A Few of Our Favorite Tools - 29 Nov 2006
by Kate Laird

Favorite Tools for Boatbuilding/Rebuilding/Woodworking

3M face mask

A fine addition to our workshop was the 3M 6000 series full face masks...for bottom paint, sanding, light grinding, working overhead, whatever. It doesn't fog up, and you can buy clear shields for $1 to go over the eye section when working with paint rollers (or use Saran Wrap, though you can't see as well). You can fit it with organic vapour cartridges for working with toxic fumes or pink dust cartridges when woodworking. It's a quantum leap over the old mouth/nose mask and goggles which fog up and let in dust. (For info on where to get one of these, click here.)

Restorer's cat's paw 8"

...for tearing out all your mistakes (and other people's as well). Click here to see where we get these.

Nicholson cabinet rasp

Who needs sandpaper?

#49 Second Cut, narrow pattern (rasp) half round and tapered. This is a high quality, woodworker, cabinetmaker's wood rasp. It has a narrow pattern and cut edges. Leaves a relatively smooth finish but is rougher than the #50. Click here for our source.

Other boatbuilding/woodworking tools that we like:

• bevel guage
• block plane
• chisels various sizes - ours aren't great quality, but they do well enough with a good sharpening stone
• good quality electric tools: grinder, drill, (jigsaw), sawzall
• handsaw
• good selection of stainless bolts, nuts, threaded rod, screws, machine screws, etc.
  (see http://www.fastener-warehouse.com for the best prices in the US and possibly the world for stainless fastenings.
  The Fastener Warehouse
  80 Rochester Ave, Portsmouth, NH 03801, USA
  Ph: 603-431-0077
  Fax: 603-433-0022
  They sell mixed boxes of screws and machine screws that are just the right quantities and sizes. (though I can't find this on their website.)
• lots of offcuts of material UHMW, aluminum, wood
• wedges
• a very small digital camera and a mirror for working in invisible spaces.

Favorite Tools for Electrics

Butane soldering iron

I haven't picked up my AC soldering iron since buying this. It does all the little soldering jobs and has a blow torch attachment for cleaning up rope ends, and works outside far better than a cigarette lighter (though it doesn't work in a fresh breeze). (Click here for source.)

The talking wire

With a Radio Shack Pezio Electric buzzer and a 9 volt battery, I've made an obnoxiously loud continuity tester. It's hooked up to a spool of 100 feet of 18 AWG wire, so it can go to the top of the mast or either end of the boat, and be heard, even over the 115 HP engine and a full gale. It is far superior to (and more sensitive) than the continuity on my cheap (shown above) and expensive multimeters. As I look on www.radioshack.com, I see that mine is 102 decibles and that they also sell 70 & 80 decible ones, which might be preferable, especially when the kids get ahold of it. (Here's where to get it.)

Clamp-on ammeter

I went to sears.com to find the multimeter I bought this winter for $49.99 and of course, they've stopped selling it. It is a magic piece of kit...it measures big dc amperages without disconnecting the wires, and works as a servicable multimeter for everything else. Fine fussy work requires a better model (perhaps like this one I've shown that is $99.) Hopefully, they will start selling the $49 one again...no one else has a clamp-on dc ammeter in that price range, and it is perfectly good for basic work. (Here's where to look.)

Good quality wire strippers, good quality crimpers

Ancor's Double Crimp Ratchet Tool (http://www.ancorproducts.com/Products/Tools_Meters/pdf/99.pdf) is excellent - way above the hardware store versions. But for strippers, the expensive ones broke quickly, and I did the rest of the boat's wiring with the best pair from Home Depot, a pair of Klien Tools strippers, which were much better.

