The Crafty Draftman
The designer sat at his drafting board
A wealth of knowledge in his head was stored
Like, "What can be done with a radial drill
Or a turret-lathe or a vertical mill?"
But above all things a knack he had
Of driving gentle machinists mad.
So he mused, as he thoughtfully scratched his bean,
Just how can I make this thing hard to machine?
If I make the body perfectly straight,
The job had ought to come out first rate.
But 'twould be so easy to turn and bore,
That it would never make a machinist sore.
So I'll make a compound taper there,
And a couple of angles to make them swear.
But that's too easy to work, I fear,
So just to make the machinist squeal,
I'll make him mill it from tungsten-steel.
And I'll put those holes that hold the cap,
Down underneath where they can't be tapped.
Now if they can make this, it'll just be luck,
Cause it can't be held by dog or chuck.
It can't be planed and it can't be ground,
So I feel that my design is unusually sound.
And as he finished, he shouted in glee,
SUCCESS AT LAST!!
This gosh damn thing can't even be cast.
Know Your Tools DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hand so that it smacks you in the chest an flings your soda pop across the room, splattering it against that freshly-stained heirloom piece you were drying. WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned guitar calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, "Yeow sheeeet...." ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age. Secondary usage provides excellent service as a locator of live wiring within any wall. May also be employed as thickness gauge for any lumber stock placed across ones thigh. SKIL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to render common wall studs too short for use in any common wall. PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters. The most often used tool by all women. BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs. HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes. VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand. WELDING GLOVES: Heavy duty leather gloves used to prolong the conduction of intense welding heat to the palm of your hand. OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub you want the bearing race out of. WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or ½ socket you've been searching for the last 45 minutes.] TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity. This includes the stomach wall as well. HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper. EIGHT-FOOT LONG YELLOW PINE 2X4: Used for a first attempt at levering an automobile upward off of a trapped hydraulic jack handle. EIGHT-FOOT LONG YELLOW PINE 4X4: Used for the second thru the "nth" attempt at levering an automobile upward off of a trapped hydraulic jack handle. TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters and wire wheel wires from various locations on your corpus. E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool, ten times harder than any known drill bit, that snaps neatly off in bolt holes thereby ending any possible future use. RADIAL ARM SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to scare neophytes into choosing another line of work. TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect. CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 24-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A very large pry bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle. AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw. OPEN-END WRENCH (any size, metric or US): Common usages include primary training devices for toughening the knuckles of freshman karate students. Also regularly employed as current capacity gauge for automobile batteries. TROUBLE LIGHT: The home mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading. PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids and for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads. Women excel at using this tool. STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans and stirring various liquids or gels. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws. AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts which were last over tightened 30 years ago by someone at Ford, and instantly rounds off their heads. Also used to quickly snap off lug nut studs. PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part. HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short. HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent to the object we are trying to hit. Women primarily use it to make gaping holes in walls when hanging pictures. FRAMING HAMMER: A sub-species of HAMMER readily identified by a extremely long handle, very large serrated face, and heavy weight. Most often used by linguists to create new words. Common techniques include directing the impact of the hammer face with maximum force upon the thumb of the opposite hand while firmly holding a 20 penny nail. The resultant force transferred to the thumbnail and surrounding tissue is usually sufficient to formulate two or more candidate nouns, verbs or adverbs. Collateral benefit: provides a undernail blood blister of a magnitude directly proportional to the square of the hammer head speed at impact. Several hours elevated pain awareness with a rhythmic throbbing (without any external musical accompaniment) may also be achieved. MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while occupied. May also be used to gauge skin-to-bone depth. DAMMMMIT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "DAMMMMMIT" at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need!
This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.
Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done!