Tooling for Flute Makers on this list

[Casey Burns]

Tools Explained For The Handyperson In Most Of Us

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.
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 calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, "<expletive deleted>!!!!!"
SKIL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short. Good for removing fingers.
PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.
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.
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 out of which you want to remove a bearing race.
TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity. Also good for removing fingers. Keep a bucket of ice handy.
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.
BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.
TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or 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.
STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.
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 the object we are trying to hit. It is especially valuable at being able to find the EXACT location of the thumb or index finger of the other hand.
UTILITY 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 in use.
SON-OF-A-BITCH TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "Son of a BITCH!" at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need

I might add from personal experience:
LATHE: A tool for grabbing the end of your loose sleeve when sanding the insides of flutes and pulling your arm up to the sanding mandrel where a few layers of skin are painfully removed before you can turn the damn thing off! Best when the skin weeps just plasma rather than bleeding blood or exposing bone and arteries.
REAMER: A tool perfect for splitting the wood of flute bodies, remind you that the reamer needs to be sharpened and adjusted.
FLEXIBLE SHAFT ROTARY CUTTER TOOL: Such as a Foredom. Used to make fingerholes that are the correct size into fingerholes that are now too big and play way sharp. Also useful for destroying a perfectly good embouchure hole.
MINI-TORCH: This tool is used to melt down perfectly formed and finished flute keys while making that one very last minor soldering adjustment.

Casey

[Jäger]

Hey, I think I might get into this whole flute business. Sounds like a load of fun!

[Steve Bliven]

And cheap too.....

Best wishes.

Steve

[Cathy Wilde]

Hey! I've got a whole shedful of son-of-a-bitch tools! I would submit a gear-puller as a tool specially designed to help you buy a new engine pulley, and a spud wrench as something made to hang unused on your pegboard until it falls on your foot.

Thanks for the laughs. I feel just a bit better now.

[I.D.10-t]

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 calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, "<expletive deleted>!!!!!"

Can help remove long hair too.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans.

I thought that was what a chisel was for.

Man that list brought back memories. The pop of oxy acetylene (AKA the fire wrench) being lit after being on too long. The BFH that seemed to fix everything (well everything that wasn't to broken to fix!) Chuck keys chained to the drill press just waiting for someone to leave it dangling or in the chuck. Lathe head stock that someone replaced without locking it in...

[Kirk B]

Someone had posted this years ago on one of the motorcycle boards I read and I had forgotten about it. Thanks for the laugh. A lot of that sounds really familiar.

Cheers,

Kirk

[Casey Burns]

A few more tools used in flute making:

MILLING MACHINE USED AS A DRILL PRESS: Used for drilling tone holes in the incorrect place or with the incorrect drill bit (usually larger), thus rendering a perfectly good piece of flute part into firewood.
SUPER GLUE: Used to rapidly suture a bad cut while celebrating National Hand Mutilation Week.

Another use for the lathe, overhead pin router or milling machine is to launch the lathe chuck key into space at high velocity, usually through a glass window or one's frontal lobe!

Another use for the Reamer is to slice open an artery in one's wrist while sharpening. This actually happened to a close friend of mine once! Took several stitches.

[O_Gaiteiro_do_Chicago]

Casey, I think you should write a children's book of workshop horror stories. Better yet, make sure it's marketed towards kids that are about to take shop class. It should be illustrated of course.

[Kirk B]

Here's one I encountered years ago. There's a space between the bottom of the workbench and the floor that contains a portal to another dimension. Years ago I dropped a screwdriver into this space and it was never recovered. Not even when we moved and everything was disassembled and taken away.

Cheers,

Kirk

[MTGuru]

Here's one I encountered years ago. There's a space between the bottom of the workbench and the floor that contains a portal to another dimension. Years ago I dropped a screwdriver into this space and it was never recovered. Not even when we moved and everything was disassembled and taken away.

You should have looked in your washing machine. Everyone knows that the sock portal and the tool portal are connected.

[Kirk B]

Here's one I encountered years ago. There's a space between the bottom of the workbench and the floor that contains a portal to another dimension. Years ago I dropped a screwdriver into this space and it was never recovered. Not even when we moved and everything was disassembled and taken away.

You should have looked in your washing machine. Everyone knows that the sock portal and the tool portal are connected.

That's brilliant. Why didn't I think of that?

[dcopley]

Hilarious stuff, and thanks to Casey for posting this. A lot of reminders of past incidents that I would rather forget. I would like to expand on one of the definitions:
"MILLING MACHINE - A highly precise machine tool used for drilling tone holes exactly 0.100 inches from the correct location."

[Steve Bliven]

Should add -

SUPER GLUE: A way to keep your hand safely attached to the bench top to avoid getting it caught in various mutilating devices. (Learned from experience. Glued my hand to the counter top with the solvent just out of reach. Had to wait a couple of hours for my wife to get home to get unglued. Luckily I could reach the refrigerator...)

Best wishes.

Steve