Dad's Tools...

JDNewbie

Member
I sitting here watching my 21 month old son play with his "tools". He has a couple little plastic sets with screws and screwdrivers, nuts and bolts and wrenches, and one set even has a cordless drill of sorts. Forget the teddy bear, this kid will not go to sleep without his "hammer". We forgot to send it to Grammy's house the other day and he would not take a nap until she found a "wrench" he could sleep with!

So, I'm watching him and remembering all of my Dad's tools my brothers and I probably lost over the years working on bicycles or whatever out in the driveway. I'm sure my Dad is going to get his pay backs through my son! I know at that specific moment when I find a tool in the dirt, I'll be upset (just like Dad always was, and rightfully so), but I'm kinda looking forward to it!

So how about it? Any memorable stories regarding youngsters and tools lost, found, or otherwise?
 
Oh my the tools of my dads I've lost. I'm 24 and now I have quite a nice collection that is really well organized. He borrows mine now and I have to dig through his stuff to find
them hahaha.
 
Oh that brings back memories. I have my dad's tools now, but I remember how guarded they were when me and my 2 older brothers were little. When my dad went to Vietnam in 65 ( i was 6 at the time) he locked em up in the back shed and gave the key to my mom. He knew 3 little boys would have planted them all over the place. He wasn't stingy with letting us use them when we were older,, but you know he just didn't want em left scattered to kingdom- come and back.
 
My dad was not a mechanic, but he owned a gas station/garage. Every now and then I'll come across a tool that
has his initials on it that came from the old garage. Those are the tools I grew up using and seeing around
the shop. Brings back some of my earliest memories of hanging around there, getting greasy, looking at the
centerfolds on the walls, learning new cuss words! LOL
 
I solved that problem by buying our son a toolbox and his own set of tools for Christmas and birthdays. He would carry that Craftsman toolbox out and work on his stuff. Took pretty good care of them. joe
 
I know I lost some of dad's tools through the years, now I have his tools and mine combined. Have also lost some of mine, left on a pickup bumper tractor hood or plow. Lost a 1/2 drive craftsman ratchet a few years back in my hayfield while mowing. After hay was off I looked and looked for it with no luck. 3 years later I plowed up the field and guess what, found the ratchet. I cleaned it up and it actually worked better than the one I replaced it with. It had a few nicks but I still pick it to use over the newer one.
 
My Dad had a Winchester, carpenter's rip-saw. He was rightfully proud of it but I was too young to understand why. I figured it was kind of old and that was about it. I left it out on the grass in the back-yard one night. In the morning I remembered, was terrified, went out and got it before he found out but it got some stains on it from the dew and I had to account for them. It's hanging on my wall now, gets used occasionally and I still get a knot in my stomach when I see the stains. When it happened I wanted to punch myself. Even at that young age, I couldn't believe being that stupid!
 
I have a lot of my dad's tools also. A lot of craftsman tools I marked with a grinder wheel when they were new more than50 years ago. I still use
some that he had when I was small and I am going on 69 now. My grandsons lost their dad in 2014 after a long illness. They scatter his tools
everywhere. I get on them and tell them when they get older they will wish they still had them to remember their dad. I hope they will listen and
try to do better. Tommy
 
When my brother and me were 6 or 7 dad had a grain binder we thought we needed to work on. It was backed into the wind break like it was never going to be used again. Dad never had many tools, but we would get them out of the tool shed and go out there and work on tearing it a part. Dad must of walked by one day when we was not out there and found a few wrenches we left laying in the dirt. Dad jumped us about it and said if we can't bring them back don't take them out there. We and to take close inventory after that. We worked all summer on it before we had just a pile of iron.
 
I lost the crank on dads ZA MM once. He always kidded us kids if something was broke or lost. "Kids must have lost it" "Kids must have broke it"
 
My Dad did not have a lot of tools, and the few he had would be scattered around in various tractor tool boxes. Use to drive me nuts...now when I work with his tools...I can feel him with me
 
My Dad lost mor of his tools than I have. He didn't have many but I have a set of S-K 1/2" sockets break-over, speed wrench and ratchet that my mother's dad gave him for a wedding present in 1953. The 11/16 is the only socket that isn't original.
 
Every time I work on something and need a certain tool my son has used it on something and left it right
there.Funny thing was I took my truck to a mechanic to find a "short" and it ended up being missing fuses that
guess who had "borrowed" for his truck!
 
