Tool Features that frustrate me

[robinson46176]

All measuring is circumstance related...
If you are making a watch you need to be very very close.
If you are building a box to bury your worst enemy, not so much...


.

[jimsjinx]

I dispise screw drivers with crappy soft metal. I bought a beautiful rosewood set of Sheffield screw drivers. The WORST steel I have ever used! I hate cheesy fasteners,ie., HomeDepot cabinet screws,bolts,etc.. I can snap off a Homey D's screw with one hand, and I have arthristis!!! Lastly, I hate those stupid traveling tool sales. If you only use something once, and it works, consider yourself lucky! Heaven forbid you ever need a part or accessory! They pray on us tool junkies, and offer that tool "I always needed", at an irresistable price, so you will buy it and be sorely dissappointed the first time you use it! Meanwhile, the traveling sale has moved on, never to be heard from again!! Wah Wah.... Rant complete! jimsjinx

[KDC]

Tape measures that flop over when extending it vertically after only a short distance.

Nails that bend too easily and once bent can never be starightend out and renailed.

Airnailers jamming when you are hanging upside trying to toenail in a truss.

plastic tool boxes. enough said?

[keakap]

...Has anyone have any other pet peeves from woodworking tool manufacturers?

How about a $273 dollar router that comes "complete" with a 1 dollah thirty three cent stamped metal collet wrench?

[keakap]

Is that for when you cut the board too short, and you need that extra little bit?

In the same vein, one of the handiest rules I have is one that measures 1/8" short. So if I cut the kerf on the wrong side of the line, I get out this rule and everything's okay!

[keakap]

[quote="iclark"]...1) SS does not admit to the bandsaw blade length anywhere on the site - either for the saw or for the blades that they sell]

another version of that: a b/s saw blade package that is marked with (I would have thought) the length and style, as in "72 1/2, Resaw". Blade length 72 1/2"? No, blade length 72, WIDTH 1/2.
[And blades are commonly available in 72" and 72 1/2" lengths.]

[keakap]

...
Rule Number Three: If you don't like the space wasting plastic cases, take the tools out and throw the cases away. ...

Oh the irony-- another entry sounded like you should throw the tools out and keep the case!

[dasgud]

How about a $273 dollar router that comes "complete" with a 1 dollah thirty three cent stamped metal collet wrench?

only one wrench when two are needed. That button is a waste of manufacturing time imo.

[keakap]

... Lastly, I hate those stupid traveling tool sales. If you only use something once, and it works, consider yourself lucky! ...

An exception (the only one I know of, I think): The AMAZING GINZU kitchen knife. Bought one (well two, of course, since I "acted now!") at a home fair on the grounds of the Marin Civic Center back in 1975 or so.
Still have 'em. The AG not only still works but is still the most amazing extremely thin serrated blade I have ever seen. And not just for food, either.
A few years ago at another Home Fair in an expo center here in Honolulu, ran across another kitchen knife hawker, and upon nearing the booth saw an amazing thing-- the name was The Amazing Ginzu!
Changed a lot over the years but I could have recognized it. Bought one (well two since--oh, you know) and accompanying "if you buy nows" which included a set of 4 AZ style steak knives. How else to say it-- they are in fact amazing.
(Now I aint sayin we truck these out ("we"? the wife denies their existence) at holiday get-togethers or formal meals, but I use 'em a lot anaway, when nobody's watchin.)

[keakap]

only one wrench when two are needed. That button is a waste of manufacturing time imo.

I wuz gonna agree but then realized that with these Porter-Cables they did such an impressively rotten job on the stamped metal wrenches on the first one the 'button' is actually an improvement on the second.

Close call, tho.