Tools you wish you'd bought sooner...

[5harp3y]

Notreallymeeither said:

This Fiskars Weed Puller is amazing. I’ve got 1/2 acre lawn and it is v satisfying to wander around ripping out weeds. I pulled up enough weeds to fill three compost bags full. It is quickly replacing my DeWalt impact driver as my favourite tool.

The only downside to this tool is you realise half your lawn is actually weed.....

https://www.diy.com/departments/fiskars-xact-weed-...

do these leave a hole in the lawn? ive been considering one

[Gareth79]

smack said:

EggsBenedict said:

I have a Clarke air riveter. Just the cheap one. It's brilliant.

You obvs need a compressor too, but that's what man maths is for...

Funny that, a conversation a days ago with a mate who works at BA Engineering :
Him - you probably want the ones we have at work when he need to use rivets on our planes, they will rivet anything...
Me - Probably yes, I bet they are overkill for what I need.
Him - Yeah, but you would want one of them, oh, and they expensive.... But they are air tools.
Me - But I don't have have a compressor....
Him - Well not yet!!!!!

I'll just add it to my "I'll have to buy list".

I recently built a large (7x3m) catio and the whole thing needed to be fully meshed around (16g 25x25mm square mesh). I already had a compressor (for a plasma cutter - great toy) so the natural option was to get a £17 Silverline air stapler. VERY good and saved an absolute ton of time vs. hammering them by hand! Only jammed once, and that was sort of my fault for not pressing the trigger fully.

[Notreallymeeither]

5harp3y said:

Notreallymeeither said:

This Fiskars Weed Puller is amazing. I’ve got 1/2 acre lawn and it is v satisfying to wander around ripping out weeds. I pulled up enough weeds to fill three compost bags full. It is quickly replacing my DeWalt impact driver as my favourite tool.

The only downside to this tool is you realise half your lawn is actually weed.....

https://www.diy.com/departments/fiskars-xact-weed-...

do these leave a hole in the lawn? ive been considering one

Yes - not massive but noticeable. Therefore, ideally you should fill the holes with a bit of topsoil and grass seed

[Taita]

Fugi silicon tool.

I'm a convert, no more cocked up jointing / wet finger smears.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cramer-Grouting-Silicone-...

[Schmeeky]

Two things of late have made a big difference for me. I'm a noob to woodwork, and am still building up a collection of tools, but the countersink bit I got was a revelation. Everything is so much neater!

T'other is the sliding mitre saw I got this morning - I can now get a decent 90^ cut on a plank with a nice finish! And it's so quick and easy to use, whereas my handheld circular saw scares the crap outta me!

[Watchman]

New 10" ATB blade for the table saw. I've accepted burnt cuts for too long.

[oblio]

oblio said:

Watchman said:

Has anyone tried a Tiger Wrench?

I like the idea that, instead of carrying a large number of spanners with me in my portable bicycle maintenance tool box, something like this might do the job.

At home, I have quality ratchet spanners which I always use when building bikes but the fact is, there are very few nuts and bolts on bikes these days so carrying the spanners in my portable toolkit seems like an unnecessary weight overhead if something like a Tiger Wrench would do the job.



Ultimately I think a Knipex Pliers Wrench is the best "single tool" solution, and I will buy one eventually, but they start at £50 whereas a Tiger Wrench can be had for a tenner.

ETA: I support cycle events from a following car. I don't have to carry a toolkit on a bike. But even so, my toolkit almost became too heavy to lift before I ruthlessly removed unecessary stuff recently.

Mine arrived but clearly wasn't the Tiger Wrench I ordered...it was a cheap copy.

I initiated a return with Ebay and the seller has now agreed to refund and I don't have to send it back either!

Epic fail first time out

I couldn't get a good fit on a 16mm nut in a tight space with enough room to actually tighten it. So used my small socket set with the ratchet handle instead.

Glad I didn't pay for it now...

[Watchman]

I guess that answers the "are they any good?" question then.

[ou sont les biscuits]

Notreallymeeither said:

5harp3y said:

Notreallymeeither said:

This Fiskars Weed Puller is amazing. I’ve got 1/2 acre lawn and it is v satisfying to wander around ripping out weeds. I pulled up enough weeds to fill three compost bags full. It is quickly replacing my DeWalt impact driver as my favourite tool.

The only downside to this tool is you realise half your lawn is actually weed.....

https://www.diy.com/departments/fiskars-xact-weed-...

do these leave a hole in the lawn? ive been considering one

Yes - not massive but noticeable. Therefore, ideally you should fill the holes with a bit of topsoil and grass seed

The hole left depends on the size of the weed you've taken out. Plus, I've found that the tool takes a chunk of grass with the weed. Anyway. I have a bit of the lawn where I scraped a load of moss out last year and didn't reseed afterwards. Come this year, it was all plantains. After I'd "Fiskared' it, it looked like it had been carpet bombed by a B52. As NRME said, you need a big bag of topsoil and grasseed to hand when using this tool.

[Watchman]

Something else popped up on one of my feeds - looks interesting but I think any requirement for this one is covered by the proven usefulness of the Knipex pliers wrench. Interesting to see a video of it, and there's an open ended version too:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000BYSMCS/ref=cm_sw_r...

[SiH]

Watchman said:

Something else popped up on one of my feeds - looks interesting but I think any requirement for this one is covered by the proven usefulness of the Knipex pliers wrench. Interesting to see a video of it, and there's an open ended version too:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000BYSMCS/ref=cm_sw_r...

