Bloody Toolboxes!

A couple of weeks ago I had occasion to help a friend remove a locking wheel nut by welding the rotating ring to the main nut, thus enabling him (hopefully) to remove said nut with another tool. As a possible aid, I took my stilson wrench, which had been in the motorhome.

On getting home I thought I'd put the stilson in in my tool box, as I've never had cause to use it in the motorhome. Thinking it would be a very long time before I ever used it again, I emptied the tool box and put the stilson in the bottom.

Later that day I came across my old spray gun, but the nozzle had become firmly stuck.

"What would be the ideal tool to encourage it to free up?" I thought. "A stilson!"

Out came all the bloody tools, once more, to retrieve something I thought I wouldn't use in many a month.

That's the problem with tool boxes - Murphy's Law seems to rule them. Whatever tool you urgently need, you can guarantee it's in the bottom of the tool box.

What I need is a proper toolbox, like this one advertised on Facebook Market.

However, at £87 it has to be a scam, of which many infest Facebook Market at present.

I remember my father having several, wall-mounted peg boards on which he laid out his tools. He carefully drew around them so he could instantly see where a tool had to be returned to or whether one was missing. 

Unfortunately, after a while, gaps started to appear where tools had gone missing. The vacant spots remained vacant, as any replacement tool never conformed exactly to the shape of the original. It ended up almost empty, except for the tools he never had occasion to use. The replacements were put into a toolbox, with the usual problem associated with toolboxes.

I've made great strides in improving the ergonomics of the workshop by reassessing the use of corners. I tend to use corners as a dump for stuff I don't think I'll need for a while, but without giving thought to the shape of what I'm putting there and the shape of the corner. I end up with a jumbled pile of things that are actually useless, but not in the most space saving order.

When I say useless, I mean there may be some use for them at some time in the future - like when I'm building a time machine - but nothing I can pin down at the present time.

Here's another gripe - tool boxes for specific tools that have those flimsy, clip on latches.

They break off at the drop of a hat.