Tools – the creation and usage thereof. That is supposed to be the One Big Thing differentiating human from the rest of the animals on Earth. We used to pride ourselves in creating new things in order to create more new things – something only Homo Sapiens could do.
That little conceit is long gone – we are not the only makers and users of tools. For me this indicates that the idea of a tool – something used in order to make or fix (or destroy) something else. Tools are intellectual and physiological force multipliers.
While there is merit to “It’s a poor workman who blames his tools” attitude, my experience is that a good tool can make a complex task easy and a not-so-good tool can make a simple task sheer hell. Sadly, I have seen way too many examples of the latter, usually accompanied by a substantial licence fee.
My professional life is that of a tool maker – writing software to make other computer work easier and more consistent. I make tools that first and foremost I want to make my life easier.
There is an ultimate tool. It is owned by The Doctor. It can do almost anything but drive a screw.
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Sonic_screwdriver
In 1562 England, when the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor pointed their sonic screwdrivers at Queen Elizabeth I‘s guards, the War Doctor sarcastically told them, “They’re screwdrivers. What are you going to do? Assemble a cabinet at them?” (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
I don’t have a sonic screwdriver, but I do posses quite a collection of Craftsman screwdrivers – decades old and still solid today – hell I’ve used some of my father’s screwdrivers from the 1950s – a little rusty but still will screw a screw and pry open a paint can.
I make do with a fairly simple set of tools not out of any vanity or purity of vision, but because of limits on space, time and money. Of course if you have enough of the last element, the availability matrix of the first two can change considerably.
What I do have is variety of hand tools of different vintages and conditions. This menage includes ancient survivors of my father’s Craftsman collection (which was nearly the best tools available to non-professionals) and a smattering of “$19.99 for a 50 piece set” tools.
My hard-code go-to power tools are a relatively new drill press, an old-school bench grinder and a well seasoned Dremel.
I use the drill press for, well, burning out cheap drill bits trying to put holes in things I shouldn’t probably be trying to put a hole in. Its alter ego is a buffer – on goes the sanding drum or wire wheels, and off comes the old paint and layers of rust.
I use the bench grinder for tasks better done with precision metal removal tools, but I just crank it up and make the sparks fly until whatever I started with is lesser enough to be what I want. The result isn’t always (usually not) pretty (hence the sanding drum and wire wheel on the drill press), but it works.
Finally there is my magic wand – a simple corded Dremel tool. The business end can sport brushes, saws or drill bits. My favorite is the simple composite cutting wheel – the kind which sacrifices itself, leaving a spray of sparks, crumbs of burnt metal and a fine brown dust formerly of the cutting wheel. I have tackled some quite large objects with the Dremel and “cut them down to size” as it were.
Sometimes I surprise myself at what I can pull off with my limited resources. What could I do if I had the man-cave workshop of former Mythbuster Adam Savage? After passing out from sheer rapture, that is.
“It’s a poor workman who blames his tools” sounds pithy and profound but misses the point. We want to believe that is the hands of the workman which matter most, but even the most skilled craftsman can be hobbled by lousy tools. No matter how hard you work, if the tools work against you, then you are in trouble.
Shouter to Dead Parrots 