Category: TØØLS

Some MTC nippers and Tsunoda pliers and their anti-counterfeiting stickers

  • June 13, 2024
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The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
An old tool haul from a relatively unexpected source. Left to right: MTC-3 125mm Micro Diagonal Nippers with Spring, Tsunoda 125mm RP-125SC-S Long Nose PLA-iers (Resin Jaw Pliers) w/ spring, Tsunoda 120mm MR-120 Long Nose Pliers, Tsunoda 115mm MP-115 Side Cutting Pliers, and MTC-4 115mm Micro Plastic Nippers: Flat Blade. Doing a bit of poking […]

New vs. used T130-2.0SK ATTEN soldering iron tip

  • June 8, 2024
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Bizznezz HerpDerp Is that the way it is? Mucking About With Things Sodding soldering The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
New-in-tube ATTEN T130-2.0SK soldering iron tip. This is a mostly-photos followup to , which concluded with some photos taken of a lightly used T130-2.0SK ATTEN soldering iron tip, described online as a knife tip. It gets inserted into a corded handle that, in turn, plugs into an ATTEN GT-series soldering station (such as the ATTEN […]

Odd (and oddly transient) software (mis)behavior:
Could not find file 'gifski.dll'.
ScreenToGif seemingly losing or forgetting gifski.dll

  • April 25, 2024
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HerpDerp Is that the way it is? Mucking About With Things Sodding soldering The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
Yesterday, I encountered an odd issue where ScreenToGif seemed unable to use its own bundled or downloaded-at-install-time version of gifski (gifski.dll).

Getting back into the soldering saddle (Indium SAC305 vs. Kester K100LD with and without extra flux)

  • April 22, 2024
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Mucking About With Things Sodding soldering Testing The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
One of a few snapshots I took of the same soldered pins, in between twiddling the focus height adjustment on a microscope. In this first of three images, the uppermost bits of the pins are the most in-focus features. This and the next two photos are taken of a small region on the prototype board […]

The state of being mildly chuffed about carbide box-cutter blades
AND a brief characterization of the recycling and safety iconography on their packaging

  • April 7, 2024
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HerpDerp Is that the way it is? The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
Yep, like it says in the title, I’m moderately chuffed (i.e. UK/Commonwealth lingo approximately corresponding to pleased or enthused) about having acquired some Stanley FATMAX tungsten carbide utility-knife aka box-cutter blades. Tungsten carbide box-cutter blades aren’t new. For all I know, you bown-bag your lunch five days a week and, Monday through Friday, you’re daintily […]

Just use a different-country ZAMAON (if feasible)

  • February 22, 2024
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The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS ZAMAON.C0M
We’re living through interesting times. A relatively minor subplot of the whole shebang is the sclerotization and crumbling-at-the-margins of Web 2.0 behemoths like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple (as well as their co-dependent, co-evolved big-tech-company symbiotes). At this point, the deterioration is undeniable and slightly painful to those who interacted much with the same […]

Heap of diminutive screwdrivers and nutdrivers [Vessel, PB Swiss, Athlet, Wera, and Wiha]

  • February 6, 2024
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Is that the way it is? The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS ZAMAON.C0M
You can’t really have too many of certain basic tools or or too much of certain consumables. In our household, it’s stuff like scissors and box cutters, tape (e.g. masking tape, strapping/packaging tape, and regular transparent Scotch Tape [UK equivalent: Sellotape]), rulers and measuring tapes, mechanical pencils and pens and markers, rubber bands, and zip […]

Metal confetti

  • January 25, 2024
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Swarf + Copeaux + Scobs The Diary of Lupin Pooter To see a world in a grain of sand TØØLS
Not very long ago, I mounted some metal fixtures, made of 304 stainless steel. The fixtures were intended to be affixed to their substrate using adhesive and each one came with a tube of glue. How robust an attachment the stuff would create, I cannot venture to guess, and I opted to use screws. An […]

New (to me) Amazon shenanigans: Requiring a business account AND a “healthcare license” to buy a screwdriver bit holder

  • January 18, 2024
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Is that the way it is? The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS ZAMAON.C0M
A few days back, I looked up the Amazon listing for a low-ESD precision screwdriver bit holder, the 1013 Kraftform Micro ESD Bitholding screwdriver and was nonplussed to see that Amazon was requiring a prospective purchaser to be both an Amazon business account holder and to have submitted healthcare industry credentials to one of Earth’s […]

Ratcheting wrenches for small fasteners (≤M4)

  • December 15, 2023
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HerpDerp Mucking About With Things The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
Today’s story begins a few weeks back. While tightening up some loose kitchen cabinet and drawer handles and the screws that attach drawer sides to drawer slides, I replaced several of the handles’ countersunk Phillips-head screws with hex-head bolts and washers. Phillips-head screws that were easy to reach straight-on with a screwdriver were snugged-up and […]

Micro-landscapes in cardboard after some pliers-cranking

  • December 13, 2023
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The Diary of Lupin Pooter To see a world in a grain of sand TØØLS
Cross-threading is a bummer. Through a momentary lapse in punctiliousness, I apparently managed to get a male-threaded pipe plug started into the female-threaded end of a piece of pipe at a tiny angle. Or, given that the plug didn’t seem to be canted at all, perhaps I failed to remove a particularly pernicious bit of […]

Mind the Swarf and Deburr the World

  • November 25, 2023
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HerpDerp Swarf + Copeaux + Scobs The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
Nearly all of my fasteners (nuts, bolts, washers, et al.) come direct from the ol’ Big Rock Candy Mountain [#], usually in heat-sealed clear plastic bags bearing adhesive-backed labels that have been run through thermal printers and have the same hand feel as thermal-printed receipts. The crisp black text on some, though not all, of […]