Oh, arse.

I've copied a couple of relevant pages James Bond style (the book is
pretty hefty and won't fit on my scanner) - unfortunately it doesn't
really help except to say this is by the side of the road fix if you have
a spare spring.

http://www.sweller.co.uk/docs/guzzologypagesv11.zip [15MB]

The book Guzziology is *very* useful. I got mine direct from the author
Dave Richardson - he seemed a nice fellow.

He owns Moto International, Seattle - drop them an email. the book is
now version 7.
http://www.motointernational.com/main.htm

 

Ta for that - from those pages, it looks like a book worth having.

 

I've been trucking boxes of stuff around for years (bearing in mind
I've lived in seven different houses in the last nine years (nods to
Frag's loft and garage that hung on to stuff for a while)) and it never
seems to decrease despite occasional fits of enthusiasm. The trouble
is that it's like one of those games wheere you slide the tiles around
- you have to make space somewhere to slide the next one in ... and
I've never had that one free space, as all the junk expands to fill it.

Sitting down fettling is to be recommended. I use the traditional beer
crate myself, Beav has a funky wheeled affair and I'll build myself a
piano stool-alike at some point, that'll be adjustable for height, with
tool trays and a cup holder built in.

I'm currently underway with a mobile, foldaway wheeled base and upright
for said hoist. My furniture moving exploits started when I was a bit
older than your lad, about ten, I guess. The folks had been decorating
the living room and all the furniture was in a huddle in the middle of
the room, the carpet rolled up and all away from the walls. I came
down early and decided to be helpful, so I wobbled everything over to
one side and unrolled half the carpet.

It got a bit difficult, mioving stuff over the roll of carpet in the
middle of the room, onto the fitted section. I clearly recall the
absolute horror as the TV (a bit bigger than 14" and Dad's pride and
joy, 'cos colour sets hadn't been around long) slid off its horrible
castor-wheeled trolley and hit the (carpeted, fortunately) floor on one
corner. I have no idea how I managed to lift it back up and onto the
trolley, it must have been my first ever Red Mist moment.

By the time the folks came down, order had been restored to the living
room and I'd managed to get the channel selection button that had
wedged in, to pop out. A little spray of Pledge and the scuffs to the
wood-effect Ferguson case disappeared, too. I never confessed and it
went on to provide service for another decade. Phew!

I'll confess to being unable to resist the taps and dies (as spares, if
nothing else) and the die handle looks comfortable - and the swivel
haed ratchet may just come in handy: if it does a couple of jobs, it'll
owe me nothing. I didn't need a drill stand as I bought their pikey
pillar drill last time round, which has performed remarkably well, now
I've soldered their rubbish wiring attempts.

Neither, however, could I resist the always-useful rotating box of
screwdriver bits with quick-change adaptor (despite having hundreds of
bits, they do wear out), nor the right-angle drill adaptor jobbie, the
steel box of (prolly crap) HSS drills and a few other bits that might
come in handy and a stock is always useful

"Step 1, remove the mirrors." This exposes the fasteners for the upper
fairing and it goes on - and on - from there. By the time all the
bodywork is on the floor and the tail light is hanging by its wires,
you should be able to wiggle the battery out without removing the
engine from the frame. Yeah.

All my sockets smell faintly of Duck Oil and the spanners are gleaming
in their new nests, having finally come back out of the cantilever
toolbox where they emigrated to a couple of years ago. Still need
another rollcab, though.

 

I really, really need to clean my tools properly and buy a decent
cabinet for them. At the moment they live mostly in an overloaded
toolbox that won't close and thus barks my shins when I'm fumbling in
the dark for that light switch, and an assortment of trays and wobbly
piles of boxes on the workbench.

 

All I can suggest (to the anticipated horror of the Snap-On devotees)
is that you keep an eye on the post-Christmas sales at the likes of
Halfords and Machine Mart. They do all sorts of cabs (hah!) at far
more sensible prices and their quality is quite acceptable, with one
caveat: make sure the drawers are on roller bearings. Friction slides
are 'orrible things and their presence will save you mebbe 3% on the
price, but cost you all sorts of misery as the thing grates open again.

 

My tools sit in various assorted boxes and shelves, in various states
of cleanliness. But when I need them they all just come to hand and do
the job required.

All this snap-on bollock is, well, just that, IMO.

 

The Machine Mart boxes are much better quality than the similarly
priced Halfords ones.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

For those of us who use our tools on an almost daily basis, good
quality kit is essential, and a bit of pride in storing and caring for
them goes a long long way.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

What he said. My Heavy Duty one from MM was excellent.

After that was nicked, it was replaced with a Draper Expert one. Not
nearly as good.

 

I've had my tools in lots of different boxes, well, forever. Being able
to put nearly[1] all of them in one place is a revelation. They're not
exactly sorted in their drawers Lozzo stylee just yet, but, I can find
what I want so much quicker than before.

[1]I just may have to get one of those side cab things to put the bigger
power tools in.

 

I used to have a nice drawer cabinet, but it was stolen. It was always
a hassle trying to sort tools anyway. Now I have a pegboard with hooks
above the workbench and a big sliding tray below (which the previous
owner was nice enough to install) that holds most of the power tools.

 

I've got one of the Halfords industrial range ones (black rather than
red) in my van and it's a lot better than the old MM one I had before
it. The usual test of the drawer catches is to not bother to lock the
box and see if the drawers fly open when you go round corners and
these ones never do.

 

I bought a box of them a few years ago and found them to be quite good.

 

You'll note I put the words 'similarly priced' in my post. Some of the
higher end Halfords stuff is good, but the MM stuff is better pound for
pound.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

I was after the box, TBH. I've got several many HSS drills, which live
in large cases along with all the rest of the sets of stuff they came
with. It can be a PITA lumping a hefty plastic case down to a) find
its the wrong fucking case (again) and b) wiggling out the <3mm drills
from the earnest embrace of the plastic clips moulded into the case.

A hinged tin box that folds the bits out into a finger-picking zone
will be much easier to use and will hopefully avoid the habitual
bending/snapping/lacerating fingertips that I currently risk.

If the drills themselves are good and maintain their sharpness then
they'll stay in the box and I'll promote them to daily use. These days
I always drill steel slowly and with cutting fluid, which must extend
the bit life and sharpness and produces entertaining swarf as a bonus.

 

I bought the 'professional' halfords stuff. Had it for about 3 or 4
years. Everything still works. For 'amateur; home use I wouldn't spend
more. I have bought (about 15 years ago) the cheap Halfords stuff. It
is a bit shit but it's still in one piece and functional.

 

The roll cab I've got isn't from the professional range but it serves
it's purpose very well in that it keeps a fair chunk of my kit from
flying around the van.

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/..._productId_745201_langId_-1_categoryId_165667

At £229 they're pretty reasonably priced. If I needed one in the
garage I'd probably buy the same again.

 

That's also the main reason I bought them - I had drill boxes like that
yonks back and found them very handy/portable/convenient. The quality of
the Lidl drill bits came as a bonus. I wasn't expecting them to be
uber-quality, but they've acquitted themselves well.

Same here - my cutting fluid is the dog-of-all-work squirty bottle of
oil/diesel mix.