Favorite tools

[Jason]

What are your favorite tools (make and model) for building your DIY audio projects? Do you have something that has withstood the test of time? Something that represents great value and everyone should have?

If we get enough posts in this thread, we'll make it a sticky and add them to our recommended tool list. Links to places where the tools can be purchased appreciated!

Cheers!

[macboy]

I bought a dremel rotary tool (branded as Sears Craftsman) around 25 years ago I guess, it is still working great and gets used frequently for all sorts of hobby and general fix-it projects.

[Enzo]

+1^^^^

I love my Dremel, it sits next to me ready on my bench. It amazes me how many things I use it for.

I assume you don;t need us to list scopes and meters.

I love spring pullers and other hooks. I don;t recall when I first bought one - 35 years ago maybe? - but one of my favorite tools is from the auto parts store - the O-ring seal pick. A point on one end and a hook on the other. Here is a link to one:
O-Ring & Seal Pick F/Remove&Install O-Rings&Small Oil Seals | Fastenal

You dentist uses similar things to pick from between your teeth. Spring puller and spring pushers I first ran into with a guy servicing old mechanical cash registers and adding machines. Long thin rods with small hooks on the end. You could reach into the works of something, and catch the end of a spring, and push it over its mount. They are especially useful to fish little rubber belts in and out of tape deck transports.

PC boards are often mounted on the little plastic posts that poke through a hole on the board, and a little barb sticks out the side to prevent it backing out. I have a couple small pieces of tubing to use as extractors. I have a length of thinwall brass tube that is 3/16 OD, about 5mm, and the inside diameter a little smaller, of course. You shove teh tube down over the plastic point, that compresses the barb within the post, then pull up on the board. The post slides through the hole easily. I have a 1/4" OD plastic tube with similar ID to the brass one for the same purpose. You can pay big money for
"extractor tools" for this, but a cheap piece of tubing works just fine.

And cheap plastic calipers - I always called it a micrometer myself - I use all the time for quick dimensions. Is that pot a 12mm or 14mm size? Is that a 6mm shaft on it or 6.35mm?

$2 at Harbor Freight:6" Utility Caliper

[jackinnj]

Weller 1200 Soldering Gun -- survived 3 teenage sons -- takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'

Excelta flush-cut wire nippers.

[gootee]

One of the handiest "tools" I have used is a "lazy susan", i.e. a small rotatable platform, about one inch tall, that sits on my benchtop. Large discount stores often sell cheap ones for TVs to sit on. I attached a circular wooden tabletop on mine, about 16 to 18 inches in diameter. A conductive mat might be a nice touch. It's so much nicer to work on something when I can easily rotate it to any angle.

[oshifis]

The dentist tweezers like on the picture are one of my most frequently used tools.

[mickeymoose]

Roper-Whitney No.5 JR hand punch and Greenlee hole punches, heat gun

[madtecchy]

My trusty Fluke 75.. 20+ years and still going strong. And my weller tcp soldering iron

[Enzo]

My Paladin wire stripper.

[Jason]

Thanks for all the recommendations so far!