Saddest tool loss

[Cheddar George]

View attachment 85955

This is the one I'm talking about. Very slender. The hammering tip is probably 8mm in dia. The back is a claw for removing tacks.

Reason I ask what you used it for is just last week I had to fix someone's old couch and when I turned it around, I saw it was assembled with tacks. These have long been replaced by staples. Upholsterers used to use tack hammers and to watch them work was something else. They would put ten or so tacks in their mouth and then produce them flat side out so that the hammer could pick them up on its magnetic head. Each tack was driven in with a single swing. Swing spit swing spit swing spit.

The hammer you lost was a panel pin hammer, hence my surprise that you miss yours.

I have only ever seen a proper tack hammer used on one occasion by a bloke fitting a new billiard table cloth, he could use it to pick up individual tacks from a pile with one hand and bang in the tack while the other hand held the cloth.

It's not much of an anecdote .......... you had to be there to appreciate the artisan nature of the whole thing.

Ho hum.

 

[RWright]

When I was about four years old someone gave me a red handle screwdriver. It didn't take me long to lose it and I was devastated. I must have looked for it for days and never found it. Weird that I still remember that too.

 

[Bazzer]

Saddest loss for me was spanner given to me by my grandad. He used it on traction engines he maintained before tractors became commonplace on farms. Not one for delicate nuts and bolts in fact almost the length of a hammer, so very rarely used by me, but had pride of place in my toolbox.The box normally stayed in my garage, but one time I left the box in my car boot, some scrote broke into it and nicked my tools including the spanner.

 

[biggs682]

my worse tool loss was when i sold all my snap on tools and cabinets many moons ago as i had nowhere to store them at the time

 

[Yellow Saddle]

my worse tool loss was when i sold all my snap on tools and cabinets many moons ago as i had nowhere to store them at the time

I'm going through the same trauma right now. I let all my powertools go 'cause I don't have space to store it or work with it. Surely there is a support group for people like us? If not, there should be.

 

[MontyVeda]

View attachment 85955

This is the one I'm talking about. Very slender. The hammering tip is probably 8mm in dia. The back is a claw for removing tacks.

Reason I ask what you used it for is just last week I had to fix someone's old couch and when I turned it around, I saw it was assembled with tacks. These have long been replaced by staples. Upholsterers used to use tack hammers and to watch them work was something else. They would put ten or so tacks in their mouth and then produce them flat side out so that the hammer could pick them up on its magnetic head. Each tack was driven in with a single swing. Swing spit swing spit swing spit.

The hammer you lost was a panel pin hammer, hence my surprise that you miss yours.

i used to watch the upholsterer do exactly this when i was on my YTS at the local bus depot I was an apprentice fitter and got myself a small collection of Snap-On tools, they got nicked, possibly by my landlord a few years later And my granddad's hammer... nothing special, a wooden handled claw hammer but it was my granddads i liked using it. That disappeared after some workmen had been in so i guess they took it in error.

 

[ufkacbln]

View attachment 85957

Don't confuse tacks with panel pins. Two different animals.

I have yet to see any farming regulations for these animals

Are free range better than factory farmed ones?

 

[compo]

The best tool i have ever lost was a cotter pin press.I had let so many people borrow it i could'nt remember who had it.I had a look for one on ebay they were selling for 90/100 pounds

I got one of those. Haven't used it for years. At 90/100 pounds I suddenly find myself wondering if I will ever use it again?

 

[Spizz 23]

Each time I go through my toolbox, I am reminded of my dear old dad, ...how not to strangle a hammer and hold it correctly, ....how to use a saw using the whole length...and a vast array of spanners he acquired over the years from his workplace at Vauxhalls !

Mark

 

[surfdude]

all of them

 

[Pale Rider]

I had an old car tyre lever, about 14" long, 1' wide, which was very handy for various jobs where a bit of leverage was required.

It was on a shelf in my back yard, and last used for lifting a drain cover.

Someone stole it.

By process of elimination of who had been in the yard, it was the window cleaner.

 

[JtB]

I lost my tool a long time ago

Oh dear, even Bob the Builder can't fix it without a tool.

 

[pplpilot]

I lost a whole load of stuff in one sitting when my garage was robbed. My Moore and Wright toolmakers chest with the 0-1" 1-2" and 2-3" micrometers along with a 12" vernier and other items I got given by the company I did my apprenticeship with when I won the apprentice of the year 1984. They meant so much to me as it reminded me of the best 5 years of my working life.