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Location:
Adelaide
Registered:
June 2002
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Re: Mechanics Toolkit - Starting an apprenticeship - advise please
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Sat, 16 April 2005 21:01
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Hi there mate-good to see a young bloke putting his money where his mouth is and going down the road to be a professional mechanic.
These days I'm an engineer, but I spent a year as an apprentice jet mechanic at Qantas in 1997 and picked up a good lot of tool advice and experience in that time.
What I've put down isn't some super tool expert guide, but just my ramblings about what I've picked up over the years-and it's by no means complete, but I reckon you'd have a decent kit to build onto for the future.
(anyone else reading this please correct anything I've got wrong or arse about-Sean)
When we commenced our apprenticeship (class of about 20) we had to buy a particular set of tools.
Bloody Strap-On of course...and it was big$$$$ of course.
The kit consisted of (if I remember correctly)
1/4 inch drive ratchet and socket set-plus a couple of extensions and a uni joint
3/8 inch drive ratchet, knuckle bar, speed brace and socket set
(fucken stupid imperial though-bloody american imperial fucken aeroplanes  -I don't own anything imperial!-on principle!)
(One thing to say about the Strap-on stuff is that it is very, very very good, but that also in a lot of areas it is better than it needs to be. Surface stress relieving is one thing, but you don't really need the shaft of a spanner so perfect tht you can see you face in it!! A lot of the time the finish is a bit overboard and the resulting high cost is largely due to making the tools pretty. Having said that though, the parts of the snap-on range I would highly recommend are the ratchets, knuckle bars, extensions, speed brace,uni joints and other tools with moving parts. The ratchets are nothing short of brilliant (you can always judge a tool set by feeling the mechanism in the ratchet), and the extensions are tough as as well. Buy Strap-on of the bits I mentioned above, but then only buy kingchrome, repco, supatool etc actual sockets.)
Engineers hammer (Strapon gold plated model)
Knipex (orange handles) side cutters, longnose pliers, standard pliers (they are a snap-on brand-don't skimp on these items, as you'll use them constantly)
Snap-on tape measure (yep-imperial-fucken useless thing-it doesn't even have imperial on one side and metric on the other
Don't get one of these stupid things!! Just a stanley one with a rubberised case is fine-it won't crack if (when....) you drop it.)
Open ended and ring spanner sets (ayup-imperial again-fucken Boeing, Pratt&Whitney and GE!!!!) Strapon ones are expensive, but one advantage they have is that they are just about the thinnest ones on the market-useful in tight spaces.
A good way to assess how good a set of spanners is (ignoring price) is to look at the outside of the ring and the thin edges of the shaft. If you can see grinding marks where the flashing from the casting/forging tool has been cleaned up with a grinder and if the ring seems thin and varys in thickness-stay well away. These are all stress raisers where the tool may fail-and possibly injure you in the process. Have a look at some snap-on ones (take pics even) and then compare the cheaper ones. Sidchrome and kingchrome are pretty good in comparison from what I've seen-but also about 1/2 the price
Good Earmuffs-and don't skimp on these either-even if your employer doesn't think they are needed-get them anyway and wear them often. Especially at quantas I saw more blokes with hearing damage than I could believe. I now take earmuffs with me to the drags and wear them prettmuch whenever I've got my helmet off. (I do look like a poof-but it means I'll be able to hear when I'm an old man.)
Coarse Valve grinding paste (A MUST-A GOD SEND!) This was one of the best tricks I learned there. If you have a phillips head screw that won't come out and the driver has started to turn and chew the screwdriver seat out, dip the tip in the paste and try again. The coarse grit bites in and stops the driver from spinning. I still use this trick twice a week at minimum. It's also good for sockets and dodgey bolt heads, or anything else you find is slipping. Fuck, this part of the kit may cost upwards of $5, but will save you amazing amounts of time and stress.
Feeler guages (imperial and metric)
Safety glasses, safety goggles, (for when you are on you back under a car and get that damn dirt shower when you hit a clod ofmud with the spanner), and a faceshield for when you are using a grinder. I got a metal filing from an angle grinder in my eye a couple of years ago and it was unbelievably painful-and I was lucky not to lose some sight in that eye-Be INFINITELY CAREFUL WITH YOUR EYES-no matter how much ribbing the other guys in the workshop give you!
Screwdriver set (strapon) A stanley one will do fine, and a good selection of mitre bits to go in your speed brace.
Other things I'd recommend-
Dick Smith digital 12V multimeter-just a basic one-good for checking continuity,resistance, voltage etc on jobs where it isn't complex enough to bother an auto sparky
A thread checking guages (looks like a feeler guage but the edges are all serrated differently so you can match them to the thread you have and read off what it is.
