Whats your favourite cheap tool?

[homersimpson]

I thought it would be interesting to ask people what their favourite cheap tool is (lets say less than £100), what did you buy that really surprised you or what did you find that did the job better than the proper tool.

I will start off with a couple of mine:

This small Black and Decker KA900E belt sander was recommended on another forum i'm on and I find it really useful for getting into places where a normal grinder can't get.  Its really quick and effective and also great for cleaning up before welding.  At around £45 its a bargain, I have worn out the end of it once and they cost around £11 to replace.  I use the Zirconium belts for it off ebay.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BLACK-DECKER-KA900E-240v-Belt-sander-13-x-451mm-belt/172794060789?epid=650131509&hash=item283b541ff5:g:YgcAAOSwl2RZd3QQ 

I use a piece of 50x50 3mm box section (around 600mm long) for fitting door skins as a dolly as I find a normal dolly in my inexperienced hands can cause ripples in the outer skin.

If you look at the MK2 jag skin i've just done in the technical section I did the bottom with a dolley as my length of box section wasn't avaialble and got a few ripples, I did the sides with the box section and they are perfect.

[johnthesparky]

I’m at work, so here is my favourite work tool



It’s for marking out single or double boxes, and has a level

The spring thing is for setting depth to floor/skirting/worktop



Think it was a fiver, I have loads of ‘proper’ tools, and buy certain screwdrivers for the way they feel in my hand etc.. and power tools etc, but I love the simplicity of this

[The Doctor]

Ever since starting to work on my cars I've used a cheap socket set from a hardware store. It has really big notches on the rachet bit, which can be annoying but it is a strong unit. I've used it with a 2m pipe to get stubborn rusty bolts loose loads of times and it didn't break. Even used it as a hammer when laying under the car and the hammer was out of reach. Sockets survived a proper bashing with the rattle gun as well.

[Deleted]

Has to be this





Your humble Halfords pro socket & spanner set - purchased 15 years ago on a half price offer I think they were circa £160 at the time so I probably paid £79.99 or something to that effect - gets used all day everyday in a professional workshop and has never given an issue - must have paid for itself 30 times over (I joke not) You can stick your massively overpriced 'Snap On' rubbish has far as you can throw it

[sowat]

Set of Bergen deep sockets 8mm to 19mm bought 25 years ago for £10
Used,dare I say professionally by me
Still going strong

[homersimpson]

May 9, 2020 16:13:05 GMT @grumpynorthener said:

Has to be this





Your humble Halfords pro socket & spanner set - purchased 15 years ago on a half price offer I think they were circa £160 at the time so I probably paid £79.99 or something to that effect - gets used all day everyday in a professional workshop and has never given an issue - must have paid for itself 30 times over (I joke not) You can stick your massively overpriced 'Snap On' rubbish has far as you can throw it

I quite agree about Snap On, I only have one snap on item, its a 13mm socket and I got it as part of a mini where for some reason it had been threaded over the choke cable (it was too small for the choke cable nut so no idea why it was there).

I used it a handful of times and it split when I wasn't putting it under than much strain.

The cheap sockets I have always bought have tended to be fine and if I break them its usually because I was misusing them.  I've had a few issue with cheap spanners but generally they have been ok, as the saying go's you pays your money and you takes your choice!

[homersimpson]

May 9, 2020 10:09:45 GMT johnthesparky said:

I’m at work, so here is my favourite work tool



It’s for marking out single or double boxes, and has a level

The spring thing is for setting depth to floor/skirting/worktop



Think it was a fiver, I have loads of ‘proper’ tools, and buy certain screwdrivers for the way they feel in my hand etc.. and power tools etc, but I love the simplicity of this

Thats a really handy gadget and like most good ideas its really simple but I can see its effective.  I could do with giving some of the sparks that work for us one of these!

[gt]

May 9, 2020 16:13:05 GMT @grumpynorthener said:

Has to be this





Your humble Halfords pro socket & spanner set - purchased 15 years ago on a half price offer I think they were circa £160 at the time so I probably paid £79.99 or something to that effect - gets used all day everyday in a professional workshop and has never given an issue - must have paid for itself 30 times over (I joke not) You can stick your massively overpriced 'Snap On' rubbish has far as you can throw it

i have the same set had mine for years, great tools for the price can't fault them, i did break one of the ratchets but was totally my fault is i had a pipe on the end of it, but you can buy a repair kit for a few quid.

[cjhillman]

I bought 2 13mm silverline ring spanner so I could do the alternator belt on my Escort. I use them for everything and have been great on the Capri doing brakes , Carb and leaf springs... still look like new. About £1.50 each

[NudgerSS]

I got a huge Kamasa socket socket 30+ years ago which is still going strong. The flimsy plastic insert has gone by the wayside but that’s about it. This is before they did the thick blow moulded cases.
I do have a few other socket sets but this has all the imperial and metric sizes I need so is my go to one.

[surprisingskoda]

I bought a draper expert 1/4 socket set off a rep when I worked in a Ford dealership circa 2006.
It survived until 2018 when it was retired along with a guy that had worked for me since 2012 using that as his main sockets, breaking cars daily. I still have it, but now we use £12 Lidl sets that have bit sockets in the box as well. Each guy has one each and they take some abuse, albeit most of them have a halfords ratchet in them now.

Also a cheap tool is a teng tools rigger jigger, with 10/13mm ring ends on a stubby spanner. It's great for getting something off in a tight spot and small enough to live in your pocket. Usually that, a flip out bahco knife and a reversible bmw screwdriver are in my coat pocket and that of my staff.

