A general guide to shop tools.

[S204STi]

Found this over on the Cycleworld forums: http://forums.cycleworld.com/showthread.php?t=247917

Description of common tools.

DRILL PRESS:
A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat
metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you
in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting
the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set
in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL:
Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under
the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints
and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it
takes you to say, 'Oh s hoot,,,,,

SKILL SAW:
A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS:
Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation
of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER:
An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor
touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW:
One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board
principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked,
unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence
its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-
S:
Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt
heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used
to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH:
Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects
in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease
inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a
bearing race.

TABLE SAW:
A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood
projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK:
Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you
have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack
handle firmly under the bumper.

BAND SAW:
A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops
to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more
easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside
of the line instead of the outside edge.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST:
A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything
you forgot to disconnect.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER:
Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for
opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing
oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name
implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER:
A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert
common slotted screws into non-removable screws and
butchering your palms.

PRY BAR:
A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip
or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a
50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER:
A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays
is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive
parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.

UTILITY KNIFE:
Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard
cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly
well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids
in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks,
and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for
slicing work clothes, but only while in use.

Son of a GUN TOOL:
Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage
while yelling 'Son of a GUN" at the top of your lungs.
It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.

[omicron]

HACKSAW:
One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board
principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked,
unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence
its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

[Morris Minor]

ELECTRIC PLANER:
Used to simultaneously yank off work gloves and remove
chucks of flesh from your hands

[giant_mtb]

[Laconian]

The Son of a Gun TOOL sounds an awful lot like my Goddammer.

[Byteme]

I love that list.

Peter Egan created it originally for a column in Road and Track

Automotive: The Right Tool for the Job
These hilarious automotive tool definitions have been floating around on the Internet for some time now with no credit to the author. Sensitive to such things because people have plagiarized and out-and-out stolen stuff that I've written, I decided to track down the author. Much to my surprise and pleasure, it was none other than Peter Egan, one of my all-time favorite automotive writers. This piece originally appeared in Road & Track, April 1996 in Peter's column, Side Glances. The original column has a half-page introduction and some additional definitions, so I recommend you try to obtain that issue of R&T. It was also reprinted in the book, Side Glances, Vol. 2, 1992-1997 by Peter Egan, published by Brooklands Books Ltd., a wonderfuil collection of 66 or Peter's columns. 
Hammer: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

Mechanic's Knife: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing convertible tops or tonneau covers.

Electric Hand Drill: Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling rollbar mounting holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that goes to the rear axle.

Hacksaw: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

Vise-Grips: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

Oxyacetelene Torch: Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (What wife would think to look in there?) because you can never remember to buy lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Fort Campbell

Zippo Lighter: See oxyacetelene torch.

Whitworth Sockets: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for hiding six-month old Salems from the sort of person who would throw them away for no good reason.

Drill Press: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against the Rolling Stones poster over the bench grinder.

Wire Wheel: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar callouses in about the time it takes you to say, "Django Reinhardt".

Hydraulic Floor Jack: Used for lowering a Mustang to the ground after you have installed a set of Ford Motorsports lowered road springs, trappng the jack handle firmly under the front air dam.

Eight-Foot Long Douglas Fir 2X4: Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack.

Tweezers: A tool for removing wood splinters.

Phone: Tool for calling your neighbor Chris to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.

Snap-On Gasket Scraper: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.

E-Z Out Bolt and Stud Extractor: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.

Timing Light: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup on crankshaft pulleys.

Two-Ton Hydraulic Engine Hoist: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and hydraulic clutch lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.

Craftsman 1/2 x 16-inch Screwdriver: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.

Battery Electrolyte Tester: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.

Aviation Metal Snips: See Hacksaw.

Trouble Light: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin", which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

Phillips Screwdriver: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.

Air Compressor: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and rounds them off.

Grease Gun: A messy tool for checking to see if your zerk fittings are still plugged with rust.

[S204STi]

Thanks for giving us the original source John!

[Byteme]

Thanks for giving us the original source John!

Not a problem.  I love the trouble light definition. 

BTW if any of you have the kind of trouble light that takes incandescent bulbs just use a CFL instead.  The metal hood won't burn you and they outlast even rough service bulbs by a huge margin.

[S204STi]

Not a problem.  I love the trouble light definition. 

BTW if any of you have the kind of trouble light that takes incandescent bulbs just use a CFL instead.  The metal hood won't burn you and they outlast even rough service bulbs by a huge margin.

Yeah that and the grease gun were great.

Good call on the CFL too... most shops banned incandescent work lamps because they're a fire hazard anyway.

[AutobahnSHO]

hahaha
Those are GENIUS.

[hotrodalex]

Craftsman 1/2 x 16-inch Screwdriver: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.

Big Bertha comes in handy for many things - most having nothing to do with screws.

[VTEC_Inside]

I love the hack saw one...

[Byteme]

Good call on the CFL too... most shops banned incandescent work lamps because they're a fire hazard anyway.

I didn't know they were banned like that.  I just recall when I was changing coolant and the drop light fell and landed in the pan of drained antifreeze/water.  A loud pop as the bulb exploded and darkness as the breaker popped.

[MX793]

I didn't know they were banned like that.  I just recall when I was changing coolant and the drop light fell and landed in the pan of drained antifreeze/water.  A loud pop as the bulb exploded and darkness as the breaker popped.

Work on vehicles in the winter, or on rainy days, and you can pop bulbs at an alarming rate.  If the light is hanging near the ground, a drop of water or road slush lands in the pool of water on the shop floor that you're laying a fraction of an inch above on a creeper (and that the bottom of your pants are dipped in, soaking up water like a wick) and splashes up on the trouble light and you get a blinding flash and pieces of glass blown all over.  Thankfully, we had some fluorescent lamps around, but not at every station.

[S204STi]

I didn't know they were banned like that.  I just recall when I was changing coolant and the drop light fell and landed in the pan of drained antifreeze/water.  A loud pop as the bulb exploded and darkness as the breaker popped.

I guess it depends more on the state than the shop actually.  I remember in NH they were banned by the NHADA, I think they are here too.  But basically for the reason you mentioned, if you drop it the bulb will explode, and for a split second you have an exposed, very hot filament.  If you're working around fuel that day you're screwed.

[MX793]

I guess it depends more on the state than the shop actually.  I remember in NH they were banned by the NHADA, I think they are here too.  But basically for the reason you mentioned, if you drop it the bulb will explode, and for a split second you have an exposed, very hot filament.  If you're working around fuel that day you're screwed.

Woah, woah, woah.  The Live Free or Die state, the state that has no helmet or seatbelt laws, banned incandescent drop lights?!

[S204STi]

Woah, woah, woah.  The Live Free or Die state, the state that has no helmet or seatbelt laws, banned incandescent drop lights?!

lol I know, it's funny huh?

[Morris Minor]

I didn't know they were banned like that.  I just recall when I was changing coolant and the drop light fell and landed in the pan of drained antifreeze/water.  A loud pop as the bulb exploded and darkness as the breaker popped.

I recently bought a trouble light and stuck an incandescent bulb in without thinking.  About 60 seconds in close quarters with the thing heating my right ear as I struggled under the dashboard was enough.  I remembered I had plenty of CFL bulbs that were better for the job.

Another recent, and much-used, addition to my modest arsenal was one of those LED headlamps. Handy for working in unlit areas while keeping both hands free.