[Tango]

Oh goodie! I just saw this thread, I have a few "show and tell" tools I've made. I love home made tools. Pics will be in this evening!

 

[Tango]

This tool is to loosen moen cartridges in corner tub faucet. These cartridges are like 3 inches deep. I hate those! I can use a screw driver or wrench.

This wrench is for shower drains, Couldn't find it for sale on the net and no one ships here. I made my own with a more comfortable handle and the hex part is so I can use a wrench for extra torque. The small metal strip they provide with a new drain sucks, it always falls in the p-trap and the pipe has to be right on the money. This tool is perfect for service jobs.

 

[Tango]

For below ground check valve lids I have a 3’ 3” scl40 and a 2” chunk of pipe notched with a hole through the top for a screwdriver as leverage. Plenty of other tools that just aren’t coming to mind at the moment.

I use a piece of 2x4 and a pipe wrench, it fits perfectly between the fins.

 

[Tango]

When I used to work on commercial sites and had to pop those black sleeves between floors the ones that have the same shape as a top hat. The companies never provided proper tools to remove them so I made a sleeve cutter on their time on the job! Pry the sleeve away from the concrete then slice it all the way through. A lot easier than the huge and heavy concrete pry bar that you had to borrow in secret.

 

[Tango]

Nothing special. Just what we use to catch dust. Now every truck is stocked with a hepa filter because of this whole silica thing, but this works well too.

We now have to wear dust masks with cartridges in our province to protect against silicosis. Anyone caught without wearing one when drilling anchor shots for example will get fined. I've been wearing masks since I can't remember.

When I went to work in the other province I was the only person to wear one and they looked at me like I was an extra terrestrial. They never saw masks with cartridges let alone know what the silicosis disease is.

 

[Tango]

The problem with hepa filerters is the employers don't want to buy new drills that accepts filters. When they do buy the filters they clog up fast, the guys don't take care of them. The employers don't buy more filters or the brush collector when they wear out and after a week you're breathing all that crap again.

The last decade as an employee I supplied my own safety equipment from masks, gloves, safety glasses, face shield, harness, ear plugs etc. The employers were supposed to supply that by law but they were D---cks. I was not going to lose my health for those clowns.

 

[Tango]

I wanted the original tool but since I'm up north the price tag was over 200$ including all kinds of rip off fees. Yes thats right that much. So I made my own. 1/8 flat stock with a welded Sawsall blade and shrink tube. 2 years later that tool is still 3 times as much as down south.

 

[Tango]

Forgot to say its the tool to hold toilet bolts.

 

[Tango]

Did you ever curse and swear trying to install a one piece toilet where the flange bolts are inside? Your fingers don't fit and you get bruised and cramped and the nut falls off inside? Now you have to pull the toilet, shake it to get the nut back and replace the wax? Try again and again? I made this!

I had to order this pass through ratchet from South Korea, couldn't find it anywhere else and waited 2 month to receive it. I made my own special sockets for the nuts bolts. I start off with the supplied sleeves (cotter pin sleeve or the one with inward bent sleeve) then I can switch to my pass through sockets. No more fracking around. Guess what I didn't have to install one of them since!

Here's a socket for the dishwasher connection. I got the idea from this site I think.

 

[Tango]

 

[Tango]

https://www.amazon.com/CRL-SQW100R-...id=1540158121&sr=8-2&keywords=squeeze+ratchet
says its made in the USA...who knows..

Yes I know its usa made however, the only one available to me was from south korea. We are very limited to what we can buy online, it feels like we are in a third world country and can barely get anything. Also very few sellers on ebay will ship up here. I don't know what the fear is. Then on amazon we only have a fraction of the things you have. Then the private sellers like to put a price tag of hundreds of dollars for a simple item that cost 20$.

 

[Tango]

but you can buy weed legal anyplace now in canada...if you cant get tools you can get stoned..:vs_laugh::vs_laugh::vs_laugh:

We can't buy guns so....

Tell you what I'll trade you weed for guns? :wink: :biggrin:

On another note they legalized weed and the same evening the police made roadblocks to check for weed consumption! :tt2::tt2::brows::brows:

 

[Tango]

I assume it's an issue with import restrictions.

No it's been like that since I've been buying on ebay for over a decade. American sellers in general do not want to ship to Canada.

 

[Tango]

Here's a tool I had to make to install 24 stories worth of shower faucets. The whole female part had to buried inside the wall, be exactly 1/8" below tile so I could install the shower fittings. Many occasions I had to shorten the "nipple" as seen here to be half that length. lots of mini hacksaw work and soldering and an extra layer of 50/50 to strengthen it.

The escutcheon were the size of the hex so a regular socket wouldn't of worked.

Stupid shower faucet rough design, I was the first guinea pig to install those directly from the manufacturer.

I bet no one else will ever install those faucets after me.

 

[Tango]

do you TIG weld? that gives you much more control to make tools and you can weld steel, SS, copper, brass , aluminum, basically any weldable metal...

I have an arc welder and mig. The mini mig I got from the trash and fixed the issues. I use flux wire and I don't have gas bottle(there is a port for it), it makes booger welds but I get by for what I usually make.

There was a tool store who used to throw away returns that were brand new or "defective" in an outside trash container. It was an awesome time to gather so many tools that I fixed and kept. It was christmas every thursday at one am. It made it tough to go to work on fridays! However now it's in an enclosed crusher.

I got so many brand new things, dozens of chainsaws, a mini generator, welder, dozens of hand tools, power tools, air tools, sockets, etc.

 

[Tango]

I will eventualy need this shower wrench again to use in a confined space. The one I bought originaly works only on hex nut shower drains and brass drain nuts (I've never encountered those). I modified it with extra notches to fit an ABS style drain. See the black marker points

I wanted to purchase a different wrench for other types of drains but the seller doesn't have it in his repertoire. I decided to make my own. I used this wrench as a template to make a version for confined spaces. I cut down a socket to allow to clip in a ratchet extension.

 

[Tango]

I have that same wrench but mine is blue, I wonder why.

Sent from my BLN-L24 using Tapatalk

Red for the Canadian flag... Blue for the British?? Just joking. :wink:

 

[Tango]

treat yourself to a plasma cutter, they work great...

I'll have to check the cost of things, How much do they cost? 1500$??

I won't be for a long time, gotta do the fence against the neighbor, replace 4 windows, Remove a 5th and redo the wall and roof shingles all this summer.

 

[Tango]

I just repaired my 3/8" drop head. The pin broke last year when I was trying to navigate some awful hack plumbing. I had previously posted about it.

I had purchased a box of nails just for that and I found the head as I'm starting to clean the garage. I used a nut as a cap with a tack weld.

 

[Tango]

nails are soft and have no shear strength from metal twisting in that swivel, you would be better off buying some grade 8 hardware and using that and tack welding the nut so it wont loosen up, I bet that nail doesnt last long if you get into some tough muck to clean out..

I haven't measured the hole but it's a little more than 1/8. I wonder where I would find grade 8 or even grade 5 in that size.

All little bolts to my knowledge are grade 2.