November 29, 2006 - Those All-Important Tools
by Scott & Wendy Bannerot

Like the Snap-On slogan says, "It does make a difference" having the right tools.

Favorite everyday tools include full socket wrench sets in 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2" drives, open-end and box wrenches, oil/fuel filter wrenches (metal and strap type), hack saws (regular and miniature), assorted crescent wrenches, jeweler's screwdriver set, flat head, Phillips, and torx screwdrivers in assorted sizes and lengths, right angle screw drivers in flat and Phillips, Vise-Grips (assorted sizes, needle-nose and blunt nose), assorted pliers and slip-jaw wrenches, diagonal cutters in several sizes, a set of files, utility knife with extra blades, a complete set of punches and chisels, a complete set of scrapers, and electrician's crimping pliers.

Elan getting a full going-over in Whangaparaoa, New Zealand.

Electrical hand tools to have on hand include drills (cordless angle, cordless straight, and 1/2" drive straight A/C minimum), a sawsall, jig saw, mini-grinder and die-grinder (with full set of expendables - grinders, sanders, cutters, etc.), heat gun, solder gun, 4 X 4 sander, tight-angle sander, perhaps an orbital sander or polisher, disk sander, circular saw, belt sander, and a bench grinder. A decent Fluke multi-meter is essential. Another few "specialty items" would include a mechanic's pry bar, mechanical fingers and a flexible-arm magnet for extracting dropped items in tight places, an angled mirror, feeler gauges (for drive shaft alignment and for setting valve clearances), a micrometer, dial indicator gauge with clamps (for drive shaft alignment work), inside and outside calipers, torque wrench, mechanic's pick set, and special tools for outboards or for diesel work.

I would also include large open-end wrenches for adjusting engine mounts - and, for vessels with conventional stuffing boxes, the correct sized wrenches for the packing nuts and lock nuts.

Metal boat owners should seriously consider having a small welding machine on board, either a simple stick welder, compact MIG, or TIG unit.

Mobile work lights are critical, either 12V, A/C, or rechargeable fluorescent like the one from Makita that uses the same battery as the cordless drills.

I would also either fabricate or otherwise acquire a shaft coupling puller, prop puller, and cutlass bearing press.

And don't forget all of those expendables - drill bits, saw blades, sandpaper, scrub pads, electrical connectors, wire, heat shrink, solder, and so on.

We store the less-used tools under our main cabin bunk, down nice and low and central to lower our center of gravity. The everyday tools reside in a canvas tool bag in the forepeak, and in assorted drawers in the forepeak tool room. Importantly, we keep several canvas tote bags handy for use on specific jobs. That is, something breaks or needs maintenance, and so we extract the tools for the job from the main canvas tool bag and put them in the temporary tool bag to take en masse to the worksite, either somewhere on board, or hoisted aloft on a halyard if the work is in the rigging.

Now that we've covered useful tools, let's talk about a few little items that have really never seen any practical use. I'll admit to being a bit of a tool buff, and in some cases I get carried away in the early going. For example, I brought a hydraulic auto body worker's set normally used for pulling dents out of steel. Having the hydraulic press/pull unit wasn't so bad - it conferred the ability to jack up any heavy object, including the engine - but bringing the full set of dent-pullers was over the top. I gave them away in New Zealand.

The other little embarrassing thing I'd like to admit was this DC MIG welding unit I got excited about. It was called the MIGMASTER, and it required hooking two 12V batteries in series, and using an electric drill as the wire gun. Please don't laugh - the rig actually worked, but I must admit it was a bit on the impractical side considering the space and weight it occupied. The kit came with a baseball cap, black with the gold-lettered MIGMASTER emblem emblazoned across the front. I was pretty fired up after I watched the instructional video, dreaming of Elan grounding suddenly on some uncharted reef, whereupon I would dive into the bilge, quickly dig out a piece of 6 mm 5086 plate, don my MIGMASTER cap, hook up the drill to the wire spool after deftly isolating and then jumping the starter bank in series, saving the day, and then coolly blowing the smoke from the tip of my MIG spool. In the end, it seemed more likely that slathering some two-part underwater epoxy on either a piece of plywood or plate and slapping it on the wound and then proceeding to a shipyard where a real welder could repair it would be faster and more practical.

The point is, in general I think you can't have enough good tools on board. However, if your behavior and approach to life occasionally border on the extreme, you might want to curb yourself just mildly rather than half-sink the vessel in specialty items and spares not likely to see the light of day.