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As Father's Day draws near, there will be more
complaints that it's hard to shop for presents. As one of
my daughters put it, When you want something, you just
go out and get it.
I told her that wasn't true, since I
have always wanted a 1957 Chevrolet Nomad with a 327 and a
four-speed, and still haven't acquired one. After she
finished a spate of laughter, she told me that I might as
well want a desk in the Oval Office.
Actually, it's not that hard to shop for most guys, myself included. We can always use more tools.
It doesn't matter if we already have several cordless drills or half a dozen hammers. New tools are always welcome. Here are some suggestions:
· The Sawzall, or more properly, a large reciprocating power saw. They take blades from 4 inches up to a foot long, and they'll cut through anything. Most saws disintegrate when encountering a nail inside a piece of wood; these just roar right through.
Plus these saws look like weapons you might see the hero toting in some old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, and the nature of their operation reeks of masculine symbolism, and that's got to be appropriate for Father's day.
They're good for indoor work, like cutting a hole in a utility room floor to reach the carcass of a sick old cat who crawled in there and died unnoticed when the floor was being replaced in the adjacent bathroom. They're also good for outdoor work, such as cutting away tree roots so you can remove the stump of an elm that, like 98 percent of all elms, grew in the wrong place and cannot be terminated by any other means.
Not all of these tools are called Sawzalls, and this is a good time to point out a problem with vernacular nomenclature. Despite the corporate attorneys who scan newspapers constantly and threaten litigation when they spot an infringement, trademarked names can turn into common nouns.
So, even if every carpenter in America calls this tool
a sawzall,
it may not be one. Mine, for instance, is
actually a Makita Recipro Saw.
The Sawzall proper is
made by the Milwaukee Tool Co. By any name, such saws are
presents that almost any father would cherish.
The Crescent Tool Co. makes pliers, screwdrivers, nut
drivers, nail pullers and many other fine hand tools. It
also makes adjustable wrenches, so many that they are
frequently called crescent wrenches,
even if they
weren't made by Crescent.
(My father, I must note, generally calls them idiot
wrenches
presumably because non-idiots would know the
size they needed and use a regular end wrench.)
One hand tool, made by Crescent and other companies, might make an excellent Father's Day present: fencing pliers. As you might have guessed, the tool is built for working with wire fence. The business end sports a wicked horn for pulling staples, as well as a small hammer for driving them. Other features allow you to cut, stretch, bend and twist wire.
Around the house, I often find that fencing pliers are
the only tool needed when I hang a picture. The
staple-pulling horn works well as a lid-lifter on a
wood-burning cookstove, and the wire-puller is handy when
running computer network cables. Or, as my old cowboy
friend Rex Ewing put it, If you can't do it with fencing
pliers, it probably doesn't need done.
Another tool to consider for a Father's Day is one with many names, some of them printable: spud bar, section bar, pry bar, etc. It's a steel rod, at least five feet long, about an inch in diameter, with wedge at one end. It's good for poking post holes into rocky soil, and for levering rocks out of the way on a back road. That's just a start; there isn't nearly enough space to cover the virtues of this implement.
So there are three tools that many hard-to-shop for fathers might enjoy.
But I should note that there's one more reason that tools make good gifts. Dad often needs new tools because his children borrowed his old tools, and did not return them.
I speak from experience, as a son who still can still
discover an I thought I returned that to Dad
pickax
in my shed, and as a father who wonders where he left a
cordless drill until it emerges at a daughter's house.
So, even if you can't afford a new tool for Dad -- take the time to return the ones you've already borrowed. After all, it's the thought that counts, and returning tools is a noble thought.
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