Marking your tools

Re: Marking your tools

Joel

>According to English insurance law if your tools were lost strayed or stolen for any reason and you did not have your mark on them you were not covered by the society, any insurance, or anything. So it was basically manditory practice that when you started work - you got your first tool and at the same time bought a name stamp.

Re: Marking your tools

steve knight

>back then the tools were used to make a living. now people collect them or ue them in a hobby for the most part. so in reality the value has gone down. when tools are used to make a living they are far mroe valuable then when they sit around and get admired.

plus it is not a big deal to modify a tool you use all the time to make it better or keep it around.

Re: Marking your tools

Greg B�tit, Vergennes, VT

>When I started out as a construction laborer, the only tool I had to bring on the job was a hammer. The company or boss carpenter supplied all the others. They were marked for ownership.

While working as a carpenter I made sure that all my tools were marked- Everyone has Stanley chisels, but mine isn't the one with the nail nick on the edge, etc.

I believe it was more common for several people to work together in the same cabinet/pattern shops in the past. Journeymen brought their own hand tools with them.

People bought the best tools they could because they intended to use them for the rest of their working lives. Not too many thought of a tool's value beyond that.

Greg

Re: Marking your tools

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>As Greg points out, when you're working in the field or in the shop with others, you want to know which tools are yours. My uncle marked a lot of his tools when he worked for the Southern Pacific, and I knew a lot of mechanics during my brief time in the automotive and building trades who did the same.

It's different when it's your shop behind the house - although if I had more neighbors who were tool-active, I'd probably find myself marking the loaner tools. As it is, only the son of our 93-year-old neighbor across the street ever borrows many, and he's very conscientious about returning them right away.

Re: Marking your tools

Kevin French, Antrim NH

>But the dark side of all this marking is, I picked up a Stanley #7 a couple weeks ago and some marroon ecthed their last name in the body, the frog, the lever cap, the chip breaker and the blade. Everything but the tote and the knob. And No I didn't check the screws.

Re: Marking your tools

Joe Rogers

>Hi Dave. I have $40 to $50 thousand dollars of tools at my day job as an auto tech. Most of my tools there are marked. I have been remiss lately and need to spend a day or so catching up. The main reason for this is so if some one finds a tool on a job thay are working on the tools can be returned to the owner. (Assuming that the car comes back to our shop for the next repair) The tools are way too expesive to not mark them. I work very hard to control my tool inventory and store the tools used after each job so I can eliminate "shrinkage" but stuff happens.

However none of my woodworking tools are marked. I don't see the need because I don't loan any and I have a database tool list for insurance purposes. I should add a digital image file too. JR

Re: Marking your tools

Jeff Spirer

>Joe

I installed a radio into my wife's car a few years ago.

After the winter was over I opened her hood to do something and found some of my tools there from the fall.

Quite a surprise.

Jeff

How do you know...

Dan Moening

>...they were yours?

Were they marked?

:^)

Dan.

Re: Marking your tools - Microstamp *LINK*

David Barnett

>I use several marking systems from these guys, both for marking tools for recovery/insurance and for hallmarking. The 'Trace Mark' is superb for anything but hardened tool steel, and the 'Tool Mark' will easily stamp those items. I have an alphanumeric set that's so tiny (0.5mm) you can't see it without considerable magnification (great for earring posts and fine gauge wire chain links. Great products and service. I highly recommend them.


Microstamp

Re: Marking your tools

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>:-) I bet they were rusty! Glad you found them before they spit out onto the road. JR

Re: Marking your tools

Robert R. Clough - Thorncraft

>Joel, that is true in some states here as well. My insurance company does not demand it but strongly suggests it. (Isn't that like a request from a superior officer?) I have marked most of my tools. They are all covered.

My grandfather marked most of his tools, and his chest, with a branding iron. However metal trools? Well, no.

I use an electric pencil.

Re: Marking your tools

Todd Hughes

>Isn't to uncommon with older tools esp. wood planes to see 2 or 3 different owners names on them. I have had quite a few where a prior owner had thier name scratched out and a new owner name put on.While maybe having your name on your tool would keep an honest person from taking it don't think it would give pause to a thief.I think it was done more to just make sure your tools didn't get mixed up with others that and lots of people just like to stamp thier names on stuff. I have a friend that has brand with his name on it and he brands everything from his wheel barrow to a shovel.I kid him and tell him I expect to see his dog with his name on it's but the next time I see it.I sort of collect old name hand stamps and they are an interesting thing to look for. Apparently in certain areas like SE Penn it was more common to brand thier tools then stamp them.I think name stamping probably fell out of faver by the 1920s or so as most stamped tools I see are older. Later more people just put a notch or ID mark on them or maybe intials from a stamp set.Will point out that I have seen more then a few broken metal planes from stamping marks on it .....Todd

Re: How do you know...

Jeff Spirer

>No, not marked.

But, definitly mine.

No one around here uses "good" tools.

Re: Marking your tools

Jeff Spirer

>Oh yeah, definitly had rust, but not as bad as I thought they could have been.