Bless his and your heart. I was walking through a nationwide chain store tonight and happened by the children's section, and happened by the infant part as well since it was out by the aisle, and there were little dresses hanging on the rack of all colors, pink, blue, polka dotted, striped, and you name it. DRESSES. The sign on the rack above them said "GIRLS/BOYS". I stopped and looked, looked around, dresses for "GIRLS/BOYS" infants. I didn't have my work phone or I would have taken a picture of it...and just may tomorrow. A store lady was nearby, so I asked her about it, and she explained it to me, an explanation that I won't mention here so as not to start anything or get this poofed, and I'll let it go at that.

Bless you for getting your son toy tool sets, and bless him for...liking and playing with them instead of some other toys. If at any point that he asks you for a pink Barbie Corvette, ignore the sign and the store lady nearby, and by him a toy pedal tractor instead, and I don't care what color tractor it is.

Mark
 
When I was real little, 5 or 6, I would look in Dad's tool box for a flat screwdriver and the only one I could find had a funny end (wood chisel). But being the only one I could find I would use it. He was always mad but was a kind person so I would always do it again. Don't know if he didn't have a slot screwdriver. Now I'm a woodworker and keep my chisels razor sharp. Can't imagine how upset I would be if someone used a wood chisel for a screwdriver. When he died I looked in his old toolbox hoping to find that chisel (clear handle with a red band) but it was not there.
 
I don't think Dad had a set of anything, just odds, and ends, but it got the job done. He had a coffee can in his old 54 chevy truck, that had a few tools. It's been there for years. It goes with me each time I take the truck out. Stan
 
My daughter has a fascination with tools. From the time she could walk (1 Year) she seeks out tools to play with. She for the most part could care less about fake tools she would much rather have the real deal. I can not bring a new tool into the house without her wanting to claim it. In fact she has some tools of mine hidden in the house somewhere that I have not seen in almost 2 years. Her favorite thing to play with while sitting on my lap at the computer is an old plumb brand 1/4" socket set in a tin box! Everyone tells me this is just a phase but she will be 3 in 2 weeks and still prefers a wrench to a doll. I just hope she does not plant or misplace as many tools as I did growing up but to be fair I did have an excellant teacher growing up on the farm. My dad does not have a lot of tools and I do not think he has planted or forever lost but 1 or 2 tools in the past 50 years, however his game of hide and seek can not be beat. He might not see a 1/2 wrench for weeks and then when he goes to hunt one down quietly swearing going from shed to shed and tractor to tractor until he finally finds 5 or 6 of them squirreled away in 1 tool box.
 
OH yeah.

About 1970 I remember i was pulling a "Make in Japan" creasent wrench while my dad was holding the backside of the bolt with his finger. Dad started yelling when his finger was being pinched so I
immediately stopped and moved the "Made in Japan" creasent wrench in the opposite direction. Dad yelled again so I stopped. When dad finally got his finger out, he said !@#$%^&*()_+ and then
through the "Made in Japan" creasent wrench in to the pasture across the road. A few weeks later as I was walking the milk cows toward the barn, i stepped on the "Made in Japan" creasent
wrench. So i picked it up put it up, took it to the shop and put it back in the tool box. A few days later dad opened the tool box and saw the "Made in Japan" creasent wrench. He pick it up and
through the "Made in Japan" creasent wrench in to the pasture across the road again. I knew better than to pick it up again. I think it is still there after all these years. Dad is gone but I'm still not
going to go out and get it. Even if I do step on it again.
 
My dad gave me an S-K 1/2 drive socket set for my 16th birthday. 51 years later, I've only lost one of the sockets, and I still use the set all the time. Was able to find a replacement for the one I lost at a garage sale, and you have to look real hard to tell it from the rest of the set. By the time he died, I had a lot more tools than he did, so when asked if I wanted his tools, I deferred to my kids and nephews.

We have a shrub called Scotch Broom here in western Washington. Think of sage brush, but its a little taller and thicker. When we were kids, my sister and I were out by a rock pile inhabited by weasels, and we hid behind the scotch broom and watched their antics for awhile. We decided we should make a "fort" in the scotch broom patch, so we could watch them at our leisure. This would involve chopping down some of the broom, so we got dad's shingling hatchet from his tool box to do the job. We managed to lose it, and when dad found out, we spent the better part of a Saturday out looking for it, but never found it. Still wonder how we could look for it for hours without finding it.
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My youngest son takes better care of stuff than the older ones. I bought him a bottom box for christmas one year and a top box the next. For birthdays he gets good tools to put in it.
The one older son that is into tools got a nice Craftsman set for graduation. I have been finding pieces of that set strewn around the shop for several years now.

