Apartment Tool Kit

 The tools that you have in your shop have a big impact on the type and quality of work that you do.  Poor work shouldn't always be blamed on the tools, but the right tool does make it easier to do good work. And, sometimes the task is impossible without the proper tool.

   So for the next while I am going to look at tools and “tool kits”.  Chris Schwarz has a very good and well expalined set of tools that he puts into his Anarchist Tool Chest.  His tools are the tools of a cabinet/furniture maker. We could look at tools for wood carvers and tools for the folks that spend all their time turning things on a lathe, and we will. Aside from special tools for special branches of woodworking there certain tools that everyone that works wood needs. We will work toward building that kit over the next little while.


The tool kit I want to start with is the "basic kit", this is the one that an apartment dweller might have, or a young person just starting out. This tool box was the one that I made when I went away to live in a dormitory at university, many years ago and many of these tools were in that original kit. If you think that a tool kit is extra weight that won't pay off, you are wrong, I traded time and tools for cookies and/or beer on a very regular basis. In a college dorm room their beds and chairs to fix, drawers to adjust and dozens of other little things that are not a high enough priority for the school's maintenance crews to get to in a timely fashion but still need to be repaired to enable life to function smoothly.

The box is about 30 years old and has had a couple of serious repairs done to it over the ages. There is a slide in bottom compartment where wrenches and the little saw live.

The contents of the tool box reflect the general house care tools that my wife likes to have at hand. My shop has all the tools you can think of but Eva likes to have these in an easy to access tool kit in the garage, that way she knows where her tools are when she wants them without having to search around in my shop.
Contents:
adjustable wrench, multi fit socket wrench
screws drivers, Red and Green Roberson, two multi-tip and a paint can opener type.
pliers, vise-grips, wire striper
round file
one very sharp 1/4 chisel
square, pencil. ywo tape measures, one imperial,one metric
saw
hammer
pruning shears
scissors, utility knives,
cheap block plane, very sharp
couple of boxes with mixed screws and fasteners.


When the task is greater than this kit can deal with, we work together on it and bring the speciality tools from downstairs to bear on the challenge. Once the full shop comes into play the only limiting factor is skill.