Non-standard uses of tools

We all know what our tools are *supposed* to be used for....
But the reality is we all do other things with them.
Jay Angler put a post in the "What is it.... the game!" thread that started a fun thought, what was that tool being used for?  That part starts HERE if you are interested

The relevant parts are:

Jay Angler wrote:the question is, "what did Jay suggest Hubby should try using the tool for?"  

Pearl Sutton wrote:Cleaning the deposits out of a radiator is an odd thing I've seen them used for. They'd work for grabbing something that can't be reached like down a storm drain, or under a fence; to pull a piece of wire through a conduit;  

And that all made me think, I alt-use tools all the time. In the kitchen drawer I have a small hammer, a rubber mallet, and a 1 inch wood chisel that all get used to deal with frozen foods. That same drawer also has an oil filter wrench that gets used to open jars. I don't have space for it in this kitchen, but I have a small bench vise that I want in a top drawer to hold things like jars still while I deal with them. I hate going out to the garage to put things in the big bench vise as part of making dinner.

What tools do you use for things they were never designed to do by the manufacturers?
And I hope you do it safely!!  

I look forward to learning new ideas!

:D

We have a saying in my field.....you gotta work with the tools you have, not the tools you want.

The kitchen screwdriver!

Not the orange juice adult cocktail (which admittedly does ease kitchen duties) but an actual, sturdy flat screwdriver to be used as a chisel/prybar when prying apart frozen meat, veggies, you name it. I give these as gifts. Bonus if they have a chrome coating and can withstand the occasional dishwasher cycle.

Why?  Because otherwise people pull out their biggest and best chef knife to use as a prybar in frozen foods. And snap off a big piece of the tip. Kitchen knife metallurgy is tuned for slicing, not prying. So now I have to repair the tip, which takes time better spent elsewhere. Use a screwdriver instead!

Hubby is an electrical engineer by training, so if wiring in the house needs to adjusted, it's on his plate. I needed to repaint #2 Son's room from "pink hearts" to a preteen boy-friendly colour. However, at some point the former owners had stuck a little box on the baseboard with phone wires in it, and the vacuum cleaner had knocked it off more than once.  So he cut a hole to install a proper box in the wall higher up, but he was complaining he couldn't see in the hole to do what he needed to do.

I had some old makeup that came in a flip up rectangular case - make-up in the bottom and a mirror on top. Now it lives in the tool chest! I removed the old makeup after the third time he borrowed it. But he can hold it from the bottom and adjust the mirror to just the right angle, and it doesn't require batteries or fancy electronics like the wall videos do. Low tech for the win!

15" flat prybars are great digging and gardening tools! I even take one car camping to level out tent sites.

EDIT: Oops, i just noticed that my favourite flat bars are 18" not 15". The little bit of extra leverage and reach matters a lot.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:15" flat prybars are great digging and gardening tools! I even take one car camping to level out tent sites.

I use a 9 inch one to clean the underside of my mower deck while the grass accumulation is fresh and easy to remove. It lives where the mower parks.

Does using a butter knife as a flathead screwdriver count? 🤣🤣🤣

Shawn Foster wrote:Does using a butter knife as a flathead screwdriver count? 🤣🤣🤣

Yes I say so, it works better than using your fingernails!

Shawn Foster wrote:Does using a butter knife as a flathead screwdriver count? 🤣🤣🤣

Heck no! Replace the evil flat head screw with decent Robertson (square drive for you USA people) screw and be done with it!

Agreed - butterknives are super handy, as a screwdriver. I use one to scrape labels off of jars, and (way back when...) used to use one to break into my car, because I kept forgetting my keys in the ignition! I've used them as pry-bars, to pop lids off canning jars, to pop stubborn batteries out, as letter openers, and more.

I also often use tongs to reach items on high shelves! It's faster than getting out the step stool - probably not a good idea for grabbing glass or ceramic dishes and bowls, though.

