the store I worked at had a repair kit for the ratchet and we would swap out the old parts for new ones and the ratchet worked like brand new and the customer could keep his original ratchet.

So when mine quit working a few years ago I took it to the new Sears store and told the kid behind the counter that I needed a repair kit for my ratchet,,he walks over to the tool display and grabs a new ratchet and says just toss the old one in this box,,,

I politely told him that I intended on keeping the ratchet my parents gave me when I was his age,,I then walked over to the display of tools and grab a pair of snap ring pliers and started disassembling the new ratchet and repaired my old one as I had done many times in the past when I was employed at Sears many years ago.

I then tossed the new ratchet with the worn out parts inside into the broken tool box.

This kid was shocked!,,why do you want to keep a old dirty tool when you could have a shiny new one he ask?

I tried to explain to the best of my ability but I don't think it sunk in,,,this tool has been a good friend for 46 years and that's a very long time! HRP

 

was this hammer made before 65?

 

Amen!
I have one of those cheesy replaceable bit combination screwdrivers with the red handle that I bought at a Checker auto parts store in Las Cruces New Mexico one night in about '92 during the plymouth's maiden voyage out of town. Somehow in packing what seemed like everything I owned waiting for the inevitable breakdown I forgot a good screwdriver! Still my go to to this day, even if the handle is slightly melted from riding on the floor above the muffler on another trip through Texas...

That was the same trip where Alamogordo's low rider club members walked into the shop where I was temporarily working and asked if I would like to join them in the town's Christmas parade a couple of nights later! Hell yes!

 

HRP
There are a lot of things that we do that no one will ever understand. Even back when we were young there was a good part of America that couldnt grasp why we would ruin a perfectly good car or spend time in the garage when we could be out playing golf, or sleeping.

 

There's a part of my pegboard for these tools. Not totally useless. I've brought some back to life when I need a special tool, and modified them by cutting, and welding. Or I go on the Snap-On/Mac/Matco truck, see a tool I don't have, but gotta' have, then going to my pegboard of broken tools, and make one.

 

I have a lot of tools that I got in 1973 that I still use and treasure.
Pisses me off that I had to buy a set of metric crap tools to work on these "newer" cars.

 

I've got a standard ball peen with an "M" hack sawed into the end of the wooden handle that my dad put there in the early 60s? If I ever break the handle I might have to hang the handle on the wall. I can't go into the hammer drawer without thinking about him. It will probably out live me though.

 

I can relate.... I have some old stuff I bought years ago, they're like old friends.

 

I've got a 25+ year old Craftsman Industrial 4 1/2 inch grinder that I can't let die, it just feels right when I use it. A few years ago I found an identical unused one, still in the box, at an estate sale. I bought it thinking that it would be the replacement if I ever had a problem with the "original". The original has quit on me three times since I've had the "new" one on the shelf, once because of worn brushes, once for a broken switch, and once from a worn out cord. Each time, I've repaired it. It's replacement still sits unused on the shelf..........

 

I ran into a guy, a stitcher of note, on I-80 that had a pretty sweet ford a long time ago when i was traveling on my bike. he had a starter problem and I decided to help him out. he was going for his tools in his stuff and I just opened my bag and grabbed a tool out of it. My trusty Thorsen and slid under and started snagging his starter out.

He remarked that he had a pretty nice socket set if I wanted it and I said that's OK, this one works. We chased him down a starter and got him on the road.

He offered to give me some name brand end wrenches for helping him and I told him that he may need 'em and mine would be just fine. He remarked that my wrench must be pretty special. So I told him about it, he smiled and showed me an old ragged screw driver that he had that someone gave him. We shook hands and he he sped off, I think he understood. Some people do.

A parade in New Mexico. Thats pretty slick. These old tools have given us some damned good memories have't they. Doesn't seem to be as important how we got 'em or if they are the best brand available, it is what we do with them that makes them important.

Tommy,
I can relate to the hanging it on the wall thing. I have a beam torque wrench that the ol' man gave me in the '60s. I gave it to my father in law in the early '70s he used it until the mid '90s and gave it back to me. I used it until about 2001 when I discovered that it was no longer of any use, it hangs on my garage wall as we speak. Who knows how many heads, ring gears etc, etc that wrench has torqued over the years.

 

Damn, I thought I had some sort of psychological problem! I have a pocket knife in my drawer that I use sometimes as a scraper and sometimes as a screwdriver. It was in my Dad's garage my whole life and I found it when we were clearing out the entire house after he died. It's thick and awkward but I cherish it.
I also insist on using his drill press, the only one I ever had access to during my entire youth, despite the fact that it is a floor unit that someone cut off and turned the drilling table into the base to mount on a bench. I space things up on a 4x4 block to drill them. Dumb, I suppose, but it's the way I learned to do it and that's that.

Neither of those things will be leaving my shop until after I, too, am dead and gone.

 

Cool! I'm still not sure that I'm not sick- but at least I'm not alone.

There are just some tools that just "feel right" when you use them. I think sometimes, it's just a case of you using it so much that you adapt to the tool. Then there are others that just feel good from day one. The hammer in my avatar pic is one that just felt good from the first swing.

 

Ranchwagun,
pretty good thread my friend. Lots of good memories comming up for me here, and good memories from the rest as well.

