Jon, my former virtual landlord, wanted to respond to this post:
Your post — here — is amusing. I am guessing, though, that you and Sippican Cottage just don’t do certain things around the house. Taking SC’s easy ones . . .
Sledgehammer — I use mine to set stakes around trees and shrubs.
Center Punch — You don’t need the one shown in the Pop Crap article (which has a shank similar to that of a cold chisel, which makes me think the one they show there is for masonry work), but a centre punch is helpful for drilling. I punch the centres of all my drilled holes, even those that I’m doing on the drill press. I also use a centre punch when mounting hardware, such as hinges, to wood.
Combination wrench — I guess you guys don’t do any plumbing, or anything with bolts that go completely through an object. You can’t reach everything with a socket — a socket will not undo the nut on a toilet’s feed pipe (unless, of couse, you break away the toilet’s tank so that you can get to the nut from the top). And you sometimes need to hold the bolt head in place while you crank on the nut with a socket. I have a good set of combination wrenches and use them a lot on our bikes and playground equipment. I also have a cheap set that came with my socket set that’s convenient to have with the sockets, but I don’t think they will stand up to prolonged use. The socket set itself is an interesting item that would make Sippican Cottage laugh out loud: it’s a 300-some-odd-piece set with 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″ drives and sockets. I see the need for 1/4″ and 3/8″ and use both frequently. If I ever need to install industrial-grade light standards or build a highway overpass, I guess the 1/2″ set will come in handy.
But hey — it was on sale!
Jigsaw — Depends on what you are doing. I use mine to rough out stuff that I am going to finish with a template on the router table. If I had a bandsaw, I’d use that instead. I did not have $700 to drop on a bandsaw, so I bought this $50 item instead.
Tin Snips — you need these if you do home repairs involving metal. I’ve used mine to repair or replace exhaust vents, install anti-bird mesh in said vents, replace the clothes dryer exhaust tubing, and to do repairs to aluminum downspouts. I’ve also used them to open those freakin’ polycarbonate clamshell packages that all electronics and toys seem to come in. They are the only way I can get into those things without slicing up my hands on the packaging.
Machinist Vise — this is the only vise I have at the moment. A real woodworker may not need one of these, but I have found mine to be handy.
I wonder how many bench planes Sippican Cottage has . . .
Humph.
As Gerard Vanderleun points out in the comments to the original Sippican Cottage post, “I love this fisking more than I love the dream of an Obama recall. It gets worse since Yahoo evidently chopped this down from the original 50 by Logan. That’s a schmo at the beginning and a know-nothing Yahoo intern chopping at the end. De-licious.
