General On the Tools Trade Handyman Talk

[drake83]

What's interesting is that a lot of his manual tools would be over 60 years old and still better than a lot you'd buy today. I've got an old drill brace of his that he was given as a present when he left a farm he was managing so would be over seventy years old.

We had a builder doing some work at our place when the electrician wanted the power off and so the builder asked if I had a battery drill powerful enough to put a 15mm dia hole through a 100mm wide beam as his battery drill had run out of juice. He laughed when I produced dad's old drill brace with a 5/8's bit..... by time he'd finished with it, he wanted to buy it from me.

I've got a relatively new Stanley crosscut saw that needs sharpening every couple of years.... and dad's old Disston and Son's saw is nearly 70 years old and never needs sharpening.

Can always tell when there has been a death in the family when trade specific tools end up on trade me or market place well under priced.
Another spot is the old community markets you ask the people what the tool does and they don't know what it does so you can get them cheap there too.

 

[drake83]

There is a reason farmers don't throw things out. My wife is a shocker, she likes things tidy and is always throwing my stuff out. That is why she is banned from my office.
As for the tool shed my son is more like me.
Farmers like having spares, there is a very good reason for that.
My tractor tool kit was massive.
It is difficult getting a mechanic to come out to the back paddock, especially in a hurry.
Not just farmers either

I've done some work on a house movers yard outside of whanganui and that family has never sold a thing they have all their original trucks and utes still. Goldmine if your hunting for classics

 

[drake83]

If its got a plug it needs to be tagged. Even just for a small mostly handtool outfit like my gang of 3 used to cost around $500 just to get onsite. The bigger outfit I work casually for now spend $12000 every 6 moths to have everything they own tested.

Thats just the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to large commercial operations that are run properly in terms of safety regulations.

Then you have full PPE so not just the standard hard hat, glasses, ear protection and gloves but also pants, long sleeve shirt, full face visor and respiratory gear for grinding, fence with scaf net for flying debris, fence or barricade for overhead work, mandatory toolbox every morning, caution tape, ... the list seems endless. Thats not counting the site safe passes, confined space pass, harness pass, respiratory/gas mask test, gas monitor pass, confined space pass, basic first aid standard unit, advanced first aid standard unit, hole watch pass, hot work permits for anything that produces a spark, confine space permits, air quality controls, JSA permits, noise permits, emergency evacuation procedures, traffic control permits/licence... another endless list.

That not even counting council regulations and permits. If I work under the drip line of a protected tree I sometimes have to hire an aborist to sit there for the entirety of the job just to make sure we dont hurt a leaf on it!

There are some jobs where we sit in the smoko shed for a whole week playing cards on full pay waiting for lock out systems and permits so we can start work.

I appreciate the safety awareness and all that but sometimes the amount of red tape and egg shells you have to navigate are more of a danger than the actual dangers they are trying to protect you from...

Well wholly shit we just need a site safe and we are free to go with tagged tools.
Our best chances on site is usually nights so no other trades are in our way.
What trade are you in?

 

[mt.wellington]

Well wholly shit we just need a site safe and we are free to go with tagged tools.
Our best chances on site is usually nights so no other trades are in our way.
What trade are you in?

Currently refractory but was a stonemason for almost 20 years. Thats refractory on an industrial scale so kilns, furnaces, multi hearths etc but can also do small scale pizza ovens too. Work about one month on, one month off so have a lot of free time...

 

[drake83]

Currently refractory but was a stonemason for almost 20 years. Thats refractory on an industrial scale so kilns, furnaces, multi hearths etc but can also do small scale pizza ovens too. Work about one month on, one month off so have a lot of free time...

I've watched some stone masons on site before doing walls was cool to watch, and looked like heavy hardwork.
One month on one month off is great. I thought it was great doing 4 days a week but that can't happen this year I'll take all the work I can get this year.

 

[snake77]

Back in the day working with my father I'd often call him Tim the Tool Man Taylor.

Putting up the metal fence for example was a day of putting parts together undoing and redoing as he now knows how it goes. Only to repeat the process a few more times. You can bet that didn't go down too well with a teenager. Then we'd get up the next day and he'd say that he figured it out overnight. The fence still ended up cooked.

I came home from school once to find the largest tree in our front year had gone through the fence due to a miscommunication between my parents.

We rebuilt the deck as it was falling apart. Pretty sure we rebuilt it worse than it was before. Mind you that was in the 90s and it's kind of still standing now. Should of been the first thing the new owners fixed. We had go part way through the decking and had to re do it a few times as my mother changed her mind which way up she wanted the decking timber.

Before he retired he knocked down the front retaining wall and the structure for the letterbox. We had the letter box at one point about a foot off the ground. Postman would have to get off their bike and kneel down. I was amazed after he retired he did a decent job fixing. The previous 20 years he must of rushed everything so he could go fishing.

This is why I never went into a trade. I never got to use the tools. Just hold the nails or hold things in place around the chaos.

He did build me two neat forts when I was a kid. Looking back now with the stories above I probably took my like in my hands with the swing on the second one.