Mechanics gloves and Riggers gloves.
Kevlar gloves and forearm protectors for when you are working on hot engines (brilliant things-I only really started using them a couple of years ago-and they ROCK.
Barrier cream, your own (choose one better and probably more expensive one than the handcleaner they'll supply) and after-work moisturiser. (it sounds gay, but once you start swinging spanners EVERY DAY of EVERY WEEK you will notice the condition of your hands deteriorates extremely rapidly if you don't take care of them.
(And don't let any of the blokes in the workshop give you shit about it either. Just tell them that your missus doen't ever complain when you touch her with your hands-odds on is theirs don't let em at all with their hands. When I was at Qantas, I was told to say that by another bloke when the guys were teasing me about how much care I took of my hands-low and behold they all joined me within a week, and proceeded to rock up to work a whole lot happier most mornings!!!!!!!  We also found that because the skin wasn't so dry and we didn't need abrasive cleaners that out hand were almost pain free most of the time.)
Vernier calipers-don't leave home without them! Have two sets-
One set a $10-$15 set of 'good' plastic ones with a dial guage. These are good for quick measurements and can be dragged about without worying about hurting them. They can be chucked in the toolbox, dropped etc without stressing and are great for stuff like pipe size measurement, bolt diameters etc that don't require ultimate accuracy.
The others should be a good set of steel ones from a reptable manufacturer. The digital ones are quite good (I've got some kinchrome ones, and the standard of finish is quite impressive-especially when they were only $120 or so) However, as you are starting out a good set of full manual scale ones is good so you get the method for reading manual ones burned into your brain before you get lazy and buy the digital ones later. The manual ones are also 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the digital ones.
30cm steel rule and smaller 120-150mm steel rule
Anyway,theres my overblown rundown based on my experiences. Remember, these tools will be your livelyhood so you don't want to skip in the critical areas-although don't just buy on image alone as sometimes it's overkill.
In summary-
Snapon (or Stahwillie-equally as good-and on a par for cost) for ratchets, knucklebars, ratchet screwdrivers, extensions,
uni joints etc (stuff with moving parts really).
Sockets from a 'lesser' brand as they are 50%cheaper but probably only 10% weaker.
Spend up for good pliers and maybe a set of multigrips and vicegrips (for when you get the shits with that rounded bolt head and just crunch onto it with the vicegrips.)
As somone mentioned before too, ratchet rings are the tool of the messiah. Strapon+stahwillie are the ducks guts for these things, but for the cost you expect them to actually be motorised and undo the bolt for you....Repco and other comparable brands are fine as you tend not to use them for high force jobs-usually to ratchet the bolt/nut off once it's been cracked with a spanneror socket. (I order you get some of these-they fucken kick ass royally!!)
Anyway mate, start bit by bit-you don't need to buy it all at once, and I know how tight a 1st year apprentice wage can make things. Buy something each pay and you build a killer arsenal in no time.
Take it easy Mate
Sean
Adelaide
PS
On another notemate-be aware that these days, the tradition of Apprentices being messed with by tradesmen for laughs is now HIGHLY ILLEGAL-ie, at Qantas the tradesmen decided to start a pitched battle with apprentices in the engine re-build section by pegging rolls of tape at them. The rolls used in that section could be up to 150 mm wide aluminium tape in 50-100M length. It was all funny until the apprentices were outnumbered 5 to 3 and cornered. In the final hail of tape rolls, one lad copped a ruptured kidney, and pissed blood for a month, whilst the others got concussion and required multiple stitches in their scalp. This was just one of a stream of incidents that occurred pre 1995 (one apprentice received seruious burns in a 'prank' and was in hospital for months!)
Make sure you stand up foryouself (if required), and get some advice from the apprenticeship board on how to handle anythingthat comes up.
DONT TAKE ANY SHIT!!!!!!
[Updated on: Sat, 16 April 2005 21:35]
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Mechanics Toolkit - Starting an apprenticeship - advise please
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wuzah? | Sat, 16 April 2005 09:14 |
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unforgiven | Sat, 16 April 2005 11:08 |
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Meat_rack | Sat, 16 April 2005 11:16 |
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BradW | Sat, 16 April 2005 12:02 |
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Re: Mechanics Toolkit - Starting an apprenticeship - advise please
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justcallmefrank | Sat, 16 April 2005 13:31 |
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Re: Mechanics Toolkit - Starting an apprenticeship - advise please
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EldarO | Sat, 16 April 2005 14:22 |
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Re: Mechanics Toolkit - Starting an apprenticeship - advise please
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MS-75 | Sat, 16 April 2005 21:01 |
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