I'll add more of my oddball tool uses, as I think of (or do) them. It's not something I've ever really kept track of - I usually just grab whatever is handy that looks like it might work for whatever I need.

One of my favorites.

The humble piece of metal pipe.

Meant to transfer some kind of fluid? No!

A force multiplier attachment for a ratchet?? Of course!

Some might call them "cheater bars."

Timothy Norton wrote: The humble piece of metal pipe.

Meant to transfer some kind of fluid? No!

A force multiplier attachment for a ratchet?? Of course!

Or a force multiplier for any number of other tools or "I need to bend this" application! They even come in a convenient selection of lengths!

Timothy Norton wrote:One of my favorites.

The humble piece of metal pipe.

Meant to transfer some kind of fluid? No!

A force multiplier attachment for a ratchet?? Of course!

Some might call them "cheater bars."

I taught basic physics  to a class of very little kids, and when we got to levers, we went out in the parking lot, and much to their surprise, with a long enough lever, even the itty bitty girls could take the lug nuts off Ms Pearl's car!

I use some tools as parts of my ergonomics of moving things, that I am not quite strong enough to deal with.
Vise grip pliers and C clamps can be clamped onto things to make handles, or attachment points for straps to make them either to work with. I use vise grips and C clamps that way to move things like plywood, to get heavy things out of dumpsters, and to hold tight to things that I need to drag.

I use cloth or bits of tire inner tube rubber to keep the clampy things from damaging what they are clamped to, and always keep pieces with my tools.

While cleaning out the pond, I've found that the sturdiest rake that won't pierce the pond liner is a coated multi-tined fruit picker basket. Slowly drag the tines across the bottom of the pond and twist the pole while raking. Removes giant blobs of algae and plant debris without causing any pond damage!

Amy reminded me - I use a pool skimmer to clean debris out of my livestock water tanks.

Hi Timothy,

I keep a cheater bar in both of my vehicles.

Shawn Foster wrote:Does using a butter knife as a flathead screwdriver count? 🤣🤣🤣

Only if you squared it off on a Jersey barrier in the rough part of town.

Speaking of butter knives, you probably all inherited a hook-knife style butter curler that sits in the dark lonely space at the back of your kitchen gadgets drawer. That tool deserves another look!
Permies grow a lot of fruits and veggies. The slim serrated edge of a butter curler is the ideal tool for coring out the harvest (such as zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes) into the perfect vessel for stuffing. The tool can also easily remove pith, seeds and membranes from butternut, acorn, pumpkins, Hubbard and other squash without cutting into the firm edible flesh. The butter curler cleans out a watermelon to the rind so it can be filled with mixed fruit salad. By late summer, that butter curler is one of my most useful tools.

I had to look up butter curler, nope, never seen one of those or I'd have gotten it. What I DID see someplace was an ice cream scoop with no part that moves, that I ran through a grinding wheel and put an edge on. I use it to clean out squash before cooking them. I have some sharpened edge tablespoons too.


Speaking of squash and tools, my best story of tool misuse::
I had people for dinner, and the spaghetti squash was NOT being cuttable. I tried, the guys tried, they even tried a hatchet. I got annoyed, took the blade off my radial arm saw, washed it, put it back on, and cut the squash.
You know you are at my house for dinner when serious power tools are involved   :D

Oops! John(hubby) reminded me of another one, because I forgot it on the ladder, and it fell - where he almost stepped on it(😬). I use a gardener's hand fork (the kind often paired with a hand trowel) to clean the rain gutters, when they get clogged. Our first-floor gutters are low enough on the north side, that I can easily reach them, from a folding ladder.

Since we're on the topic of kitchen tool abuse, about 30 years ago, Hubby made me about a dozen 6" stainless skewers. At the time, any shops near us lacked useful skewers - hopefully they're back in fashion by now.

