Peter Vieira
Wow, you're reading this? Thanks! If you're into RC cars and I seem vaguely familiar, it's because I spent over 25 years writing and editing RC car news, reviews, and tech articles in print and online. What else, what else ... I have a degree in Film Studies (useless), most of a degree in Graphic Design (useful), and I'm married to a wonderful woman with horrible taste in men. Thanks to her, we have a terrific daughter who just earned her Journalism degree and is way, waaay more together that I was at her age. Or right now.
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Generally, as a salvage/scavenge/re-use/repair/repurpose enthusiast with an old house, old computers, and three cars with an average age of 20+ years each, I tend to acquire tools thinking about how often I’ll be using them vs how many/few years I’ve got left on the planet.
If I’m likely to use a tool often each year, or many times before I’m likely to die, I tend to buy the best mass-market version of it I can afford (nothing exotic or insane) so my Sawzall and circular saw are Milwaukee, my hammers are Estwing, and my rotary hammer is from Bosch. I also prefer to buy corded tools, since I’m willing to put up with the inconvenience of a cord (even up in a tree or under a car) in exchange for not having to re-buy the batteries for a couple hundred dollars every few years (I’ve also got a little basic cordless drill/driver for little stuff/roadside salvage).
If I need a specific tool only once in a rare while, and am likely to only use it just once or only a few times per (my remaining) lifetime, I’ll just get whatever minimum suffices, even if it’s heavy, unergonomic, and/or a Harbor Freight knockoff from China. So: my hydraulic jack, spring compressor, etc… are that sort of thing. My gas chainsaw is name brand, but I bought it used (and it’s been leaking oil since day one… I have to empty it between uses).
I DO lend tools because karma, knowing that occasionally, I won’t get it back or it’ll be worn/damaged. I lent that Bosch rotary hammer to my neighbor’s friendly contractor 3 or 4 times during their current project, including just this past week. Like certain books, I do have more than one copy of certain things that tend to get borrowed. So: there are a few corded drills, multimeters, and vice grips in the house, just like I keep a few copies of Philip K. Dick’s ‘Man in the High Castle’ and Robert Pirsig’s ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.’
I don’t have/carry a smartphone, even though it can be a handy tool. I do have a tiny Leatherman-type multitool on my keychain though. And of course I know from Henny Youngman.
🙂
My tool collection started in the Mid 80’s with a 100 Piece Craftsman set ( which today is roughly the same price I paid back then), lately due to Sears’ going out of business, I have gotten some items out of Harbor Freight, some of which are junk.
My father passed away in 2021, and cleaning out the garage in another state, they were going to give away the tools. I did what anyone would do in that situation and grabbed all 4 of the 10mm sockets in the box, before the gave it away
Current Project: Getting the 68 Mustang fastback ( my father’s) in roadworthy condition after sitting in a garage since 2000.
Most of my tools are all Craftsman purchased between 2000-2005. That’s when I built my main set. Since, it’s been specialty tools, mainly. And custom tools for specific vehicles.
Most recent purchase was the “large socket set” for 25+mm nuts. Got sick of wondering if I had the right one already. That was Harbor Freight. I’m reluctant to buy anything I may place a large amount of torque on from HF tools, for some reason, with the exception of the 3/8″ breaker bar I got from them, I guess.
Favorite tool: my 3/8″ dial torque wrench
Least favorite tool: spring compressors
Most used tool: toss up between PH0 Phillips velleman and my 2.5mm hex Wiha
Current project: My wife is going from CT to Newark Airport tomorrow and back (during rush hour.) Probably gonna break down, I’m due.
At home I have two sets of tools. In the big, stay-at-home box I have mostly older, US-made Craftsman stuff with a little bit of Icon and Gearwrench brand stuff that was made in Taiwan. I have a separate box that I can just barely lift & carry. This box has Sears bankruptcy-era, made-in-China Craftsman metric tools. These tools are painted with purple spray paint because I used this box while endurance road racing, and I didn’t want to mix these up with my teammates’ tool sets while fixing the car at the track.