This is the total opposite to his brother who rebuilt the front of his house, built his own wine cellar, setup a stair system and a room in the roof of his garage in the retirement village.

 

[snake77]

This is probably the best thread to discuss the state of New Zealand houses or our number 8 wire attitude. As it seems like owning a house in this country is often a case of cursing the useless prick before you that didn't fix something properly or something that wasn't done right when the house was built in the 60's or 70's.

Our first house had a square patch in the concrete by the front door. It was where one of the drains ran through the property. We were getting issues with the drain getting blocked up. We figured it had been done before due to the patched up bit. Got told no that would of been from when the spa bath was put in. Then found out the drain didn't have the cap piece on it. So it had likely been like that for 20-40 years.

Our second house we found the backyard would get pretty boggy during winter. Down the back there is a park which attracted us to the place due to having young kids. We soon found out getting across in winter wasn't too pleasant so it's mainly just the land. We got a new garage built and when the guy came to build the drain for it and connect to the main one that it also wasn't capped properly. I thanked him and heading off to work. I cam home to find that he filled up the yard with dirt and big chunks of concrete. So my summer was spent digging that out to relay the soil and plant grass. The backyard is a bit better. Well except when we get weather like we have been getting recently.

 

[mt.wellington]

You know the cool thing now. You can learn just about anything home improvement wise to do a decent enough job of yourself on Youtube. Search how to make a pizza oven and I promise you there are some amazing tutorials that will teach you how to make a good go at it with a bit of trial and error. I wouldn't go and try to make one in a restaurant after that but your backyard one will be fine...

 

[wizards rage]

Just a ridiculous ass covering and money gathering exercise. I just go to an electrical store and buy the colourcoded tags. Fill them out myself and Bobs your trans neutral non binary uncle. If your lead is frayed or loose at the plugs then throw the whole thing out. Cost $40 for a decent trade standard one which is almost as much as it costs to get tests to tell you its shit...

As an electrician testing and tagging is a bit of a wrought. 99.99% of equipment you can tell it will pass or fail just by looking at it. The testing doesn’t even check the gear works, just that it’s not dangerous…

Also to clarify, testing and tagging is not mandatory but is a ‘means of compliance’. That’s why appliances are sold without them - because it’s not mandatory. It’s become pretty standardised as a money making exercise though with many businesses/ sites requiring it as their H & S policies.

And there is no qualification needed to tag. Most tagging companies are not electricians. You just have to be ‘competent person’ to perform the check which you can do on a one day course. For most decent sized companies it is worth someone spending the day learning and signing off all the companies own gear.

 

[wizards rage]

Can always tell when there has been a death in the family when trade specific tools end up on trade me or market place well under priced.

5 finger discounted…

I never buy second hand gear.

 

[mt.wellington]

As an electrician testing and tagging is a bit of a wrought. 99.99% of equipment you can tell it will pass or fail just by looking at it. The testing doesn’t even check the gear works, just that it’s not dangerous…

Also to clarify, testing and tagging is not mandatory but is a ‘means of compliance’. That’s why appliances are sold without them - because it’s not mandatory. It’s become pretty standardised as a money making exercise though with many businesses/ sites requiring it as their H & S policies.

And there is no qualification needed to tag. Most tagging companies are not electricians. You just have to be ‘competent person’ to perform the check which you can do on a one day course. For most decent sized companies it is worth someone spending the day learning and signing off all the companies own gear.

Definitely a rort.

Compulsory as opposed to mandatory but the reality is just the same. You have the choice to comply or not get paid and blacklisted.

Also the day course is the qualification and that certification is mandatory...

 

[Kestrel84]

My father was a carpenter//builder/jack-of-all-trades. A real inquisitive mind and a can-do attitude where he would just throw himself into everything and figure it out. Earnt money his whole life that way. I grew up seeing him design, construct and fix things. Even helped him out for petty cash when I was in my teens.

He did a lot more than that though, he was a writer and a poet, an entrepreneur even. His sisters liked to consider him a true renaissance man. It felt like both he and they took offence to any simplification of his career down to just that of a 'carpenter'.

He passed away a couple of years ago after struggling for a few years with poor health. My brother had flown back from the US and we were helping sort through his literal container loads of stuff, digging our way through everything to try and understand what needed to happen with it all and what we wanted to take with us. We had the unfortunate experience of going through this process with some of my aunties present, and had constant badgering about maybe taking his watch, or some artwork he got from Paris, or books by favourite authors of his, etc etc.

"These would be a reflection of who he was" is what they were trying to say to me. My brother took some books, I believe, and some other items just to be polite and inoffensive. I knew exactly what I wanted. I took his tool belt, his hammer, his level, measuring tape, square-measure, and crow bar. Some of these were the exact same ones I had seen him use when I was a boy, and the tool belt at least was something used by him in the 60s even when he met my mother in the UK.

I've never felt more confident in a decision than my selection of those items in the face of the almost disdain from my extended family. I continue to use those items regularly to this day and they help motivate me to learn and attempt things around the house where I previously wouldn't. The tools aren't actually specifically important, but I hope that my son will see and learn off the can-do attitude and one day appreciate or learn something from it himself.