I can get organic coffee sacks dirt cheap from a local shop. I use plenty of them full size for lining animal crates and from there they compost nicely. However, sometimes I need a specific size and shape that involves tacking them with a darning needle and strands of material I remove from the sack.

Those "skewers" work just fine as ginormous pins for holding the sacking where I want. Any loose weave material that needs sewing work gets the same.

Need holes poked - works for that too. Need to score something quickly - it will do that too. Skinny crack that needs cleaning - grab a skewer.

And of course I do use them for the old stand-by - shove them through a potato for baking and the exploded potato phenomenon is unlikely to grace your kitchen!

Soldering iron to remove embroidered logos from clothing!

I am experimenting with low-powered soldering irons, designed for electronics work, to melt the synthetic thread of commercially sewn logos on bomber jackets that were given to me. Great jackets, but a paramedic logo or something like that is not appropriate for a non-qualified person (that's just weird; no posers, man). I can pick out lettering with magnifying glasses and the sharp small blade on a Swiss army knife. But logos are tough -- unless I can melt the threads on the backing and pick them out from the front side.

Timothy Norton wrote:One of my favorites.

The humble piece of metal pipe.

Meant to transfer some kind of fluid? No!

A force multiplier attachment for a ratchet?? Of course!

Some might call them "cheater bars."

(source)

Tim, now I see where all those broken ratchets at auctions come from. 😄

I use a butterfly net to collect eggs, when there's a hen or duck that is being over protective - much better than blood blisters from a ticked-off-bird-pecking! It's easier on the back to reach for some of them, too.

I use a hoe to scrape the wooden floor of the chicken coop.

and a putty knife to open the door when I've locked myself out.

Alina, ditto here on your use of a garden hoe for cleaning out a chicken coop.
Although this may not be a misuse of this tool!
The century dictionary, copyright around 1912, list a hoe as:: and implement for digging, scraping or loosening earth.
If what is on our chicken coop floors can be considered earth, then scrape away with impunity and guilt free!
I wonder what Doug thinks?
Also wondering what type of door you're using a putty knife to open!

Now that Rich has brought the subject to light, I too have been wondering just how someone, who shall remain nameless, learned how to open doors with a putty knife?

It's ok to tell, I hung up my cape and tights from fighting crime a long time ago!!

Please keep laughing!!!


Peace

Rich Rayburn wrote:
Also wondering what type of door you're using a putty knife to open!

Regular house door.  Also used it to enter a building to perform in a concert, when security never showed up to let us in on time...that time was an attachment on a pocket knife.

Rich Rayburn wrote:Alina, ditto here on your use of a garden hoe for cleaning out a chicken coop.
Although this may not be a misuse of this tool!
The century dictionary, copyright around 1912, list a hoe as:: and implement for digging, scraping or loosening earth.
If what is on our chicken coop floors can be considered earth, then scrape away with impunity and guilt free!
I wonder what Doug thinks?
Also wondering what type of door you're using a putty knife to open!

Sir, I consider myself a Country Gentleman, and as such I do not consort with Hoes.

I have however opened doors with a pocket knife, giving access to the forbidden basement in my high school from which I issued the school newspaper. Olympia manual typewriters -- woo!

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:
Sir, I consider myself a Country Gentleman, and as such I do not consort with Hoes.

Nods, unless they are mortar mixing Hoes;-)

Shawn Foster wrote:Does using a butter knife as a flathead screwdriver count? 🤣🤣🤣

Now that we're all bearing our souls to the world, I have to confess to using a butter knife to set the point gap on my old John Deere tractors.
Also have used a flathead screwdriver as a pry bar, and just recently used the back side of an adjustable (no not crescent, although it was crescent brand) wrench as a hammer to pound on a battery cable.
Ugh, I'm hanging my head in shame, forgive me Scotty.
But for the record, do as Scotty says not as I do !

I'm sure Mr. Scott would cut you some slack. I mean, when you're stranded on an alien planet that's about to explode, that shuttlecraft has got to fly no matter what.