I keep a small toolkit in all of my cars now and they’re mostly made up of cheap tools. None of them get used very often so there’s no point spending real money on them, but if I ever have an issue in the middle of nowhere they’ll still do the job.
Lend tools… Yes, but I have a whiteboard in my garage where I write them down. I’ve had a few things walk out and never make it back. :/
Working on?… Nada.
I’ve been on some wrenching fun with my 81 AMC Jeep CJ-5. I recently had it aligned as it was toed in a bit much. It now drives beautifully and the front brake slap seems to have pretty much disappeared. I adjusted the Weber 38 to be a little more leaner while adding more choke time and it is a dream to drive, while it starts very reliably.
There was a valve cover gasket that was leaking like a sieve, but replacing it with a custom silicon one from Real Gaskets Tennessee worked (mentioning if anyone else needs some custom silicon gaskets, they don’t pay me).
Based on my reading, I’m in a rare spot where my Jeep doesn’t need anything, so I’ve been driving it pretty much everywhere. I should probably change the fuel filter again because I’ve put 4ish full tanks of gas through it, but *meh*.
Now to clean off my work bench… I’m sure this will cause problems to crop up!
Photo: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0sG6XBub4S8yo
I will try and give away socket sets to people walking past my house.
My father retired and moved to a warmer state about ten years ago, but before doing so he showed up with a U-Haul carrying most of his garage. What I learned from this was, if my father took more than five minutes to find a tool he’d figure, “Hey, Ace is just five minutes up the road, and how much does a hammer/socket set/pipe wrench cost, really?”
According to my mother, there were three lawnmowers in that garage at one point, for the same reason.
How big was his garage if he was losing entire lawnmowers in it? 🙂
backups of common items like 10 mm which tend to walk off.
Just like anything else, you want the good stuff for certain things and HF will suffice for others. My toolbox is a $500 two bay from Costco, filled with everything from HF & Amazon DONGWING branded tools to Snap-on. They were good enough to fix commercial jets and they’re good enough to fix cars. It’s more about having the right tool than a good tool (don’t put a 2ft cheater bar on a 3/8 ratchet, etc…)
Whenever I went to the mall for whatever, I got in the bad habit of wandering through Sears as they were starting to close down stores. “Ooo!! a full 225 piece tool set for $50! Can’t pass that up!”
Couple of those and I realized I had a tool set for every vehicle, one for the garage, one for the back porch, and a spare. (This does not include the actual quality, old Craftsman and other similar tools I have in my toolbox)
I take them with me when I go to wrenching parties and such, open them up and leave them next to the car we’re working on. If I lose a socket, its no big deal.
Working on fixing the AC in the Miata right now, waiting on the parts. Already hot enough in Florida that you don’t want that to not be working.
Also got a replacement skylight for my trailer. Never done one of those, but shouldn’t be too difficult.
Most of my tools are Harbor Freight with a leavening of specialty tools they don’t sell or when the alternative is clearly better. Mainly since there’s a HF five minutes away. I’ve gotten good service from them.
Biggest wrenching was buying new tires. That wrenched my wallet pretty well. I’m fine with that since good tires make the vehicle better. Remember, kiddles, those palm-sized contact patches are the only things connecting the car to the road.
Sometimes I think I like the tools more than I like the cars I use to fix them…
My tool sets are an eclectic mixture of new/vintage/used/expensive/cheap/free. I often buy CL and marketplace finds on complete tool boxes if it has one or two nice items that make it worth the cost.
Personally I have two sets of tools; one for work and one for home.
At work, I am in a service truck and spend a lot of time on site. The stuff on the truck is a mix of Snap-on, Proto, Mac, Matco, William, Tektron, and cheap shit I bought because I didn’t have it and needed it.
At home, it’s a mix of everything but mostly mid-range brands like Tektron or whatever I get used for a good deal. Almost no HF stuff for me; it’s not worth the savings to have a tool break.
Most of my test equipment is OTC, Lisle or ATI.
