Mechanic’s Tale: Mightier than the Sword

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Old Tubal Cain didn’t stop inventing after he forged the first sword, giving man domain over the earth. A few thousand years later he turned out an even mightier implement, the wrench, which dominated the 19th and 20th centuries.

In days long past, no man was complete without a sword, as today no man is compete without a set of hand tools. And I’m not just talking about mechanics. According to his autobiography, the first thing former Monkees star Mickey Dolenz did when he got his first big paycheck was to go out and buy the entire Sears Craftsman tool collection. And I mean the whole catalog. Now there’s a man!

I got it one piece at a time

Very few if any mechanics start in the business with anywhere near a complete set of tools. (If I could pay cash for a compete set of tools, why would I go into this business?) Instead the budding mechanic collects a Kmart wrench set here, a set of Stanley screwdrivers from the local hardware store, and a whole series of one-time oddity tools bought for a specific job (like getting the head off a '73 Ford Pinto 2.0 motor) until he has a fairly heavy hand-held tool box or canvas tote bag.

He has a job as a mechanic's helper or lube tech but wants to do better. At this point he is ready to make his first major purchase, usually a Sears Craftsman combination deal of some kind. A bottom box with roller wheels, three or four drawers, and a large storage compartment. A top box that sits on top of the roller box with long drawers, short drawers, and a top compartment with a closing lid. He quickly discovers that the 100-piece tool set barely fills three drawers, because 60 of the pieces are Allen wrenches of dubious value and microscopic quarter-inch drive sockets.

Nonetheless, all the main wrenches and sockets are there in chrome, 12-point, standard, and metric, along with three ratchets, 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2, and an assortment of screwdrivers, nut drivers, and oddities that to this day I have not found the use for. Often this set will form the heart of a mechanic’s tool set even 20 years down the road. Very soon he will find he has to supplement this set in order to perform the simplest of repairs. Six-point box wrenches will be added along with universal sockets (sockets with swivel joints that are easier to get into tight spots). Very soon again he will notice that the universal or swivel sockets he bought at the hardware store will begin to go limp and wobbly as if they needed a dose of Viagra. He will correct this by wrapping the joint area with black tape. But he will notice that his neighbor’s universal sockets appear to be 20 years old while showing no sign of fatigue and bear the name Snap-on.

The tool man

I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping when I stopped in a trendy kitchen supply store. The cheapest toaster oven was $200 plus and there was a row of coffee and espresso machines that cost more than every car I have ever bought save one. I was clearly out of my league and scurried back to Wal-Mart. Such is the shock many mechanics get when they first set foot on a Snap-on Tool truck where a single set of wrenches costs more than the entire Craftsman tool set he bought six months ago. But unlike the overpriced kitchen appliances that offer little benefit, the Snap-on tool will make his life immeasurably easier and perhaps more profitable.

If the tool man is a good salesman he will willingly hand the mechanic a wrench or socket or ratchet and let him try it out. It must be like what a primitive man felt when, having lived with his crude hand-made stone knives and axes, he trades his bundle of furs for a fine steel knife and axe – the products of an industrial society. This is it! It cuts so easily! The tree is chopped down in minutes, not hours! The swordsman has been handed Excalibur. You get the idea. The tools truly are well-balanced works of art. The wrenches don’t slip off the bolts resulting in busted knuckles, and the sockets, being both thinner and stronger, get into places where other sockets have a hard time going. The ratchets have a smooth action and an ergonomic shape.

It was more important in my day (before credit cards became so easy to come by), but this man will let you take this fine set of wrenches or sockets for a small down payment and your promise to pay every week. Never before have you been treated with such respect. When I started out, most of the tool dealers allowed small credit purchases (a couple of hundred dollars) without going through their credit departments, eager to get you hooked on their tools and build trust. It is effective.

At this point the ranks divide into the full blown junkie (I must have all Snap-on tools and nothing less will do), and, what I believe is the smarter strategic thinker, the mechanic who slowly acquires Snap-on tools for his more common uses but is not obsessed that every tool must be Snap-on. Let me say here that there are of course other fine brands of tools such as Mac and Matco, but Snap-on is the biggest and best known.

By now that Craftsman box is getting mighty wobbly, threatening to topple over when more than two drawers are opened or when you roll over that dip in the shop floor. Time for a real box.

Tool box wars

The trend when I was young was for taller and taller boxes. A big bottom box, a middle box, and a top box, resulting in a looming tower so high that many shorter mechanics had step stools to access the top of their box. The trend now is for longer, lower boxes which are much more stable and have a lot of useful surface area on them. The downside is they take up much more precious floor space in the shop.

Boxes are something I have a hard time understanding. In the end they just hold your tools. The drawers should roll smoothly and the box should remain stable and sturdy, even when heavily loaded with several drawers open. I always bought used ones, asking the tool man to keep me in mind when he got his next trade-in. New boxes cost lots of money. Thousands of dollars. Ten thousand dollars or more for some of the fancier ones. There are even boxes with murals painted on them. (I couldn’t touch such a box with my greasy hands!).

Tubal Cain’s descendants haven’t stopped inventing. Every year there is a clever new idea. Every good mechanic now has at least one set of gear wrenches (combination wrenches where the box end ratchets). Open-end wrenches that are cleverly designed to act like ratchets. Ratchets with lights in them to allow you to see better. As many gimmicks as you can think of, some are more useful then others. And as fast as the manufacturers design impossible tasks into their cars, tool inventers invent tools to make the task possible. A good mechanic keeps track of his tools, too. I had one guy who literally had trouble sleeping at night if so much as one of his pocket screwdrivers was missing.

So, as the popular sign on professional tool boxes says, “Please don’t ask to borrow my Snap-on tools!”

Doug Flint owns and operates Tune-Up Technology, a garage in Alexandria, Va.

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