Saturday, December 12, 2009

top five most useful tools in home renovation

In a moment of panic the other day, I threw one of my most useful tools on the ground, where it stayed for two or three more days until Reg found it (thanks, man).  The usefulness of this one tool (and the difficulty of replacing it) got me thinking about tools in general, which ones I use more than others, and how I never would have predicted some of them.  So I created a top-five list.  This is based on a number of factors, including how much time they actually spend in my hands and how hard it would be to go without them.  I am leaving obvious things off the list, like cordless drills, paintbrushes, and utility knives, because its no surprise how useful these are. 

#5 Putty knives!  Putty knives do sooooo much more than putty!  It pays to have several of them, and have some that are sharpened, some that are flexible and some that are stiff.  Cleaning junk out of seams, and corners, removing "boogers" from fresh paint, scraping old paint, on and on and on.  Such a simple tool, but one you could hardly live without. Part of our putty knife collection:




#4 The Bucket Boss.  Not that big of a surprise here.  Great for toting tools from room to room, keeping things organized and easy to reach:




#3 Dremel Multi-Max.  This is the only power tool on the list.  The Dremel Multi-max is what is known as an oscillatory tool.  It has a motor that drives a blade back and forth very fast.  If you've ever had a cast removed from a badly damaged appendage by a saw that seemed like it would cut your skin but didn't, you have an idea of how this works.  I was first introduced to these tools at the HMC boatshop, where we had a Fein multi-master.  These are the original oscillatory tools and are really sweet- and expensive!  It turns out that Fein's patent has run out and there are a lot of new competitors on the market (hence dremel's version at 1/3 the cost).  Anyway, we originally bought this thing to remove some crappy-looking wall treatment, and it has gone on to serve in an amazing variety of functions.  Scraping and plunge-cutting are its two biggest assets.




#2  Scraper and mill file.  Okay, technically two tools, but they go together.  I've already written about scrapers and scraping wood, so I won't go into it again.  But basically, I was very cautious about removing material from our old and abused wood floors with power-sanders and found that a really sharp scraper did a great job, without sander marks!  The mill file has got to be right there to keep the thing sharp or it will be useless in two minutes flat.





#1 An old, dull Stanley carpenter's chisel. (this is the tool that I threw on the ground that fateful day)  I bought this years ago at a garage sale.  It was a cheap chisel to begin with, but I thought it would be nice to have a "beater" to save nicer chisels from the things you are tempted to do with chisels that you really shouldn't do, like scrape paint and rough and tumble stuff like that.  Boy was this a wise investment.  So, you're probably thinking, that's not hard to replace.  But it is, and the reason:  chisels come pre-packaged in a fairly sharp state.  You'd have to be pretty creative to figure out how to dull it.  And you can't just pick up and go garage sale hunting in the middle of a project!  So the old, dull carpenter's chisel, because: I use it almost every day for something new, and because when I really had to, I couldn't replace it in a hurry. (thanks again, Reg!).


The chisel in action, scraping many layers of old paint out of the tight corners of a window frame:



HONORABLE MENTION: Halogen Worklight.  These things are invaluable since most interior lighting isn't bright enough to illuminate a wall you are painting so that you see the spots you missed, or the floor while you are doing fine detail work.  And for some reason, Daisy really loves sitting right in front of them!



Daisy says "Bye, and thanks for reading our blog!!"