I have an expensive mechanics tool set that I absolutely love. The problem is that the entire kit is super heavy and often times is a pain to lug around, especially for quick fixes that may get messy. I keep the PITTSBURGH 64 Piece set on hand, along with the slightly better Quinn 66 Piece socket set in the car.
Along with that, I keep some cheap Quinn and Icon ratcheting combo wrenches and other cheap tools that I wouldn’t be too worried about losing or lending out.
That Quinn socket set is really good. The only problem I had with it was that I kept flipping the direction lever on the ratchets, which I solved by picking up a 3/8″ (the one I use most by far) Masterforce ratchet that fits in the case and has a shorter lever so I don’t bump it as often.
Awesome solution!
My tools are a collection of newer HF stuff, older, good quality things I picked up second hand, and some expensive, high quality stuff (though thoses tend to stay at work, not my home kit). And I’m not really one to loan out tools.
For my weekly wrenching news report, I picked up a copy of the service manual for the Fiata. But because we live in mordern times, FCA decided that printed books are obsolete and made it entirely digital.
Because these are “no longer in print”, I had to buy a used CD version off Ebay for $180 (the manuals also came in some form of USB thing, but those are rarer and more expensive). Which leads to the first problem: my pc doesn’t have a disc drive.
But luckily I still have my decade old pc which does, so I dug that out of storage. After dusting it off and booting it up, I popped the disc into it to find another issue: the manual only works using Internet explorer (or Edge in IE capatible mode). So sorting that out allows o e to actually view the contents, only to discover that the photos and videos require Adobe Flash to work.
…what the heck was wrong with using paper again?
I bought a whole travel tool case for the frunk of the 411, plus a few extra bits that didn’t come in the case. All Harbor Freight stuff, which is perfectly fine. I’ll dig it out if I know something’s in there and harder to dig out of somewhere else.
Right there with ya. I’ve distributed some sets of tools around the house, like 1/4″ drive socket sets, screwdrivers, etc. and keep a bag of tools in the back of the car. That’s much easier than going to the workshop for something small.
There was a Xmas sale at Lowes a few years ago where the Craftsman sets were available for a really low price, so I stocked up – mostly metric, but some SAE just in case.
I keep accumulating screwdrivers in the kitchen because I got tired of having to run downstairs to get one when I needed to tighten a knob or something.
I mostly use Harbor Freight stuff at this point for myself. I’ve found the quality there to really good recently and haven’t had any issues with their stuff. Sometimes I’ll splurge and buy their Icon stuff for things like my torque wrench (which is really nice). I have no issues loaning out my stuff, but if needs to be brought back in the same condition and in a timely manner.
I’ve got enough extra tools and sets that I can loan or give away certain common tools as needed. I also have a pretty nice set of tools for my own usage, many of them Craftsman dating from the 90s when I worked a second job selling tools for Sears. I was an expert in purchasing clearance inventory from the backroom shelves that was still lifetime warranty. At some point they switched Craftsman part numbers from 4 to 5 digits and they were blowing out the “old” but unused and perfectly good tools.
I also subscribe to the conventional wisdom of buying Harbor Freight when I just need it once and don’t care about the quality, but investing in proper tools otherwise.
Plenty of Harbor Freight stuff out in my garage, especially for rarely-used things. For example, the $100 stud-welder has come in quite handy the three times I’ve used it. Same with the R-134 manifold set. I also have a dirt-cheap HF HVLP spray gun set that I’ve managed to use for laying down a few really decent paint jobs.
I do have some nicer hand tools. I bought a full set of Craftsman tools back in the early 90’s. Finally broke two of those ratchets within the last year and was pleasantly surprised that the local Lowe’s replaced them both free of charge, no questions asked.
I really don’t care to loan tools out anymore – I lost some decent specialty stuff and an entire massive 3/4″ socket set in the past by doing that. If someone needs some help, I’ll just go to their place and bring what I think is needed, or we’ll plan a car night when they can bring their vehicle over along with some frosty cold ones to restock the garage fridge.
Looks like I’m finally going to have to do some wrenching on the 2012 Volt. I met my wife for lunch yesterday and she complained the car was making a “dragging” noise. I had just driven it a few days earlier and hadn’t noticed anything unusual, but I always drive it in “L”, which kicks in enough regen that it’s almost possible to one-pedal it.