My father had tons of tools that he aquired over the years. When I was younger he would tell me that when I got older he would give me half of them. When I got out of the navy and started working I asked for a few things to get started so he gave me a toolbox with a socket set some wrenches and pliers...
A couple years later he said I had been working long enough to get my own tools and I had to return the stuff he had given me.
A few years ago the folks moved and had an auction. I had to buy any tool I wanted from his collection.
 
A lot of folks here said there dad didn't have many tools. My dad didn't have many , but back then all you needed was a handful of wrenches and a screwdriver to overhaul a tractor.
 
Cleaning out the old pond I found an old broken-split-open cst iron actual monkey-wrench. Wood handle, long rotted away. In the middle of the pond. I know exactly what happened. Grandpa or Uncle Bill bought this new cast iron nice tool, first time they used it, it broke open, and somebody hauled off and threw it into the middle .... 'Dern good-for-nothing cheap-dag-nabbed....!!!" Not your fault, boys, it was cheap cast iron.
 
My father was more a woodworker than a mechanic.

I've got a bunch of kind of average quality stuff. He had a lot of tools, but not a lot of money.

One of my favorite items that I've got now is his father's belt sander - one of those big metal porter cable sanders. Love that thing, works perfectly. They don't make
'em like that anymore.

That'll go to my son - he'll be 18 this year. Kinda crazy to think of that thing lasting four generations.

... that same son how, maybe 16 years ago made me SO mad. I think it was the only time I ever spanked him, at least the only time it was a "real" spanking, not just a tap
on the butt.

He was throwing a temper tantrum. I usually just rolled with those, knowing it's just part of the process. Just let him scream it out in his room. This time I had to go
back in for something. His "tools" - kind of heavy plastic material - were lying all over the floor. He was rolling around on the floor kicking and screaming - I kinda
lost it a bit and yelled at him to knock it off. That only made him worse of course.

I got what I needed in his room, and I turned back towards him to say something - just as he had picked up his plastic adjustable wrench - and HURLED it at me. Smacked me
HARD right across my nose and cheek. It HURT and it p'd me off all at the same time.

he got his real spanking - and probably first exposure to a few curse words - but he's lucky I had that much self control. It's hard not to over-react from something like
that - noise and obnoxious bratty-ness is one thing - an adjustable wrench to the face is another. But we both survived. He grew into a good kid.
 
Dad and Grampa always had quite a few tools. Grampa's were always in his trunk of the old Packard, he never had a
pickup. He'd come out to the farm from town most everyday. We never had a real shop so we had tools in about 5
different places never knowing where to hunt for them, not a lot different now. My brothers and I would load up a
little red wagon with tools and head for the grove to dismantle old machinery that was in the trees. Sometimes we had
to cut trees to get our finds home. This was in the late fifties. we would bring this junk back for no purpose just
fooling around. Most of the time most of the tools came home too. we talk about it sometimes. we wonder just how many
tools are still out there. I have most of all those old tools, so does one of my brothers. I have two big tool boxes
of grampa's that I never use but couldn't get rid of them just to many memories. Maybe someday my son will want them
or one of the grandsons. I sit here and write this and it chokes me up just thinking about it. Who would think a
bunch of old tools could do that.
 
When I was 9 or 10 years old I would borrow my dad'stools and not return them. He finally locked them up in some old kitchen
cupboards.I soon learned to unscrew the hinges. Always returned the tools and never got caught. I now have more tools than my
father ever did. Some of the tools I got when he passed away and are the same tools I suck.
 
Dad never had many tools--a 12" crescent was his primary go-to wrench. When my brother and I were 5 & 6 we each got a new chrome plated claw hammer for Christmas with the stern warning "Now there's yours, leave mine alone!!" I still have my hammer 66 years later. It's on the third handle.
 
My brother and I used the dipstick out of dad's Massey 30 to dig in the dog house and of course we left it there. I don't remember the punishment because we were really young. We were pretty careful not to loose tools after that. My oldest son never touched a tool because he couldn't have been bothered. My youngest son used my tools all the time but I don't remember him loosing any. He did more than enough work around to make up for it if he did. Now he owns more tools than I do and fixes airplanes for a living. A kid who wants to play with or use your tools is a joy.
 
After my Dad died, I told my brother and sister I wanted only three tools of his and they could have all the rest.
I got his "hop bar", anvil and big ol' vise.
They were happy but probably not as happy as I am.
 

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