Well it may very well be the last tool they buy. None of them men in my life (husband, sons, boss) will let me have sharp objects of any type. They say they have their reasons. But I must admit, it certainly sounds to me like you knew what you were doing!

Yes sir nothing drives a man more nuts than wrong use of tools, abuse of tools and finding tools rusty ... some examples include digging with a claw hammer, using a screwdriver as a crowbar (goes for a shovel too), wrench as a hammer (or a ratchet as a hammer). Using a metal saw as a wood saw. And one that drives me absolutely nuts is finding nicks in my wood chisels - on my third set but fortunately my kids have grown up so should be my last set.

And the ultimate sin ... not putting them back exactly where they were in the tool box when you borrowed them ... your staking on thin ice Annececlia, even if it was a gift he still owns it ... hahahaha.

riku, are you related to my husband? lol

I just used DH's brand new Dewalt sawzall to cut tree roots, and I just broke his biggest hammer too, he doesn't know it yet. sshhhh... I'll blame the dog when he finds out.

The gene that governs proper use and treatment of tools is NOT tied to the Y chromosome.

I use whatever is in my hand to accomplish whatever I need done in front of me. I am not misusing the tool, I purchased it therefore I can create the user manual. I do not harm others tools, that would be horrible , but if it is mine....there are no limits to the uses. Heck, yesterday I cut down a scrub oak with a hand pruner...the tree was about fourteen feet tall. I have a few great tools, and they serve me well.

Nothing against tool purists. My father has an immaculate garage, beautiful tools, and a memory that knows all. Riku, I know what you are saying.... I think I grew up with your twin.

Owing to a defect in the XY chromosome, I failed to inherit the genes for masculine tool fetishism. I never clean, rarely sharpen, and hack on plants with whatever piece of metal is close to hand. I saturate the environment with cheap pruners, since I'm always forgetting to put them back where they belong.

But oddly, I keep the kitchen knives really sharp. Something I can't abide is stainless steel too hard to sharpen once it goes dull.

Michael a test scenario of rejecting the "xy syndrome" ... if it was the only tool available would you use your prized Fenwick or equivalent custom made precious to whack the Virginia Creeper down because it absolutely had to come down at that instant or would you prefer to throw yourself into poison ivy ? ...

LOL, I thought engineers were the worst [my grandfather, father, uncles and cousins]. Y'all sound just like them. I am duly ashamed of my tool use, I admit, but I'd never use theirs, lol. I do ENJOY tools, which is a given in my family and often leads to me being a handyman and unable to cop out of much.

The right answer would of been yes I would use precious, because I would just take the opportunity to practice the perfect casts with perfect aim snipping the creeper with the perfect whip back ... lines and leaders cheap ... no way rolling in poison ivy

Come on, guys! According to Miriam Webster:

Main Entry: 1tool
Pronunciation: 'tül
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English tOl; akin to Old English tawian to prepare for use
1 a : a handheld device that aids in accomplishing a task
2 a : something (as an instrument or apparatus) used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession
c : a means to an end

No where does it say a tool is something to be revered above the task it was designed for, LOL! BTW, I DO know how to care for tools - my Felcos are lovingly sharpened, adjusted, oiled and used exclusively by me, so there. And just for the record, I DID clean the saw before I folded it and put it away. Does that get me any points? ;-)

AC

Well, I am as serious about my kitchen scissors as he is about tools, but he has no respect for kitchen scissors. I must have bought 20 since we have been married and he continues to use them for strange things. I would put them under lock and key but that would not be handy when even I needed them. Can he not just leave the damn scissors alone?!?

Ahhh .... Annececilia that's easy why because the tool is what distinguishes us from those who love and grow roses from those who eat them. It is the most critical invention and therefore to be revered ...

Hey, be proud! You brought your son up right. Now you must walk the talk or prune when he's not around (I think that falls in the X/Y categories?)

Carol

riku, actually a good fly rod is "something to be revered above the task it was designed for." I just don't feel that way about pruners.

Ahhh excellent rational in my book and why my really good set of drill bits are locked away for use on special occasions only and brought out with great ceremony and love for the task at hand. At the same time the battered and scarred Makita 9v battery drill of 12 years is a god in my house and only allowed to be used with permission and on it goes, with a sad tear shed a couple of months ago when I was forced to retire my 20 year black beauty to the Kidney Foundation (Chrysler LeBaron Coupe - a poor man's sports car that went lame after an over 50 decline in cognitive skills bump).

By the way I lost count of my pruners as I also consider them disposable - none out there that hold an edge long enough so all they now get is a coarse filing - no more oil and stone ritual. Dog free to chew the handle coatings off when she finds them laying around.

Oh, no... fishing equipment is not included in tools, is it? No, that's to be highly revered indeed!

Pruners are disposable, for sure. As are hairbrushes and dognail-clippers and the occassional remote control. There is hardly any other option around my dogs, anyway. Well, drawers, lol.

Thank you all for making me feel less like a freak. I went to a recent Rose Society meeting and they were worshiping their tools as if they were made or solid gold. I sat there the entire time trying to figure out what might have happened to the last five clippers I bought. I broke one pair trying to cut an ivy trunk and inadvertently the wire fence along side of it. As for the other four... I think the squirrel must have them.

Thanks everyone for the laugh this morning.

Cat, maybe next weekend you're kicking the mulch aside, and there's one of the five lost pruners, all rusty. Maybe it saves you a trip back to the tool shed. What could be more satisfying?

