Using someone else's tools..

Sometimes using someone else's tools just doesn't feel comfortable to me. Even using someone else's hand wrenches sometimes feels awkward to me. I kind of avoid using some of my friend's woodworking machinery, especially his Jet machines. To each his own.

My son and daughter both have a reasonable selection of tools at their homes, but when I do work for them I usually take along my own tools. I know where things are in my tool box (sort of), and using their tools just doesn't feel comfortable, psychologically speaking. I don't know why.

Probably like me, you know what to expect from yours. Like you don't need a torque wrench to tell you how much whoopie to put on a wrench. It just comes naturally......unless you are doing things like engine bearings where you need to be dead-nuts-on.

Dick,
We are on the same page. When someone wants me to come over and work on something, I tell them to bring it to my shop, I don't make house calls. They ask why. I tell them I know where my tools are and I don't want to spend time for you looking for yours. geo.

I loaned a brand new Sawzall to my brother once (more like male-sibling). When I went to pick it up he had left it out in the rain. :shock:

I know what you are saying. My sons both grew up using my tools but now they both have big 2 ton mechanic trucks full of their own tools. When they work on something at my place they wont use my tools because they "dont feel right". They back their trucks up to the shop door and work out of them. Problem is now every time something comes up missing I have only myself to blame, LOL.

Local guy has a very big work barn.More like a shop. Has all the tools and equipment you need. I still bring my own tools. If I need to use his equipment. I clean it up make sure everything is working and put it back where he had it.Feel like that is the proper thing to do.

If someone doesn't know me well enough to know what a reluctant tool lender I am, I probably don't know them well enough to be uncomfortable about saying no. On the rare occasions when a relative stranger---a neighbor I don't know well, for instance---asks to borrow a tool, I'll refuse if it's something I can't afford to lose, but loan a tool I won't be disappointed to never see again. Not getting a tool back, or having it returned in poor or damaged condition, has the benefit of relieving me of ever having to consider loaning to that person again.

A difficult situation is being asked to loan a tool to a friend or relative who is a capable tool user, but doesn't have the same standard of care for tools that I do. I always feel like saying, "Don't take care of it the way you take care of your own tools---take care of it as well as I take care of my tools." Almost always, though, I judge the relationship to be more valuable than the tool, so I grit my teeth and say to myself, "Goodbye nice tool. You don't deserve what's probably going to happen to you now, but that's just the way the world is."

Stan

When my daughters went to college we bought each a small tool box with a selection of common tools. They were very popular with their dorm mates. Don't think they lost many tools and they continue to use them today. Son never really went off to college, lived at home and commuted to community college and later to nearby university. He has a collection that rivals mine. Now that they all living in their own homes, my tools are pretty safe. If he's here, he'll drag his tools out of back of SUV rather than get into mine. Think I taught all three a valuable lesson about having and keeping tools.

A mason really gets used to the feel of a trowel and how clean it is is very important too.

If I can't remember where it goes, I set it front and center on top of the box so it can be put where it belongs when the owner gets back.

If I have to leave the shop with it, I let them know when I take it.

For some reason, at my old job, when the merchanic's tools started to disappear, I knew where the key for his box was.

Ive had to weld things at my cousins for them at times using their welder which is a Lincoln. It is different than the old Forney my dad bought years ago that I have at home. You get used to a welder. You can adapt to a different one fairly quickly but it is different.

1- I don't like borrowing or using other people's tools because I was taught if I break it I have to make it right, I'm not in to buying other people tools, that if I break one of mine I know how important it is to me and will schedule a replacement based on my need, if I break YOURS I feel I have to fix/repair right away. 2- Other people's tools just don't feel right, you get used to your own tools and mine is a very eclectic collection, I'm used to using them and by golly I think I do a better job with my own stuff, let alone trying to find someone else's tools AND remembering where to put them back. 3- I have had "work tools" owned by my employer at various times, yes I get used to them and would get a little stiff when I'd loan them out to a mechanic or millwright and they'd mess 'em up even though the company will fix or repair I just have to do the legwork. I've also gotten used to "shop tools" and when doing things at home or at the brother's I often wish "boy I wish I had the XXXXX from work" again your skill, ability and job planning flow with the tools you're used to working with if you're used to a plasma cutter you don't blue wheel as much, if you have an oxy-acetylene torch you heat and bend, if you have an ironworker you might just bend, with the iron worker you might punch holes as opposed to drilling or cutting holes with a torch or plasma cutter.

When #1 daughter went off to school I made her a small tool kit, one of her boyfriends was using it to do something. About a week later one of the boyfriend's friends was asking him to borrow it, he had to explain that he didn't have tools that he borrowed them from his girlfriend, he than had to explain how he was lucky enough to have a good looking girl friend with tools.

As the daughter was heading off to college I was talking to a friend from church, she was a nurse and was telling me about the first aid/ over the counter drug kit she put together for her son. I guess what we do for a living becomes part of how we look at life. Her son goes off to school to become an engineer with a healthcare kit, mine to be a journalist with tool kit.