# When Tools Get Broken, Lost, Stolen



## DUNBAR PLUMBING (Sep 11, 2008)

When you've owned a tool or item on your truck you've had for years, and then one day when you clean the truck out, realize that your tool that you've had through good times and bad...


breaks. 



I'm going to try and get through this thread without crying, wait, tears are running down my cheeks as I type this out. I'm sad.


I found out that my rolling stool, the one I've used countless times on numerous jobs over the years, lost a wheel. It's a very old one that I believe I'll never get another one for it, and I'll have to do some rigging. It was heavy duty, otherwise it would of broke soon after I got it. 

It was given to me by a relative and it's been so resourceful other than a sit-down stool. It will raise the materials or tools I'm using, support something I'm working on or work as a work table to solder up fittings or sit in tubs replacing faucets.

I have a hammer drill I spent $120 on to repair that replace; $275 for a new one had a lot to do with that thinking.

I have a Dewalt sawzall that I have the repair parts to fix it, but I've been using another one that's not mine.


Years ago, I was laying pipe for a job where I used an all aluminum torpedo level that my grandpa owned and was given to me when he passed away. Depends on who the bigger idiot was that day; I set the level and glue/cleaner on the tracks of the bobcat when I stopped for lunch with everyone. It was right next to the ditch, right there in open view.

The concrete man didn't pay attention to it, even though he had to walk right past it. :furious: 

For some reason, that one still bothers me greatly, knowing that was my grandpa's. It was a tool that you cannot buy the quality of no more. It was machined out of a solid piece of aluminum, everybody wanted it wherever I went. 

I guess some tools really should sit on a shelf collecting dust, but I felt that the using the tool meant more, knowing he made money with it as well. He wasn't a plumber, but it was still the idea he had it in his hands using it.


This goes for all you professionals who have had tools stolen as well. I've had that happen more than once and on a few forums we'll get a plumber or another tradesman telling the story, which is disheartening.


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## Ron (Jun 12, 2008)

What cool about where I work, they allow us to purchase any tool we need, if we loose one, buy a new one no questioned asked, :yes: not to exceed $200, they say they would rather see us use a hammer over a pipe wrench to drive in that next nail, of what ever you use a hammer for. :thumbsup:


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## WestCoastPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

I understand how you feel

I had a phillips screwdriver from back when I was 12 and went to the hardware store to buy tools to repair my lawn equipment, it was my favorite, I was leaving a house with a handfull of tools after rebuilding a shower valve 3 years ago, and went to opent he back doors on the van, the screwdriver slipped out and went down a storm drain, I tried everything to get the lid open!

I also have many makita drills and other tools that are broken sitting in the garage on a shelf, went through alot toghther, hate to see them go....


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## user823 (Feb 3, 2009)

I still have my original hole hawg and sawzall from the late 80's. The sawzall has gotten so much use I can't belileve it's even still working. It's not as fast as it once was. I was cutting a two inch galvanized drain out over my head one time and it fell and the edge landed perfectly on my cord and sliced it in half while I was still sawing! Lot's of sparks. I taped the cord back together with wire nuts and black tape and still using it today. Though I did recently buy a cordless sawzall, might now be my new favorite.


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING (Sep 11, 2008)

Same here; I bought my hole hawg in 1987, a loooooooooong time ago. My dewalt sawzall came a year later, both still are used.


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## user4 (Jun 12, 2008)

What's even worse is seeing tools misused in just plain stupib fashion. The last high rise job I ran I was doing my daily walk through and found an apprentice drilling 3/8" anchor holes in concrete with a Dewalt cordless drill. It wasn't a hammer drill so he was holding it with one hand and hitting the back of the drill with a 22 oz. ball pien hammer with the other hand. Now keep in mind, this was a fifty story building project, I was running a 75 man crew and had a complete tool crib on the job full of everything from yarning irons to core drill rigs, so I ask the kid what the hell he was doing. He looks at me and informs me that the foreman told him to drill carrier holes, and when he headed to the skip to go down to the tool crib for a rotory hammer the foreman told him to stop wasting time and use the tools he had.

I fired the foreman that day after he admitted that the kid told me the truth, and the apprentice was given the new job of clean up crew because I didn't trust him to touch any more tools other than a broom. That is the day I seriously considered getting out of running new work for a while, and walked away from it when we topped that building out five months later, the company had another superindent oversee the building trim out.


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## trick1 (Sep 18, 2008)

I used to do work at a certain rapper's house in the Farmington, CT. area. I was installing some piping for the client's pond. Now I really live my cordless drill/driver. It was a Bosch Brute and the thing was awesome to say the least. Well, I walked 30 feet to my van to get something and the electrician took my drill and tried to install a concrete anchor while in the drill setting, through a piece of ledge rock. 

Needless to say, the drill motor toasted up and an electrician almost lost his life:furious: The owner of the company paid for a new drill, but it never felt the same


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## Cal (Jun 17, 2008)

I've got a thing about my stick rulers . I was trained on a stick rule , I have lived by them for 3 decades . Had an OLD boss who wouldn't let his apprentices use a tape ," Learn with this ,,, it MATTERS " 

Seems like whenever I have to get a new one ,,,, someone has to grab it and make some stupid ," What the hell ya gonna do with one of these old dinosaurs ?" comment . Then they wind up messing it up ,,,,

I'm gonna kill the next guy who touches my stuff :furious:

Cal


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## user4 (Jun 12, 2008)

Cal said:


> I've got a thing about my stick rulers . I was trained on a stick rule , I have lived by them for 3 decades . Had an OLD boss who wouldn't let his apprentices use a tape ," Learn with this ,,, it MATTERS "
> 
> Seems like whenever I have to get a new one ,,,, someone has to grab it and make some stupid ," What the hell ya gonna do with one of these old dinosaurs ?" comment . Then they wind up messing it up ,,,,
> 
> ...


I only use stick rules as well, in fact I had an apprentice buy me a tape measure once when we were doing a large gas pipe job because he got tired of me writing down sizes for him to cut as 6' 28½" and making him do the math.


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## Cal (Jun 17, 2008)

I've got a thing about my stick rulers . I was trained on a stick rule , I have lived by them for 3 decades . Had an OLD boss who wouldn't let his apprentices use a tape ," Learn with this ,,, it MATTERS " 

Seems like whenever I have to get a new one ,,,, someone has to grab it and make some stupid ," What the hell ya gonna do with one of these old dinosaurs ?" comment . Then they wind up messing it up ,,,,

I'm gonna kill the next guy who touches my stuff :furious:

Cal


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## Cal (Jun 17, 2008)

OOPS ,,, Sorry about the copy !


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