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 that freshly painted

airplane part you were drying.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the

workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and

hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say,

"Ouch...."

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes

until you die of old age.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.

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.

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 you want the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and

motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2

socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after

you have installed your new disk brake pads, trapping the jack handle firmly

under the bumper.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off

a hydraulic jack handle.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.

PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor 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 poop off your boot.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known

drill bit that snaps off in bolt holes you couldn't use anyway.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the tensile strength on everything

you forgot to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large pry bar that inexplicably has

an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The home 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; but can also be used,

as the name implies, to strip out 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 bolts

last over-tightened 58 years ago by someone at Ford, and neatly rounds off

their heads.

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 cut 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 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 contents

such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector

magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts.