Definition of tools - oldie but a goodie

TOOLS AS EXPLAINED BY AN ENGINEER

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted vertical stabilizer which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench at the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, 'Oh ****'

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.


SKILL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race.

TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminium sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50-cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.

UTILITY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as leather seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use.

DAMMIT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling.
'DAMMIT' at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.

Now there has to be some windsurf ones:


Footstrap: an item for restraining the foot in one direction, whilst the board violently turns in another

Monofilm: a sail construction material specifically designed to attract your head like a magnet in catapaults, thus slowing your descent as it 'gives' just enough to split

Oh dear, I think I'll just leave this one alone

Tendon / Boge joint: an extremely tough polymer that can detect and store information relating to your distance from shore. After a preset time, (usually 12 months) it breaks when it is the furthest from shore it has ever been.

Tug Cleat - a device for gripping downhaul line under immense tension in order to project an entire rig, extension first, into your family jewels.

Waist Harness- device originally developed in 17th century to give hourglass figure to ladies by displacing lower rib-cage. Now used by masculine types to promote same effect.

Vent plug: small addition to a board purely designed to test one's memory.

Anemometer: A hugely useful device for measuring wind speed that spends 99% of its life sitting in your glovebox getting bored.

BOOM - something you hang on to even when you are underwater and drowning or something you are holding when you hear a "BOOM" followed by splat!