Shopsmith Forums

I got this from a Popular Woodworking blog.
It lists woodworking tool features that are just plain frustrating.
Examples:
1. Wacky Ruler Markings. This one is about rulers that are marked in tenths of an inch. The only thing I need tenth of an inch for is measuring rainfall. These rulers have caused so many errors that I've banished them from my shop.
2. All-metal hammers. Have you ever used one of these for more than a couple nails? Has your arm recovered yet?
3. Plastic tool cases. Space is at a premium in my shop at home. These hard plastic cases take way too much space and it's always difficult to get the tool and accessories back into the case.
4. Junky blades that come with table saws, miter saws, etc. They are only best for cutting goat cheese.
5. Unnecessary Lasers. On a jigsaw? Really?
6. Odd-sized hose fittings for dust collection on power tools. (duct tape to the rescue).

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

I too really hate wacky rule markings. I wish manufactures would stop trying to mix metric and standard and tenths.
Make the rules in one or the other and forget trying to be all things to all people. I refuse to buy a rule marked in both standard and metric. Although I do have rules of both.

I also agree with laser lights, they are everywhere and nearly useless.

I'm also frustrated with pin punches, nail sets and such made of non hardened steel. I guess in effort to reduce lawsuits someone came up with the idea to make pin drivers out of maleable steel instead of hardened. I don't know how many of these I have bent. Totally ridiculous.

Cheap drill bits would be mine. I had one unwind itself. No kidding, the cutting edge bit into the wood, and the bit twisted around backwards before I stopped the drill. Should have kept it as a souvenere, because telling the story, I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see the bit.

10's measurements and all metal hammers would not be peeves for me. I use them both quite a bit. There are reasons for them.

Hard steel punches would shatter when struck by the hard steel of a hammer face. So unless you would only use a mallet you definitely would not want a hard punch. I didn't believe in hard steel shattering until I was helping my boss drive out a bearing race. He was using an aluminum punch on this very hard piece of steel. The race literally exploded, he ended up with several stitches to close the wound on his arm. Hard steel can and will shatter.
Ed in Champaign IL

Steel that is left dead hard is very brittle and can shatter. While serving a sort of apprenticeship, I remember walking into the clock shop to find my mentor in a foul mood. He had placed a lathe collet on his bench instead of returning it to it's spot in the drawer. It had rolled off the edge and shattered when it hit the floor.

Drawing the temper a little will restore much of the toughness while only slightly reducing the hardness. For a punch you would want the material to be somewhere between the annealed and dead hard conditions.

Cheap drill bits are frustrating. I bought a couple of sets of small wire gauge drills from MSC, the sale price was too good to pass up. Like many Chinese tools the package was the best part of the deal and I lost several hours of careful work the first time I tried to drill a hole with them. Lesson learned!

jb41339 wrote: 1. Wacky Ruler Markings. This one is about rulers that are marked in tenths of an inch. The only thing I need tenth of an inch for is measuring rainfall. These rulers have caused so many errors that I've banished them from my shop.

Aren't the 10ths used for scale drawings? Like an architecural rule?

riot_nrrd wrote:Aren't the 10ths used for scale drawings? Like an architecural rule?

Scales with 1/10 ... markings are for measuring in NON-Fractional dimensions(i.e. decimal!). Sorta like analog digital!:D

JPG40504 wrote:Scales with 1/10 ... markings are for measuring in NON-Fractional dimensions(i.e. decimal!). Sorta like analog digital!:D

"three grains of barley, dry and round, placed end to end, lengthwise"
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I thought of another thing that frustrated me with tools and I realize it is often done for safety but it some of ways manufactures execute it drive me crazy.

That is two button or safety interlocks on power tools. You know the ones where you have to push the slide forward before you can pull the trigger.

My Makita recip saw has a button a lot like a "trigger lock on button" that must be pushed before you can pull the trigger. The manufacture as put this button is such a position you almost have to use two hands to turn the tool on.

It is almost impossible to reach overhead to cut a ceiling joist because you need both hands to turn the lousy switch on.

I also had a hedge clipper that was just as bad.

Now I don't have problems with all these interlocks just on the ones that make it impossible to make them function single handedly. Like my weedeater that has a squeeze interlock before you can press the gas. It is placed where you normally hold the tools so it doesn't require any special hand placement or action.

Ed in Tampa wrote:I thought of another thing that frustrated me with tools and I realize it is often done for safety but it some of ways manufactures execute it drive me crazy.

That is two button or safety interlocks on power tools. You know the ones where you have to push the slide forward before you can pull the trigger.

I hear ya. Seems some of these interlocks were made for people with three hands. Sometimes they are so obtrusive as to make the tool less safe due to the contortions you need to go through to engage the tool.