Only needed a little cleaning up.

I was also amazed they didm't fall out onto the road.

I've had this happen before.

Found a wrench sitting in my old truck's engine compartment I forgot to remove when working on the radiator one time.

Drove around with it for a week in there.

Makes me wonder how many tools I must have lost or left behind over the years.

jeff

Tool Control

Greg B�tit, Vergennes, VT

>When I was a post maintenance functional check pilot (a long time ago, in a galaxy far away...), I claimed every tool I found during my preflights as mine. During this period the Navy instituted a tool control program. Every toolbox had a slot for each tool. Each tool was marked. In the maintenance paperwork mechanics had to check off that the tools were all accounted for in their job sign-offs, and the QA inspector had to certify that he inspected the tool boxes as well as the workmanship of the maintenance.

Despite this new program, I still found tools. And I still kept them. Only now, because of the accountability, missing tools were a bigger deal. The Mechs would plead, but I kept the tool. The shop supervisors would plead, but no dice. The Maintenance Chief finally went to the Maintenance Officer (my boss) when pleading didn't work for him either. When the M. O. tried to brow beat me into turning the tools back in, I suggested that he and I and the Squadron Safety Officer, and the Squadron QA Officer go have a chat with the Skipper.

Greg -who has a small souvenir toolbox with safety wire pliers, wrenches, screw drivers, and dikes that rarely get used.

Love it;-)

Dan Donaldson

>

Re: Tool Control

Dave T

>Isn't FOD avoidance the reason for carefully controlling all the tools near a flight line?

FOD = Foreign Object Damage. I've had mandatory briefings that were full of examples of what happens when a screwdriver gets left on an engine cowling and then gets sucked into the engine.

Re: Tool Control

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native in FL. Exile :~(

>The Mechs would plead

Greg,

I don't for one second beleive that a Mech (AD), nor and Airframer AMH, AMS now AM's I beleive) would leave a tool behind and sign off the MAF. Now AT's and AE's, well now that's a different story.

I can damn sure tell you that when I ran my Workcenter I'd of probably physically killed any one of my guys who did that. I told them that those pilots, like 'em or not where somebodys, Son, Brother, Husband, Father, Uncle, Cousin, etc, etc, and that somebody is this world loved them, and I'd be damn if myself or anybody on my crew would kill one because they wanted to hustle up the job so that they could go sit on their butts 5 minutes sooner. I made that VERY VERY clear to them and their was no doubts that I meant it. I grew up in a single parent home and I was gonna make sure that I wasn't responsible for another child to do likewise.

I told my guys that every time those pilots strapped that Airplane to their butts (F/A-18's) that they where putting a lot of blind Faith and Trust into us and by God I wasn't gonna let them down.

Every airplane that I, and my crew worked on came back, which makes for very good sleeping. :~)

I've been retired for amost 3 years now, but this issue still fires me up.

Todd O.

Not really...

Greg B�tit, Vergennes, VT

>Tool control is to keep pilots from stealing stuff. :)

Just kidding- you're exactly right. FOD isn't just things sucked up into an engine, it is also flight controls that can't move because something left behind is hindering them, clogged fuel lines because of something left behind in the fuel tank, or electric failures caused by vibration and something left lying on a cable, etc., etc. (All three of those things, plus an engine failure due to a loose cowling fastener happened in units I was flying in during my 7 years of active duty.)

FOD takes the fun out of flying, I'll say that.

Greg

Re: Tool Control

Greg B�tit, Vergennes, VT

>You know, Todd, I do believe that they are all on board nowadays. Back in Zumwalt's Navy most of the troops were with you, but there were some... not many, but some that had no business working on A/C.

Greg

Navy tool control is better now...

Martin from Granbury

>Todd and Greg,

I flew PMCF's for VT-23 (now gone), flying the mighty "all weather radial intercepter T-2 Buckeye" back in the early 1990's. I didn't ever find a tool, and I conducted very thorough preflights. I think Greg is from an earlier era than Todd and I, and tool control has improved.

Having said that...it was always fun to pick the FOD (usually small nuts or short pieces of safety wire) out of the canopy during inverted spins. I would usually present them to the head mech on duty after the flight.

I'd give anything for another inverted spin hop right now. But alas, the T-2's have all been retired, and rumor has it they are chopping them up. So sad. We never got any respect, but it was a great airplane.

Martin, remove "5" for correct email.

Almost forgot...

Martin from Granbury

>"No matter how fast you go in the break, you'll never look S.H. painted orange and white."

Re: Navy tool control is better now...

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>I've been riding along, enjoying watching you fliers and ground crew trade stories, even when I can't understand the shorthand you use, but this one I've got to ask because it sounds like it might be a useful acronym: FOD means what, again?

Foreign Object Damage

Greg B�tit, Vergennes, VT

>It's a serious topic nowadays. The company I work for makes avionics, and every employee gets periodic training on how important it is to not leave foreign objects in the product before you button it up.

Greg