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martin_csr wrote: Thanks. I don't have a that tool, but I do have a million nails. Do you know how many times I've needed a center punch?. Twice. maybe thrice. perhaps a few more times if I think hard enough.

That's fair.

My dad was a mechanical engineer and hobbyist, and he made sure my brother and I used best practices in the shop. A lot of those lessons are still ingrained even after all these years.

Several years ago I caught myself thinking "the job isn't done until the tools are cleaned up and put away", which was a very Dad thing.

Nerdy wrote: That's fair.

My dad was a mechanical engineer and hobbyist, and he made sure my brother and I used best practices in the shop. A lot of those lessons are still ingrained even after all these years.

Several years ago I caught myself thinking "the job isn't done until the tools are cleaned up and put away", which was a very Dad thing.

Yours and mine sound very similar. Could make or fix anything. I still have a 4cc radial 8 cylinder engine he built sitting as a ornament on my work desk.
Jobs only finished when everything is clean and back in its place.
Proved to be good practice next time you need a tool its easy to find and ready to use.

Not to steal the OP's thread, but my Pops was a tool and die maker by trade. He too could literally fix anything or make anything. My first bike was a 1966 Triumph 650 twin carb on which I had a little mishap. I needed a set of fork tubes for it but they were super expensive back in 1971 at least for my wallet. So my Dad asked me about the bike one day and what I was going to do with it and I told him about my fork tube issue. He asked to see one and if I knew what it was made out of which I did. Over the next weekend he made me a set of fork tubes that were spot on to the originals sans the inadvertent bends I put in them. He made them at his place of employment to metric specs which was odd back then and they worked fabulously. He was the best Dad I could have asked for but he lived and died by 1/10,000 of an inch which drove me nuts at times. One of his favorite sayings to me was , " Don't be a pecker, if you are going to do a job half assed don't do it all. Got it Pal?" I wish I could hear him say that to me just one more time.
Rick H.

Sounds familiar. My dad was a tool and die maker too. Unfortunately he never taught me about the cleanup thing...