Category: TØØLS

Mind the Swarf and Deburr the World

  • November 25, 2023
Categories
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 […]

Double-volute-spring-havin’ wire rope cutters

  • August 18, 2023
Categories
HerpDerp Sassafras! Horsefeathers! Fiddlesticks! The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
Until I got some of the Knipex wire rope cutters shown below, I’d never seen a volute spring and didn’t know they existed. Guess I’ve led a somewhat sheltered life. The uncharacteristically brief Wikipedia article says they can frequently be found as a component of garden pruning shears and, though I have used pairs of […]

A product review TPTB never wanted to see the light of day

  • August 16, 2023
Categories
HerpDerp Is that the way it is? Sassafras! Horsefeathers! Fiddlesticks! The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS ZAMAON.C0M
My 3-star review of a set of nut drivers was unacceptable to Amazon.com. A little over a week ago, I submitted an Amazon.com review for the first time in, unless my memory fails me, years and years. The post-form-submission Review submitted – Thank you!” message advised me that processing the review could take several days […]

Cleaning and picking nits on (cheap-o, carbon-steel) Forstner bit assortment packaging

  • August 15, 2023
Categories
HerpDerp Mucking About With Things The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
I picked up a 2nd assortment of cheap-o carbon-steel Forstner drill bits a while ago. The bits in the new set have thinner shanks, so they’ll fit in my beater cordless drill’s smallish keyless chuck, which is just barely too small for the girthier Irwin-brand Forstner bits. Their shanks are also hexagonal and less slippy […]

Wiha SAE nut driver set handle color, size markings (Wiha 34390 7-Piece)

  • August 8, 2023
Categories
HerpDerp Is that the way it is? The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
Wiha’s 34390 7 PIECE SOFTFINISH HOLLOW SHAFT NUT DRIVER SET, as received by yours truly, as shown on Amazon.com, and as shown on Wihatools.com. Yesterday, a set of Wiha inch-size nut drivers (34390 7 PIECE SOFTFINISH HOLLOW SHAFT NUT DRIVERS) that I’d bought on Amazon.com arrived . They didn’t match the product photo (red-and-black instead […]

They’re fine, but why are there just four of them? + Holes through silicone rubber

  • August 3, 2023
Categories
Contrivances Mucking About With Things The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
Phillips head when they were introduced and began to see widespread adoption, not only because but certainly in part because they reduce the chances of your tool slip-sliding off the fastener head. Inner-hex aka hex socket drive or Torx-Plus ) is mostly what I have and use. More on the smaller tools advantage of smaller […]

Another pickled pepper grabber [OR] Inexpertly deburring the holes and rounding the corners of a stamped-steel teabag-squeezer-squisher

  • June 21, 2023
Categories
HerpDerp The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
Forks, butter knives, spoons, and tea spoons. Those are the implements that populate the open-top compartments in the plastic cutlery tray in one of the topmost drawers in our kitchen. Unless you’ve inherited or splashed out on a complete set of sterling silver Edwardian-era cutlery that includes highly-specialized implements like horseradish spoons, grape shears, sugar […]

First taste of grapefruit + useful citrus peeler (akshully peel-starter) tool

  • June 1, 2023
Categories
HerpDerp Mucking About With Things Personal Firsts The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
Until yesterday evening, I’d never consumed any fresh grapefruit. I had an inkling that it was less sweet than, say, an orange and recall reading or seeing or hearing that some people salted cut grapefruit to mask the bitterness (for a pop-sci explanation, check this October 2020 news article at science.org: Why adding salt makes […]

Here’s the obligatory thermal camera hand selfie

  • October 11, 2022
Categories
HerpDerp Mucking About With Things Personal Firsts Spitting Images The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
A human hand as viewed by a FLIR ONE Pro infrared camera dongle for Android phones. Temperature measurements with K-type thermocouple probes (to which I alluded in a previous entry: Hardwired auto-off sucks. Don’t build it into tools/instruments you design.) are useful, but you’ll only get readings at the precise locations where you place the […]

Hardwired auto-off sucks. Don’t build it into tools/instruments you design.

  • October 1, 2022
Categories
HerpDerp Mucking About With Things Testing TØØLS
Hardwiring an auto-off feature into a measurement tool or instrument, like a digital thermometer, is dumb and bad. Don’t do it. Providing it as an option is probably useful in a lot of cases, but turning a tool off after an arbitrarily chosen length of time is dumb and bad. Five-minute-and-change-long clip of two DJI […]

Some smaller HOPs

  • August 23, 2022
Categories
HerpDerp Mucking About With Things The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
I like my Wera 42-piece 8100 SA 2 Zyklop Speed Ratchet Set [1/4″ drive, metric] and it sees a fair bit of professional-amateur tinkerer usage, particularly the included 8784 A1 Zyklop bit adaptor, 1/4″ (05003529001), with hex-inner or Torx drive bits. Often, though, I’ve had to dig out a separate bit assortment to get a […]

Ugly, but it works: DIY Lightbulb-grabber because we couldn’t find one locally or get one shipped from the Mainland

  • March 10, 2022
Categories
Contrivances The Diary of Lupin Pooter TØØLS
Once upon a time, this was a water bottle. The light bulb in our storeroom blew back in February. The ceiling in that room is high enough that replacing the bulb from a stool isn’t do-able and the layout of our place (little doorways, narrow hall, and tight corners) makes maneuvering the fiberglass stepladder ladder […]