To make these moments more frequent, wrap the handles with bright yellow electrical tape.

Felco people, please forgive us our trespasses. :)

LOL! Or, eventually, we'll have a set of rusty pruners sitting at the base of each rose. Could work! I'm getting there ;)

I'm sitting hit laughing myself silly-----this is so funny---I use whatever is handy----forks knives anything that is nearby (not my good silver of course)----LOL

Michael----my DH is a fly fisherman and I know he loves all the equipment.

I do have a very good pair of scissors that I use for quilting and they are special---only used to cut cotton fabric.

I'm afraid my clippers look pretty bad-----

Florence

I flyfish and my gear is sacred. I am teaching my DH as well, so I bought him a nice setup. He is careful with his things and treats a good flyrod with the proper deference and respect. Some day he'll learn how to actually cast the thing. :-)

We own Felcos and have managed not to lose them or harm them in 4 years - to our astonishment, I might add.

I take care of my kitchen knives and cookware.

However, I can't begin to estimate how many "free" shovels, rakes and spading forks I have provided to sticky-fingered passersby over the years, as I have a bad habit of leaving them wherever I was working when I ran out of steam. I always intend to go back out for them, but I forget.

Our new shovel is all scratched up because I used it to slide a huge rock across the yard. I broke a tine on my stainless steel spading fork this weekend, along with two (yes, 2) wood handles. I am hard on my tools, I admit... but the tools I prize, I take care of.

DH has the tool fetish thing. If he is gardening with me he hands me the tool I want and then snatches it back the second he thinks I'm finished with it for fear I will do something unholy to it.

However, the Felcos are mine. I may buy him a pair for Christmas and engrave the blades as a thank you for being such a good gardening partner.

He has put mailboxes in each rose garden and I'm supposed to keep a pair of cheap pruners, a weed stick, tie up stuff and sissors in each mailbox so the tool is always handy. I forget and haul whatever one I have in my hand from garden to garden and then I end up with 3 weedsticks and no pruners in one mailbox, 2 pruners and no tieups in another, etc., etc. It makes him nuts. He doesn't understand why I can't manage his "SIMPLE" system.

He is the cook and is fanatical about his knives. I saved our relationship by purchasing my own knives. That way I don't have to touch his and am not liable should one of those precious tools be improperly handled, imperfectly washed or put away in the wrong place.

This is a great thread. It seems most of us actually are tool worshippers, it's just that different people recognize the numen in different tools.

Patricia, when DH needs to cut sandpaper for a sanding block, of course he is going to use the kitchen scissors. What else would he use? Not my knives or fly-tying scissors, I'm sure.

Just giving this another round on the front page in case other tool slobs want to bare their souls and find company.

Not that *I* would EVAH do such a thing, but what's one supposed to do if one discovers a long missing pruner, now all rusty and sad looking?

Ummmm... DH wanted to know.

Well, Jody, I do know where the mailbox idea originated. But I can't seem to keep clippers in mine.
Suja,
The important cutting blade on Felcos can be replaced relatively cheaply and the rest of the thing cleaned up with steel wool, and maybe a handle dip to rejuvenate the grips.
I'll save stories of the misuse of my sewing shears for another day.
And about sandpaper. Scribe on the backside and cut with a utility blade, fur gosh sakes. Same as sheet rock, but change the blade fairly often because the paper dulls the surface.
For broken shovel handles: buy the shovels at Sears with a lifetime guarantee. Only problem is, right now, they are out of the replacements...and you can guess how we know that.

Ann, what about shovel blades? My favorite shovel has a concave outline across 4" at the tip, which should tell you something about soil conditions where I started my current garden. It's now great for cutting encroaching tree roots. Well, the upper part of the handle did break off a while back.

Wow, I love this thread. Though I'm not wonderful with my tools, I more nearly approach wonderful than my husband, who grabs, uses, and leaves, every time and much to my fury. I have my own tools now, not that it helps that much. Saturation is useful if the tools aren't overly costly. I kind of like the mailbox idea: I've never figured out how comfortably to haul around a full set of garden tools.

Melissa

"I've never figured out how comfortably to haul around a full set of garden tools."

I agree, Melissa. I've tried a bushel basket, a fabric bag with handles, a 5 gal. bucket with one of those pocket insert thingies in it - and I never have been happy with trying to lug any of them around the yard. And if it do, I *still* don't have what I need close by (which we all know, creates the opportunity to "misuse" the tool that *is* at hand! ;') One of the members in my rose society has a push cart for a golf bag that her DH modified to carry shovel, rake and misc. gardening equipment. That sounds good - but only on level ground. On my slopes I can just see myself cussing the darn thing out for falling over all the time, LOL. I must say, though, that I love the leather clip on holster that DH bought for my Felcos. It keeps them right by my side at all times - wonderful!

Wish I had a holster for my loppers. How in blazes can one go about losing a pair of long handled loppers? *Red* long handled loppers no less? I've been looking for over a week now and it's driving me nuts!

AC

The loppers are probably sitting upright, red handles downward IN a rose with grayish canes of about the same thickness as the loppers handles are wide.
Or they are under mulch. Much harder to find.
Worst place to put Felcos: under car seat. Lost for three years there. (But, realists that we are, we do have duplicates.)
Now somewhere, there is an accumulation of the little orange thingeys that go in the end of the glue for sealing canes.
There is no good way to carry loppers around. Full stop.