Imagine my disappointment... The url had 'BOOBYS' in it and so I clicked on it thinking "yay, a picture of something I can put my d**k in" but then I realised when the link opened that I definitely wouldn't want to stick any appendage of mine into that!

[dickymint]

SiH said:

Watchman said:

Something else popped up on one of my feeds - looks interesting but I think any requirement for this one is covered by the proven usefulness of the Knipex pliers wrench. Interesting to see a video of it, and there's an open ended version too:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000BYSMCS/ref=cm_sw_r...

Imagine my disappointment... The url had 'BOOBYS' in it and so I clicked on it thinking "yay, a picture of something I can put my d**k in" but then I realised when the link opened that I definitely wouldn't want to stick any appendage of mine into that!

Go on ..... get your nuts tightenend

[Craikeybaby]

Notreallymeeither said:

This Fiskars Weed Puller is amazing. I’ve got 1/2 acre lawn and it is v satisfying to wander around ripping out weeds. I pulled up enough weeds to fill three compost bags full. It is quickly replacing my DeWalt impact driver as my favourite tool.

The only downside to this tool is you realise half your lawn is actually weed.....

https://www.diy.com/departments/fiskars-xact-weed-...

Chemicals are your friend for dealing with weeds on the lawn.

[paulrockliffe]

Craikeybaby said:

Notreallymeeither said:

This Fiskars Weed Puller is amazing. I’ve got 1/2 acre lawn and it is v satisfying to wander around ripping out weeds. I pulled up enough weeds to fill three compost bags full. It is quickly replacing my DeWalt impact driver as my favourite tool.

The only downside to this tool is you realise half your lawn is actually weed.....

https://www.diy.com/departments/fiskars-xact-weed-...

Chemicals are your friend for dealing with weeds on the lawn.

I was going to say the same. Weed and feed once the growing season starts to give the grass the upperhand. Leave the grass cut long to deny the weeds sunlight. Carry a spray bottle of Verdone Extra when you mow the lawn or wander round every so often and spot-spray them. Over seed it every so often.

[dickymint]

paulrockliffe said:

Craikeybaby said:

Notreallymeeither said:

This Fiskars Weed Puller is amazing. I’ve got 1/2 acre lawn and it is v satisfying to wander around ripping out weeds. I pulled up enough weeds to fill three compost bags full. It is quickly replacing my DeWalt impact driver as my favourite tool.

The only downside to this tool is you realise half your lawn is actually weed.....

https://www.diy.com/departments/fiskars-xact-weed-...

Chemicals are your friend for dealing with weeds on the lawn.

I was going to say the same. Weed and feed once the growing season starts to give the grass the upperhand. Leave the grass cut long to deny the weeds sunlight. Carry a spray bottle of Verdone Extra when you mow the lawn or wander round every so often and spot-spray them. Over seed it every so often.

As the thread is about tools here’s my weapon of choice for weeds.....

https://youtu.be/CnNZavDqWq4

[tim0409]

uncinqsix said:

I am going to say my 18V impact driver. I just bought it today and had a quick play with it, but I really, really could have done with it when I built my timber deck just over a year ago. I was using a big corded drill to drive some large screws in, and at the time was only dimly aware of the existence of impact drivers, and had no idea what they were capable of.

I suspect it'll come in very handy for the forthcoming kitchen build...

I've got to agree with that; I bought a Dewalt 18v impact driver last week and used it for the first time yesterday; I needed to drive some long screws/frame fixings through a cavity and into a predrilled brick wall and the torque was amazing. I've used the same fixings before with an ordinary drill/driver and it has always struggled.

[ianrb]

tim0409 said:

uncinqsix said:

I am going to say my 18V impact driver. I just bought it today and had a quick play with it, but I really, really could have done with it when I built my timber deck just over a year ago. I was using a big corded drill to drive some large screws in, and at the time was only dimly aware of the existence of impact drivers, and had no idea what they were capable of.

I suspect it'll come in very handy for the forthcoming kitchen build...

I've got to agree with that; I bought a Dewalt 18v impact driver last week and used it for the first time yesterday; I needed to drive some long screws/frame fixings through a cavity and into a predrilled brick wall and the torque was amazing. I've used the same fixings before with an ordinary drill/driver and it has always struggled.

I'll nominate my impact driver too. Mainly for its ability to remove otherwise immovable screws.

[Dave.]

I ripped up a load of decking a couple of years ago with mine, so easy.

It was actually an impact gun rather than a driver, and whoever laid the decking used (mainly) torques drive screws.

[Piersman2]

Today's new tool was this...



I spent about 5 hours last weekend doing the control arm on one side of the range rover because the balljoint wouldn't come apart which then meant the balljoint had to be replaced, etc... I'm sure we all understand how these jobs morph into a virtual full teardown and rebuild of the front hub.

So this week I went searching for a suitable balljoint splitter and found this set of 'Pitman Arm' splitters. The job this morning on the other side took exactly 1 hour from jacking car to lowering. The long tool in the kit was perfect for the restricted access on the balljoint , applied the pressure, tapped the arm, joint sprung apart, control arm replaced.

Best £30 quid I've spent in a long, long time! The kit was cheaper than the replacement balljoint I had to buy last weekend to replace the one I mullered, and now I have the kit to separate vitually any balljoint I'm likely to encounter.

Edited by Piersman2 on Saturday 8th June 14:16

[FlipFlopGriff]

Anyone got one of these:
https://www.saltdays.co.uk/collections/tools-home-...
Just saw an ad at the start of a YouTube video so investigated further.
FFG