oh this is great!! my dad kept a whole drawer of these on his workbench next to the tea mug. i still use his claw hammer for everything, head is all mushroomed over from years of misses and it drives a nail better than any shiny new one. stuff built back then was made to be handed down!

> my dad kept a whole drawer of these on his workbench next to the tea mug

the workbench with the tea mug, yes, we know him

oldest thing i use regularly is a pair of scissors at the reference desk that predates me by three decades at least. they still cut. i've stopped asking who they belong to. second place is a flathead i keep in my apron pocket for the stiff red switch - loosens it once a week so i don't have to fight it at closing

okay but hear me out, there is something genuinely lovely about a tool that has been through three pairs of hands and still does its one job properly. my nan had sewing scissors that nobody was allowed to use on paper, and i still won't cut anything but fabric with them even though she's long gone. gearhead, does that wrench need any actual maintenance to keep turning like that, or is it mostly just use?

no maintenance to speak of. wipe it down, drop of oil on the screw threads, don't leave it somewhere damp. the ones that seize up are the ones nobody ever picks up. my tape measure is twenty years old and still retracts clean, that one's mine not inherited though

the mushroomed hammer thing is so real!! my brother still has a cordless drill from about 2003 he wont retire because the battery somehow still holds a charge. built different back then, no question. also wren those reference desk scissors probably cut better than anything in my kitchen drawer and thats slightly embarrassing

a mushroomed hammer head is basically a portrait of every miss, i'd paint that before i painted any of my own work honestly. gearhead, twenty years on a tape measure and it still retracts clean is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, i've killed two in as many years

> they still cut. i've stopped asking who they belong to.

the scissors at my desk have a small chip in one blade that matches nothing i've ever seen a pair do, and i want you all to know that this has bothered me for the better part of a decade

long time lurker, first post. my grandfather's brace and bit - the wooden handle is smooth as glass from his palms and i use it for every hole i drill in a wall. the modern cordless does it in two seconds and i still reach for the brace first, i don't have a good reason

the brace and bit thing!! ginger sits on the arm of the sofa and supervises whenever i get the secateurs out and those are my mum's from the garden centre, the bypass pair with the green handles that she had before i was born. they still do a cleaner cut than anything i've bought myself and i will be gutted when they finally go

> gearhead, twenty years on a tape measure and it still retracts clean is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence

marlowe sitting at zero for a perfectly good post, this board is harsh today. oldest thing in my desk drawer is a ratchet my uncle handed me, half the sockets vanished years ago and it still clicks like new. case closed, old tools win

long time lurking, posting on my break. my dad's wooden folding rule, the kind that snaps out to a metre and smells like the toolbox it lived in. half the numbers are worn smooth but i still use it for checking clearance on things because a tape is too floppy for that. sorry gearhead, nothing wrong with your tape measures, they're just not for this job

shedrat's not wrong about the rule. a tape has too much curve in it for clearance work, you want something rigid you can lay flat against a part. different tools, different jobs. still think a folding rule is a pain to keep straight over about six inches but that's just me

brace and bit is legit though. slower, sure, but you feel the bit break through instead of snapping the last bit of plaster with a drill that's going too fast

> does it catch, or does it just sit there looking wrong

both. it catches about a third of the way down and then releases. i've tried to photograph it twice and the angle never shows
tallowjune welcome. post more

the rule with the worn numbers is a good call, shedrat. those old boxwood ones hold their shape over a gap and you can lay them across two faces. my dad had one, half the paint gone on the metre end. lost it in a move about fifteen years ago, still think about it sometimes

tallowjune welcome aboard!! first posts are always the good ones around here, that brace and bit sounds brilliant. and wren, the chip in the scissors - mate, some things just pick up a battle scar and you never learn the origin story. mine's a bread knife with a notch in it my mum swears wasn't her

first time posting, been reading this board for months. my nan's hedge shears - the kind with the wooden handles and the big coil spring that went rusty and we just oiled it and left it. spring still has tension somehow. dad says replace them, i say they still close on a branch

ferrule the wooden-handled shears with the big coil spring are exactly what i mean, they just don't make the handles like that anymore. mine hang on a nail dad hammered into the shed wall years ago, right next to where he kept his gloves, and i still lift them off the same way he did. if mum's secateurs ever go i'm going to be absolutely useless about it honestly

rusty spring that still has tension is fine, leave it. you oil it, you work it a few times, and you only worry when it goes soft on you. mine's a tin of salvaged springs sorted by length, half of them off dead door closers and washing machines, still the first place i look when something needs a bit of pull

spring still has tension, they still close on a branch, dad can talk. that's the whole case. my uncle's ratchet lives in the same drawer as my four jars and it gets used more than either, half the sockets are gone and i've never once needed the ones that left