Turns out I wasn’t using the brakes enough. She drives it in “D” where it acts like any other car. When she braked, the noise was immediate – the outer right rear brake pad had partially disintegrated. I guess it was from age as the original pads still don’t look too bad at 110,000. It also needs a wheel-speed sensor and possibly a front wheel bearing that I’ve been putting off, so I definitely need to have a garage night with that car in the near future.
I always heard it was good to grease the slides on the rear calipers of the Volt every couple years. They sometimes get used so little that they seize up. I tried to make a habit of doing a hard brake every couple weeks just to make sure the brakes got some use when I had a Volt. It’s probably a good habit on any PHEV or EV.
I just finished up replacing the rotors and pads. Greased those calipers up good while I was in there! Actually, they weren’t too bad, but the thin-strip of wear surrounded by rust on the rotors show I definitely need to do a few more hard-brakes from time to time.
My main tools are all older, think 80s-90s
good craftsman that an older gentleman gave me when his wife forbade him from ever working on his airplane again. I have a tremendous amount of harbor freight tools that I use on a more disposable basis. This means I have no qualms about loaning them out or modifying them for special purposes. While not quite as beautifully made or nice to use they work quite well. Surprisingly I don’t break all that many harbor freight wrenches anymore, their quality has improved substantially in the 10 or so years I have been using them.
I dont loan tools usually. However my new neighbor dad, mom, 4 kids under 4 came out the other day to a flat tire. I was working in the garage and noticed him helpless with a crappy jack and under inflated spare failing to even try to loosen lugnuts before attempting to jack it up.
Called him over asked if he knew what he was doing. Not really he said. So okay grab this multilugnut wrench. Plugged in my compressor. Took my nice jack over. Showed him how to loosen and then jack up. Inflated his spare. Put on the spare with a warning to keep an eye on it because might have a leak. Then put everything away all in 10 minutes. I think it would be what DT would want me to do.
I use Harbor Freight tools for that, typically wrenches and various types of pliers (including the Vise-Grip clones).
If I’m at an event and you need a 14mm wrench, here you go – use it in good health. If you need it to get home, bon voyage – it’s yours now. 🙂
The HF stuff is inexpensive and generally good in a pinch. The metric wrench sets can be (IIRC) $5.99 on sale, which is cheap enough not to worry about getting them back.
Now for the family members who are learning, I would buy Craftsman sets as gifts, but haven’t done that since the collapse of Sears and the transfer of the brand to Lowes and wherever.
“Harbor Freight where you want to buy tools you will only use once”
Should be their slogan.
I’ll admit it – I have tons of Stanley tools I use all the time myself. As nice as Snap-On or Craftsman, no, but good enough for a non-hard-core amateur like me? You bet.
They used to be readily available at places like Walmart at good prices, so over the years, I’d amassed a decent collection that makes me happy and covers most of what I need. They also offer a lifetime warranty, but it’s not very well-known.
That said, I do have some (even) cheaper Stanley tools that function as secondary/junk draw/loaner stuff.
Garage sales are great places to buy good tools as our fathers generation bought quality and quantity. For awhile i would buy broken craftsman tools and return them for new ones.
This. After Craftsman started degrading in quality in the late 90s, I started hitting yard sales. Still have & use the 1/2”, 3/8”, & 1/4” round-handle ratchets I bought for $15 from the grandson of the original owner. I quit using Sears after they no longer wanted to sell me a rebuild kit for them: they wanted to trade me for a new one-and I had already broken a new one I bought from them. HF were a joke 25 years ago, but I still have & use a set of their 1/2” sockets from a decade ago. Even broke a y2k-era Craftsman breaker bar with one. The socket is still in use.
it does help that I used to work on rusty junk and therefore learned to buy 6-point sockets
I don’t have a set of cheap tools, but that’s genius! I also don’t loan tools for that reason. If someone wants to come over with their object to fix, they can use my tools with my supervision.