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A few (more) good tools

#1

As you may have read on this forum, I am the bewildered winner of
the latest Orchid raffle. As a tool junkie I have many of the common
tools, and wondering what folks in Orchid land would acquire given a
windfall such as mine. Thanks to Whitney Worldwide and The Naja, a
great local supplier I have most of the cool new 3M products. The
prizes included a new Sparkie II (fantastic), Cloud dome (cannot
wait), Foredom flex shaft and Karen’s book, Fretz and Michael Good
stakes, great training DVDs, cabs and

What would you buy next? The thread on the Torchmate lighter is one,
Kate Wolf’s new sander is another. I would love to hear other ideas.
Thanks

Marlin Cohrs

#2

Marlin, I might think about waiting a bit before buying more tools
unless there is an expiration date on the offers. Work with what you
have and see if these lead you to tools that will further your
exploring into those techniques. Although, given that this prize is
like being a kid in a candy store this advice may be hard to take.

#3

Let me see if I can get this straight: You have a blank check to buy
tools, your shop is full of new toys, you’re a kid in a candy store,
and you thought we were going to, like, be all happy about that?
Just kidding, of course. There are, as you know, zillions of tools -
if you have a ring bending machine, good dapping punches/blocks, a
design block, a nice circle cutter. I would suggest the Swiss Torch,
though. It’s the best torch you can buy, I think.

http://www.donivanandmaggiora.com

#4

I replied before about a torch. If I had a windfall like that,
though, if it were cash (meaning I could spend it anywhere - not gift
certificates), what would be dear to my heart would be a Gerstner
machinist’s toolbox. I have many toolboxes, but there’s something
very warm about a Gerstner…there’s a dealer of used ones of very
high quality on Ebay.

http://www.donivanandmaggiora.com

#5

Hi…

Santapers…or in the Rio Tool catalog…Sanding sticks… Page 249
in the 2005 cat…Color coded…

337-285 set of 5 (120G to 1200G)…about $10… You get sticks
themselves, and a belt each to start off with…

Then get 10 each of the belts…(220-1200 grit) about $55.00
total… Actually, you can probably omit the coarsest and the finest
grits… For some reason…the set of sticks has a 120 grit… The
replacement belts start at 220…

Or you get a set of belts 337-530…2 each of the grits… Since you
can rotate the belts during use…one belt goes a long way…

Part sandpaper…part file…point, flat, and linear sections to
work with…

Rio has the 1200G, which other suppliers do not show…

You’re set for life…if you do it by 10’s…

This is a humble tool, but once you have them, you will use them
again and again and again…

Gary W. Bourbonais
A.J.P. (GIA)

Oh yeah…another one…

6" parallel pliers, with a wire cutter built in on top… Rio
doesn’t show them…they only have the normal parallel pliers…
Sargent makes one…serrated jaws, with the wire cutter… These
will even cut music wire, which a lot of cutters only notch
themselves on…

If you want to, you can cover the jaws with masking tape, so it acts
like smooth jaw pliers…

Just remmeber…remove the masking tape after each daily
use…Masking tapes sometimes have crummy adhesive…the best ones
are actually less permanently sticky…

So…you should always remove them after a day use…

About…$30 or so…
Another one of them save-yer-butt kinda tools…