Long or Short?

Simple though the task may be, removing a nut requires making a critical set of choices even before the tool touches the steel.  Which tool?  The long or the short?

This question can and does apply to both the process and the tool required for it.  In terms of the process, the first decision is about how much time I want to take for the removal.  If time is of the essence, then I will choose the socket wrench, since this is a much faster way of removing a bolt than using an 'old fashioned' spanner wrench.  If space is the key factor, then even if I want to be quick about it, I am forced to use the spanner.

The question is, why would time ever be of the essence?  Why shouldn't I take my sweet time with every nut and bolt, using only the most basic--and less likely to fail--tools and methods?  Perhaps the automotive mechanic who is getting paid by the hour needs a socket wrench to improve his efficiency, but why should I, a mere South-Austin-driveway mechanic, need to be efficient with my time?

Philosophical considerations that take into account the value of my time along with my desire to enjoy this process--as opposed to knocking it out as quickly as possible--notwithstanding, I  have the sense that even though I don't have to, it is nice to use a socket wrench to speed along the removal of all those nuts and bolts.  In addition to enjoying the nice little precise sounds of the ratchet, I have the feeling that I am making good progress as the wrench moves from side to side and the nuts spin off effortlessly.

Contrast this with the slow-as-molasses feeling I get when easing a nut around a bolt head, one milimeter at a time, and it's easy to see why I would instinctively choose the short process over the long one.

Or is it?  Yesterday as I removed the nuts holding the alternator stand to the engine block, I had to use the spanner for two of the four nuts.  Though I would have preferred to use the socket for all four of these fasteners, in a liberating moment of compare and contrast, I came to appreciate the slowness of the spanner wrench.  

The feeling of 'breaking' the nut with the spanner is much more physical and immediate, requiring my palm to sense, perfectly, the amount of force needed to move the steel without hurting myself.  Then, when the nut begins to move, even though the action comes in much smaller increments than it would with the socket, the physical feeling of the wrench easing the steel around is much more sensitive--and therefore that much more satisfying--than the all-mechanical feel of the socket.

Of course, some situations call for the improved leverage of the socket, and some situations call for the delicate placement of the spanner, so it's more than just a time commitment.  Sometimes, one of them is the right tool for the job.

And, it's not as if the choice is between an 'old-fashioned' hand tool (the spanner) or a 'new-fangled' mechanical gizmo (the ratchet).  Both still seem like basic hand tools, especially when compared with, say, a modern compressed-air driven impact wrench.  

No, it's about time, and how much of it I want to spend on any one particular piece.  Even though it be unconscious and seemingly practical, most often the choice between the socket and the spanner is a still essentially a philosophical one.  How much time have you got?

Tools Make the Man

As both readers know well, I am no master craftsman. Although I own a fairly complete set of tools, it is safe to say that when it comes to using them, I'm fooling myself if I say that I am in any way skilled.

Take something simple, say, like a wrench. Now this is a tool I've used a lot, but sometimes it feels like it's the first time I've ever held one, let alone mastered its use. I routinely look carefully at a nut or bolt, walk back to my tool kit and pick up the wrong wrench. I walk back to my work, discover that it is either the next one up or the next one down, but not this one. Then, I walk back to the toolkit and attempt to chose the right one. Often it is that damn third time that is the charm.

Oh well, at least I'm getting my exercise.

Some tools, however, I use so infrequently that it really is like the first time when I pick it up again. Yesterday, I picked up such a tool, a little 3-inch angle grinder. I've used this little power toy maybe two or three times since I bought it back when the car in my driveway was a partially disassembled MGB.

I used it for the first time in three years just the other day, when I cut down the angle iron that I used to make a frame brace before we lifted the body off the chassis. Yesterday, though, I had some serious work ahead for this tool--cutting the rusty body pans out of the frame--yet my lack of experience was to be no hindrance to the task.

When I first bent to the task, I was hesitant and sloppy. I revved up the cutting wheel and locked in the 'on' position, but when I touched it to the welds, I let it skip and bounce a bit. The result was a jagged line that actually missed the second weld.

Sparks were flying everywhere and I had to stop and wait cautiously for the smoke in the frame tunnel to fade away. A fire inside the frame would have been particularly hard to put out, to say nothing of the damage that it would do.

So, when the smoke cleared, I went back to work, this time resolved to use the tool with a bit more confidence. I began really cutting into the rusty bumpy steel intersection between the pan and the frame. It felt less like steel and more like bread. Instead of a sawing motion that I would use for bread or meat, I began to drawn the spinning blade back in a straight line as I applied downward pressure to the steel. I began to feel the material as something less than steel, more 'cuttable'. Soon a neat line appeared behind the blade and I was making good progress.

Better than that, I was actually learning to use this tool. It felt great.

It wasn't to last too long, however. Depending on how you look at it, the fact that the person who welded in the pans the last time (it was NOT a stock installation) was so unskilled or lazy (or both) with the welder, that half the pan was not even welded in. After I cut through the first half, the pan just peeled back and off the frame. In less than an hour, I had the left floor pan off the car.

The right half will be much easier, of course, because now I have acquired just enough skill with the cutting tool to make it barely so. I will be fooling myself if I allow myself to believe that the skill is anything more than rudimentary. After all, I won't be cutting out floor pans on a daily basis, so whatever skill I manage to develop next weekend will surely be lost before the next task comes along.

In spite of this sober approach to my tools and my skill at using them, I am never so fully engaged, so deeply happy as when I have a tool in my hand and I'm learning how to use it. I think this is a deep, primordial urge, something so basic that it compels me despite my lack of skill and experience. Holding and learning how to use a tool--teaching myself as I go--makes me more than a shade-tree mechanic. It makes me human.