Cloudy with showers. Low around 35F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%..

Cloudy with showers. Low around 35F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.

I like tools. I haven’t used them nearly as much as the time I have spent acquiring them. In other words, I have lots of tools and many are used infrequently. My garage is chockablock full of toolage for sure. So much so that others have taken note.

My friend Paul, the home inspector, has inquired a couple of times concerning tools that very few people keep. He recently asked if I had an anvil. Yes, I do. I purchased the anvil from a friend on Hickory Ridge Road when he planned to move to Arizona. I bought all sorts of tools from him and nearly bought his Bridgeport milling lathe. The only thing that kept me from buying it was my lack of shop space at the time. Forget the fact that I have zero experience with such a machine, I wanted it. Like many other tool purchases, I figured that I could learn. With all of the information available on the old WWW, it shouldn’t be a problem.

I offered to lend my 100-pound anvil to Paul, but he is more interested in purchasing his own, and I’m not ready to give up that hunk of steel just yet. Last week, I received a communication from Paul inquiring about a rototiller. That I do not have, but I had one that attaches to a tractor P.T.O. Paul got the tractor running for me a year ago, and I sold it along with the tiller attachment. It was a rare item as it was a type of attachment that never really caught on. The P.T.O. ran at higher RPMs than current tractor attachments, so I had to sell the tractor and tiller together.

I’m not sure if Paul knows this, but I have two TIG welders, a MIG welder, and a plasma cutter. I’ve used them all. I had a small Craftsman compressor which allowed me to use the plasma cutter. Unfortunately, that little compressor could not keep up with the plasma cutter. Now I have an eighty-gallon permanent compressor with more than enough CFM’s to do any job. Between those items, my bead roller and anvil, I can now tackle some basic metalworking.

Lately, I have been on a bit of a tool buying spree. Yes, I have purchased some items at Harbor Freight, the somewhat controversial cheap tool purveyor. There are a few Harbor Freight tools that work well. I did not learn about those good tools by trial and error, I learned it from the interweb. There is quite an extensive array of Harbor Freight websites and YouTube channels dedicated to parsing the rugged tools while offering warnings about the junk. There is a lot of junk. As long as there are tool junkies out there who are willing to post their experiences with Harbor Freight tools, you have a fighting chance of getting something decent and usable there. I was in one of their fine establishments just last week where I found seven mil rubber gloves, a breaker bar, and a pry bar set that are all reputed to be good values for the money.

I was recently gifted an excellent Makita cordless impact gun. I have a few Makita power tools, including their superb electric chain saw. Because I have the lithium-ion battery charger set up, I am now shopping Makita first for cordless tools. I have a Makita want list that I will be checking off in the future as I can afford them.

So it is tool time around my place. I have many automotive maintenance chores and with building the occasional guitar, I am using my tools more frequently. The only problem with that is the old saw about never having enough tools. At the very least, I have been fortunate enough to put a good dent in the seemingly endless list of tool wants and needs.

The Morning Almanac with Arlo Mudgett is heard Monday through Saturday mornings on radio stations Oldies KOOL FM 106.7, 96.3, and 106.5 and over Peak-FM 101.9 and 100.7.

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