What's your favorite tool/tools?

I love my Wera tools!

 

You won't regret buying them, well worth the money. Knipex makes the best pliers IMO. I gave my Channel Locks away after buying my first set of Knipex.

 

Miller dynasty 210dx

 

The knipex "plier wrench" is the shit! Haven't used them on the truck, but I use them at work a lot.

 

Oh Yes,

I also view my old Tacoma as one of my tools so our 1999 Toyota Tacoma SR5 4x4 Extra-Cab is one of my favorite tools.

Does anybody here have any good ideas on what brand to purchase for a used shop compressor? I need one.

Take it easy,
Paul

 

I run a 60 Gallon Campbell-Hausfeld 6 HP compressor 240v single phase.

Was fun taking that home. Took five people to load it.

 

That being said, my favorite tool is my abrasive blast cabinet. I’ve gone through three different ones.

Went from a 20 year old bottom-of-the-barrel generic one, to a new Central Pneumatic unit, to a really nice industrial Econoline unit with a pressure pot.





And it’s my favorite because the transformation is staggering.

 

Those are nice, but often frustrating for me because the head can swivel all over the place in some situations making it difficult to put the torque down.

 

I love media blasting. When I worked at a powder coating shop, I would sometimes throw some mildly rusty tools in the bead blaster to clean them up because of how satisfying the results were.

 

Ok I'm jealous of the blast cabinet. I just bought one of the little blast guns from Harbor Freight and can't wait to see if it works to clean up some parts on my frame I can't get to with my angle grinder.

You must use 4wd a lot eh?


My favorite tool is definetly my welder. Lincoln 180 Dual. It is a little on the small side for what I want to do eventually, but I've been able to squeak out up to 1/4" MIG stuff with it dialed in on 120. Next place I'll drop 240 into the garage but with this welder it doesn't really help much on penetration.

 

1/2 drive deep well six point sockets!!! Followed by 3/8 drive version.

 

This was back when I converted my PreRunner to 4WD. I got the front differential from a rustbucket 1996 4Runner Limited since I had a rare front gear ratio (4.30, which didn’t come in 4WD on Tacomas very much)

Here’s a before and after. I ditched the ADD axle tube and actuator in favor of the Manual Hub axle tube.





I also have a Miller 180 Autoset MIG 240v 150A welder that I restored. Stripped all the panels, new paint, HTP gun, OEM Miller decals, and I even re-created the serial number decal on the back in Illustrator and had it printed by a Vinyl cutter.

 

I've had this set for years, can find it pretty cheap sometimes'

$266 Craftsman 450-Piece Mechanic's Tool Set

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077BW8S66/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8

 

Hopefully you have some sort of enclosed space or cabinet to use it in. I could only imagine the cleanup involved from just doing it in your garage or anywhere you don't want blast media covering everything.

 

My makita impacts, can't do w/o them.

 

Dust collection is absolutely important when it comes to abrasive blasting. I run a cyclonic dust separator before a normal ship vacuum.

 

Agreed. Blasting is borderline impossible without proper filtration and media separation.
When I used to build blasting cabinets/walk-in blasters and dust collectors, it's no fun using a system where you cant even see your hands in 2 feet in front of you.

 

Walk in blast closets? That’s cool.

 

Yea there are tons of different blasting setups out there.
The walk in blasters look like something out of a movie haha
It's a lot work manhandling that heavy ass rubber blast hose. Then you would have to get a shovel and load all of the blast media on the ground back into the hopper when you ran out (at least with how we had ours setup).
It's a really cool industry.


Here is one example of a blasting booth.
We had a saying: "if your not breaking parts, your not making money". Since it's such an abrasive process, system maintenance and parts quality become a real factor.