Favorite Sailmaking Tools

• palms - one for big hands and one cut and restitched to fit smaller hands. Most sail repair jobs are much easier with two people working on either side, and oversized palms cause blisters (adjustable palms are a waste of time, as the adjusters fail after a season or two).
• needles (good quality)
• good sewing scissors that don't do anything else
• grommet maker
• waxed thread

Favorite Tools for Drilling Holes

• 18 volt Dewalt cordless drill (with two battery packs)
• centering bits (to get those coat hooks exactly level)

• very good quality drill bits and spares of the more popular sizes
• lots of good quality holesaws. You should also carry a long (10" is good) drill bit the same size as the drill bit in the hole saw arbor so that when you come to drill a hole through a bulkhead, or whatever, you can drill the test hole all the way through and check the result on the other side before committing to the big hole. The hole saw will go through easier, too, as it will have a hole to follow - and if it is a thick bulkhead with lots of foam etc. then you will be able to drill with the hole saw from the far side too, knowing that the two holes will meet.
• taps, bottom taps, start taps (and spares and cutting fluid, especially if you have a metal boat). We carry a full set of pop rivets and a heavy-duty two-handled pop rivet tool, but prefer tapping and machine screws for most jobs.

Favorite Mechanical/Metalworking Tools

• digital and regular calipers
• screwdrivers - full set of Phillips and Flat from eyeglass mending size to huge and a set of screwdriver bits to fit cordless drills, ratcheting screwdriver, etc. We also used a lot of Robertson drives and Allen key heads, but we don't have any hand drivers for the Robertsons; just the bits

Milwaukee Right Angle Offset Screwdriver Head

This lets you work in very tight corners - it's very versatile as you can use it with a hand driver or electric drill or a stubby screwdriver or a quarter inch spanner. And you can use any of the 1/4" driver bits which come in a bewildering variety. With a flexible extension and a mirror self-trepanation is a conceivable option! (Click here to get one. The Mfr. Part No. is 48-32-2100.)

It works well with...

Ratcheting Screwdriver

We got ours here.

• Lots of files,large, small and tiny, flat, round, rat tail, needle files
• good hacksaw, bimetalic blades

MAPP gas / propane blow torch for reshaping bent bits of metal

Above: Hamish reshapes the spinnaker pole mast fitting with a propane torch and a big hammer in Greenland, approximately 1200 miles from the nearest yacht chandlery. (MAPP gas works better, but we didn't have any then.)

• hammers and mallets
• full socket sets, 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" drive, Imperial/English and Metric
• full set of spanners, Imperial/English and Metric. (The spanners for bleeding the engine should be in the engine room, either marked on the spanners or with the sizes written on the bulkhead in marker pen.)
• pliers and vise grips in a variety of noses
• three sizes of Channel lock pliers (the small ones make unbeatable nut crackers at Christmas time)
• good quality torque wrench
• Felco wire cutters for rigging and heavy guage electrical cable
• set of pipe wrenches
• Center punch
• Tin snips (large)
• Wire cutters
• Circlip removers
• Pvc pipe cutter (very cheap from Home Depot, which we use all the time to cut clean right angles in hose (up to 1 1/2" diameter)
  

And absolutely the MOST IMPORTANT:

a big vise

We have a dedicated workshop, with a bench and a vise, and it's a great luxury. We're in there every few days, hacksaw in hand, rebuilding some "fine marine product" into something that actually works.

We even had a vise on Ariel, my 28-footer - at least I did after I met Hamish. His first self-assigned job was to fit a plank across the cockpit seats to take the vise.

Favorite Measuring Tools

• interior & exterior calipers, regular calipers, digital calipers
• lots of tape measures (more if you have children who hide them)
• spool tape measure to go to the top of the rig
• bevel gauge
• disposable syringes / galley digital scale for measuring epoxy (cover the galley scale with saran wrap to avoid domestic incidents)
• square rule
  

Favorite Storage Tools

• Veto propack tool bags - not the perfect answer, but the best we've found.
• plastic tackle boxes for screws/machine screws/nuts/bolts/washers
• sewn pockets for spanners, screwdrivers etc. mounted on a bulkhead

Hamish's final word of advice: "Don't be afraid to cut up or weld together spanners and allen keys and other bits of metal to make the tool you need for the job." Just today, one of the 7/16" spanners found itself locked in the vice, while Hamish knocked off one end with a lump hammer, leaving a 2cm tail so we could do up a series of bolts on the bottom of the window frames. Two days ago, he sliced off the end of an Allen key to make a tool in case we have to remove the starter motor...

You can learn more about the Lairds and Seal at their website www.expeditionsail.com.