 

[wizards rage]

Definitely a rort.

Compulsory as opposed to mandatory but the reality is just the same. You have the choice to comply or not get paid and blacklisted.

Also the day course is the qualification and that certification is mandatory...

Testing isn’t compulsory - but it’s compulsory to be electrically safe at all times. Tagging is a way towards this. It becomes mandatory when the business makes it mandatory on their site as a means to comply.

If an appliance is tagged it’s still not necessarily compliant as 5 minutes after testing you might accidentally cut the lead - again only a means of compliance.

Certification isn’t even mandatory, you just need to understand the standard involved (quote from work safe). You don’t even need the 1 day course - I’ve shown people how to test safely but if it all goes wrong you would want that day course! Technically if you’re on to it there was nothing wrong with you tagging your own tools. However only a licensed person can repair an appliance.

Testing and tagging electrical appliances

Testing and tagging electrical appliances is one useful way to check electrical equipment is safe.

www.worksafe.govt.nz

 

[Rick O'Shay]

If its got a plug it needs to be tagged. Even just for a small mostly handtool outfit like my gang of 3 used to cost around $500 just to get onsite. The bigger outfit I work casually for now spend $12000 every 6 moths to have everything they own tested.

Thats just the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to large commercial operations that are run properly in terms of safety regulations.

Then you have full PPE so not just the standard hard hat, glasses, ear protection and gloves but also pants, long sleeve shirt, full face visor and respiratory gear for grinding, fence with scaf net for flying debris, fence or barricade for overhead work, mandatory toolbox every morning, caution tape, ... the list seems endless. Thats not counting the site safe passes, confined space pass, harness pass, respiratory/gas mask test, gas monitor pass, confined space pass, basic first aid standard unit, advanced first aid standard unit, hole watch pass, hot work permits for anything that produces a spark, confine space permits, air quality controls, JSA permits, noise permits, emergency evacuation procedures, traffic control permits/licence... another endless list.

That not even counting council regulations and permits. If I work under the drip line of a protected tree I sometimes have to hire an aborist to sit there for the entirety of the job just to make sure we dont hurt a leaf on it!

There are some jobs where we sit in the smoko shed for a whole week playing cards on full pay waiting for lock out systems and permits so we can start work.

I appreciate the safety awareness and all that but sometimes the amount of red tape and egg shells you have to navigate are more of a danger than the actual dangers they are trying to protect you from...

Very true and a good point about the regs being more of a danger. I've noticed over the years a downgrade in skills and initiative in workers (some exceptions) to the point they can't do a thing without the JSA instructing the steps. In my old industry the construction file, JSA and accompanying permits would sometimes be 50 pages and it gets to the stage where the crew skim through and maybe miss the important parts. From memory, our offshore permits had around 6 signoffs from different people, all with their own interpretation of the JSA.

No wonder productivity is a problem these days.

 

[mt.wellington]

Testing isn’t compulsory - but it’s compulsory to be electrically safe at all times. Tagging is a way towards this. It becomes mandatory when the business makes it mandatory on their site as a means to comply.

If an appliance is tagged it’s still not necessarily compliant as 5 minutes after testing you might accidentally cut the lead - again only a means of compliance.

Certification isn’t even mandatory, you just need to understand the standard involved (quote from work safe). You don’t even need the 1 day course - I’ve shown people how to test safely but if it all goes wrong you would want that day course! Technically if you’re on to it there was nothing wrong with you tagging your own tools. However only a licensed person can repair an appliance.

Testing and tagging electrical appliances

Testing and tagging electrical appliances is one useful way to check electrical equipment is safe.

www.worksafe.govt.nz

Thanks. Makes me feel a lot better about buying my own tags and forging the details lol.

I know a couple people who have gone through the course and they both say it is impossible to fail. Buying the testing gun was the only thing they needed to do. Sounds like even that might be unnecessary...

Very true and a good point about the regs being more of a danger. I've noticed over the years a downgrade in skills and initiative in workers (some exceptions) to the point they can't do a thing without the JSA instructing the steps. In my old industry the construction file, JSA and accompanying permits would sometimes be 50 pages and it gets to the stage where the crew skim through and maybe miss the important parts. From memory, our offshore permits had around 6 signoffs from different people, all with their own interpretation of the JSA.

No wonder productivity is a problem these days.

And no wonder jobs cost so much. Some shuts I go on cost around a million a day. Amazing when the whole workforce of 100-200 people are all on standby in smoko huts waiting for JSAs for a week or two. Imagine a company spending $14 million and not a tool has been picked up lol. I still get paid but at the end of the day that cost is passed on to all of us...

 

[Rick O'Shay]

Currently refractory but was a stonemason for almost 20 years. Thats refractory on an industrial scale so kilns, furnaces, multi hearths etc but can also do small scale pizza ovens too. Work about one month on, one month off so have a lot of free time...

Contract Resources Ltd?

 

[mt.wellington]

Contract Resources Ltd?

Close. I work alongside CR on most big shuts. Last time was at Kapuni across the road from the CO2 site thats been on the news a lot lately...