Tagged With: Tools

Tap and Die

Tap and Die

Tap and Die

When I demonstrated simple machines to the second graders a week or so ago, they asked how screws are made. So, I got out my tap and die set to show them how threads can be cut, both on the outside of a screw or bolt and on the inside of a hole to receive it.

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Old Wrench

Old Wrench

Old Wrench

I had hoped to get pictures outside today but it didn’t happen. I was moving a few things in the basement this evening and I noticed this old wrench and thought it might be an interesting thing for a photograph. Well, maybe not all that interesting but that’s all I have, so that’s all you get. This was one of the tools I got when we cleaned out my grandfather’s work shop back in the early 1980s. I don’t know how old it is, but it’s almost certainly older than I am, anyway. I see similar items listed on web sites specializing in antiques calling this an antique. That may be stretching things a bit, but it’s oldish, anyway.

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Bolt Cutters

Bolt Cutters

Bolt Cutters

I mentioned that Iris and Seth bought a house. There is a shed in the back yard and the sellers left it empty and with the doors unfastened, but with a locked padlock on the door. It would have been nice for them to take the lock off or leave a key for it, but perhaps they had lost the key and couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. I took my bolt cutter and chopped it off this week and thought I’d post a photo of this handy tool. It’s the sort of thing you only need once in a while but it sure is handy when that time comes. This pair has seen some heavy use and the cutters are nicked pretty badly but when cutting things like padlocks (and bolts, of course), pretty isn’t generally a consideration. It came from my grandfather’s and I worked for him two summers when I was in high school. We did the bulk of the maintenance of the small rental properties he ran in his retirement. I learned a lot those two summers and as much as I didn’t enjoy crawling under a house in the mud to find a plumbing leak, I learned a lot that’s been useful to me in later life.

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