[bstardchild]

May 9, 2020 16:13:05 GMT @grumpynorthener said:

Has to be this





Your humble Halfords pro socket & spanner set - purchased 15 years ago on a half price offer I think they were circa £160 at the time so I probably paid £79.99 or something to that effect - gets used all day everyday in a professional workshop and has never given an issue - must have paid for itself 30 times over (I joke not) You can stick your massively overpriced 'Snap On' rubbish has far as you can throw it

I really like the Halfords tools/stuff (Professional or Advanced) and for a long time I've wanted a similar set that I can take with me in the car to Le Mans etc - I end up using an old bag and just chucking in what I think I'll need and it's often too many tools and inevitably not the right ones

I know for your line of work having metric and imperial is essential but I just wish they did a metric only set that went thro all the driver sizes

I refuse to spend a large wadge of cash on sockets I will never use......

[Dez]

Bizarrely with the advanced sets I bought recently the imperial one is better than the metric one. I think it’s missing a few of the smaller 32nd fractionals but it goes right up to 7/8”, where the metric one stops at 19mm.

[ChasR]

There are alot of tools which are under £100 which have been great including:
-Halfods 200 piece socket set ; I take it for granted but it's what I use all of the time
-Picks : These are less than £10 and make seal removal less damaging and much easier on a whole host of things.
-Zip Tie Gun : I can thank David Freiburger for this one. It's a tool I lost for a while until yesterday. It's brilliant. You can tension zip ties properly to the car (probably enough to hold coolant hoses in place if the ties can take the heat!), and it cuts them flush, so you don't sether an artery when working on a car ; my garage used to hate working on my dad's cars for this reason ; the zip ties in the engine bay from broken clips to secure harnesses in place just cut you up when changing an air filter or a sensor etc.

The special mention has to be this:



This was not cheap at £80 but I thought I'd treat myself. I have a big DeWalt rattle gun for doing big jobs and that has sped up things massively and saved me unneccesarrily rounding thigs off ;like BMW prop bolts on the rear CV joint, and tightening the bolts up front, meaning torque checking them is much quicker and easier.

This Draper one is super handing for doing things up where access is tight and you can only turn a ratchet marginally, and for taking off alot of fixings, like on the undertrays or recently, our lawnmowever.

It can tighten to around 20Nm on the motor but that's fine. In the Merc, it was a Godsend when I did the steering coupler change; access was awful on that! Many people on the forums moand about changing that but I found it fine .

[comfortablynumb]

I’ve only ever had one snap-on tool, a deep 10mm socket I found in a breakers
It split after about three uses, and again, not under a great stress, it was only 3/8 drive
Best tools? The last one that actually did the job l was doing 👍

[mrbounce]

A set of drifts I got from Machine Mart about 7 or 8 years ago - perfect for doing the silly little jobs like removing a roll pin, but also extremely useful when punching out broken bolts - they're made for the job of being twatted with a hammer. Cost less than a tenner but invaluable. My friend always uses things like screwdrivers then complains that they're a bit chewed up - drives me nuts!

Rubber mallet. Mine cost £3 from a boot sale. Probably not the best quality but it is perfect for hitting stuff hard you don't need to damage.

Dremel. If you're going to buy a 30 year old fibreglass kit car, you WILL need one. The amount of jobs I have needed it for it's paid for itself many, many times over. That is a good thing as I have killed 2, but then I have worked them hard and they lasted about 5 years each! Top tip - if you're going to be using a cutting/grinding disc a lot, get one of the Speedclic mandrels. Worth their weight in gold.

My workbench. This was a right-place, right-time moment. Electrically adjustable stainless bench 5ft by 2 1/2ft ish. Paid not a lot of money for it. An absolute godsend.

And finally my tool walls. Made these myself out of some pallet tops, old paint and a bucket of screws for less than the price of a couple of pints. Having the tools all arranged neatly out of the way is brilliant for keeping it all in one place plus it makes it more difficult to steal.

[Midas]

I bought a Teng 1/2” Ratchet about 30 years ago from Ian at Little Horton Motor Spare’s about 30 years ago that has been beaten and abused and is still going strong.

Is Ian still going?

[jpsmit]

Off the top of my head - and having my memory jogged by mrbounce above - yes a rubber mallet, but, also a dead blow hammer - cheap and keeps me from doing stupid things like whacking at castings with a regular hammer. Also plastic trim and molding tool set - super cheap and used for many more things than trim and molding. (which they are also good for)

[martin42006]

One of my most used cheap tools has to be my Leatherman got on amazon sale for £30 quite a few years ago replaced last year under lifetime warranty for snapped knife, beltclip, screwdriver and pliers tension spring.

Followed by a beater knife, i got it at the local hardware shop about 6 years ago for £20 and have abused the hell out of it, it is used as a poker, scraper, chisel, prize tool gets frequently hammered on and anything else i need it for, sharpened every so often on the bench grinder.

Wouldnt do a day in the workshop without the pair on my belt.

[georgeb]

Not a single tool, but when I left the UK, 99% of my tools were given away. I only had my ancient Imperial/Metric Britool socket set.

This wasn't a problem until I bought the '38 here. The only spanners available in the Phils are Metric but, like everyone, she has a fetish and, from her posh frock down, her's is for Imperial.

I was offered, sight unseen a set of kit from a guy who was an ex-aircraft mechanic in the UAE, who'd come home and needed some cash.

Bought the lot and would you know it, every spanner was Imperial, good stuff as well, including Armstrong, Craftsman and Proto. As a bonus, loads of 3/8' Imperial deep sockets I didn't have before.

Happy days!