 

I have some old craftsman tools and one that I just keep for reasons that it has been in the family forever. It's an old machinist's 1/2 inch drive craftsman ratchet that says "patent pending" on the handle. Broke it once and was lucky they were still installing kits in them. Don't care for the new one's.

 

My dad bought me a socket set in the 60's from a jewelry store,of all places. The 3/8 ratchet was used as a hammer a lot when I was young,and it shows.I now have 10X the tools,but when I'm looking for a ratchet,I always pass up the "better" ones,and grab that no- name one that is actually tough as hell.
Come to think of it,some of my newer tools have never been used.
After my dad had major cancer surgery in his 70s,he gave me all his tools. I tried to NOT take them,but he insisted. As time went by,he'd come over and ask for them back,one at a time. I always tried to give him all of them.
He's been gone for 17 years,and I have all his tools now. I don't use them often,but when I do need one,it brings back good memories of seeing them in his hands.

 

I just recently went through this a few months ago with my Snap-On ratcheting screwdriver. When I got out of the Air Force and started working for Northrop, that screwdriver was the first Snap-On tool I had ever bought on my own, and I bought it using payroll deduction at the company store. I used that tool everyday for over 20 years working on everything from B-2 Bombers, Global Hawks, and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. When I got promoted (or neutered, as I call it), I became a desk jockey and I took my toolbox home for good. The gears and the ratchet spring were wasted from use, so I decided that I should get the 'ol girl freshened up. I called up a friend who is a Snap-On dealer and arranged to have it rebuilt and I dropped it off at his house. He called me back a few days later and said that it was too far worn to rebuild, so he got me a brand new one. He threw away my old one. It was like somebody punched me in the chest. A flood of memories hit me all at once. That tool had been with me for so long, all over the world, in some places that I'm not allowed to say, and it got pitched in the trash. I would have paid money just to get it back. The new one works great, but it'll never replace the old one.

Now I know why my Dad used to get so pissed off when I used to treat his tools like shit when I was a kid. When I was little, I used screwdrivers as chisels, and ratchets were hammers. Once I started buying my own tools, it all came crystal clear to me. Women have jewelery collections, men have tool collections.

I have told my son that my 45yr old S-K 1/4" ratchet is off-limits, no matter the situation. That's my all-time favorite tool. That thing is like a swiss watch. The ratcheting action on that thing is perfection, better than the Snap-Ons and MACs, and waaaay better than any dog shit "new style" Craftsman ratchets with the plastic flip lever and crappy Mexican chrome plating. The only Craftsman tools I'll buy today are the wrenches.

 

this socket broke while I was breaking loose rusty bumper bolts, resulting in my hand smashing into a rusty bumper. I was not sad to see it go.


A tool that is special to me is the 20lb sledgehammer I have that belonged to my great-grandfather. I have never seen another 20 pounder. I'm sure they're out there somewhere.

 

Wow, I'm not the only one then. I inherited my Dad's tools when he passed in 1977. Some of them were my grandfather's, who passed before I was born and passed them onto my Dad. I know it might be weird but it is almost a mystical experience to reach in the box and use the same tools that they did. Some are over 100 years old. I'll always bypass the newer ones to use the old ones. They're like old friends.

My favorites are a set of Craftsman wrenches that my Dad bought during WWII. Because it was war time they were not chrome plated. A couple of them have "war finish" stamped into them. My father's also scribed his initials into each one and the date "6/43".

Early in WWII my Mom went to work for Lockheed building P-38s. At that time she bought a 1/4" drive socket set made by Plomb Tools in Los Angeles. I have that set today. Between my Mom, my Dad, and myself, it has been in constant use for over 70 years and still going strong. To me, it's one of the most precious things I own.

 

I have told my son that my 45yr old S-K 1/4" ratchet is off-limits, no matter the situation. That's my all-time favorite tool. That thing is like a swiss watch. The ratcheting action on that thing is perfection, better than the Snap-Ons and MACs, and waaaay better than any dog shit "new style" Craftsman ratchets with the plastic flip lever and crappy Mexican chrome plating. The only Craftsman tools I'll buy today are the wrenches.[/QUOTE]

I have 2 of them 1/4" S-K ratchet's, there just like swiss watches.

 

I have a bunch of screwdrivers from my grandfather and my dad. I remember opening their tool boxes and that the screwdriver drawer always smelled a little like old sour milk because of the plastic in the handles.
My box never smelled like that. I added their old screwdrivers to my tool box and now my drawer smells like spilled milk as well. It is rank but I call it my tool box air freshener. The smell really takes me back. Most of the drivers are worn beyond safe use but they are there and are not going anywhere.

 

I use my Dad's ball peen hammer that was passed to him by his dad. I'm not sure how old the thing is, but it's now held together with JB weld, and is wrapped in friction tape. I love that hammer.

 

Grandpa had an SK ratchet.
Dad has the same one.
Dad bought me the same one new in the 90s.

When Grandpa passed, I scabbed his from Dad's pile of Grandpa's tools. Dad was agitated but I told him I needed two of them and I've used it!

 

I have a old tape measure that my uncle give me it was my grandfathers. It is round and leather bound and the tape is cloth. I wound not give it up for nothing in the world. Me uncle has past away. I thought of him more of tha grandpaw than an uncle.