Bought a hundred Allen keys. All the same size today at a car boot sale. (A quid for the lot) Have made some great centre punches etc out of them. Very handy for depressing nail heads into wood for covering with filler amongst other jobs What have you adapted for uses other than what the tool was designed for?
"Colin Jacobs" wrote: (clip) What have you adapted for uses other than what the tool was designed for? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Too bad this isn't rec.crafts.woodturning. They make excellent tools for turning the inside of small wooden hollowforms.
They make good engraving tools. I've also ground some into both straight and right-angle screwdrivers. Grind slowly, keep the temper, and you'll have some great little screwdrivers.
BTW, for the straight ones, I cut off the short end with a cutoff wheel so that I could sink the rest into a hole drilled in a wooden handle, filled with epoxy. I still have a couple of those after maybe 25 years.
The larger ones make good gunsmith's screwdrivers, if you know about them. The hex shank lets you get an adjustable wrench on them.
-- Ed Huntress
============================================== Put some color in your cheeks...garden naked!
"Ed Huntress" wrote in news:roC1e.3205$n03.2087 @fe11.lga:
Great minds. The other thing I've done is cut off the "L" and grind the flats of the hex on a taper so that the small end is close to the next size down. When you have a stripped out hex head hammer it in and use a wrench to turn it.
I had a bunch left over from Ikea kits. All the same size, all with two bends. I used a number of them for legs on a lobster sculture:
Underside:
------ also made a tire iron candelabra but photos are not handy
Our minds are running in the same tracks. I have a couple of those, too.
I think I inhereted 100 or 200 of the things from my uncle. You have to figure out *something* to do with all of that good tool steel, eh?
-- Ed Huntress
"Ed Huntress" wrote in news:uo22e.11100$ snipped-for-privacy@fe10.lga:
Yup. Once you make up a set of "shorties", some nice little scew drivers, and some extractors, then what? I used to use them to broach a hex in brass sub spindle ejector tips when tooling up a Swiss. I would use a bench vise as a press. They also make a handy spacer. Other than that, I have a drawer full of unmolested ones waiting to be put to some use.
Take up engraving. They'great. If you use the German style, hammer-tapping them, you can avoid having to crank the shanks by setting them in a metal handle, close to one side rather than in the center.
I have to admit I'm not much of an engraver, but they gave me a chance to try it out.
-- Ed Huntress
Damn, in my old shop that is moving, I think a box of *hundreds* of these things is headed for the junkyard.... Now I gotta go head'em off at the pass... 4x4, don't let me down now!!!! Great idears!
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