Viola, electric drill usable on the demol-site. And OK in the pouring rain too, since it's only 12V.
On Tuesday I met a man who had died recently. He gave me some gifts, and a little of his life story. This is his requiem, as best I can say.
It is also a tale of life's coincidences, but we'll get to that later. First some context to the events of Tuesday. This will be a little lengthy, have patience.
Recently I'd done some steel fabrication for shelving. In such work, an angle grinder is essential. Only at different stages you need several different types of wheel in the grinder, such as a thin cutting disk, a thick surface grinding disk, a paint stripper disk, etc. If you have only one grinder you spend a lot of time swapping disks. So it's better to have more than one. I have two, and while doing that work I found myself wishing I had three.
That was last week. I keep a 'tools to buy' list (look at all the things I can't afford to buy!) and added '3rd angle grinder' to it then. (Oh wait, I should have written '4th', since I've just now remembered I do have a 3rd, but it is permanently built into a pipe weld surface grinding jig I made.)
Then on Friday last week, a sheet of paper was in the letterbox with the mail. A notice of demolition of a nearby old house, about three properties away from mine. I'd noticed that place has been boarded up for months, was wondering what would happen. When I clean the leaves off the flat roof of my (to be in future) sculpture workshop, I can see into that house's backyard. And... it has two average—sized sheet metal garden sheds there.
Ah ha! Opportunity. I need somewhere to store firewood for my woodburning heater in my workshop. There's room to put at least one more metal shed up in an out of the way corner behind some bushes down the back of my yard, so why not ask?
At 9am on Monday this week I phoned the number on the demolition notice. "Sure, you can have them. But we are starting work on demolition tomorrow." The upshot was that the sheds were mine, if I could take them that day. And someone would be at the property in an hour to open the locked demol-site fencing, I should meet him there.
Excellent. So that's what I'd be doing that day. Only one problem - it's raining, and will be raining fairly heavily all day. Also on going there for a preliminary inspection one of the sheds turns out to be all pop-rivitted. This means an electric drill is required to drill out the rivets. But there's no site power.
Now I do have a battery powered drill, though I don't like them enough to spend money buying one. Unless you are using them often they are problematical, since the batteries self—discharge slowly. I only happen to have one because I found it in a street toss over a year ago. Its batteries are old, don't hold a charge long, and would be completely flat now anyway. Also there was no charger found with it so it's improvised charger or nothing.
What to do today for a battery? Well I do have a big 12V lead acid 'lugable' battery (for my solar power car camping kit, it is bigger than a typical car battery) and that is charged. So I soldered a cable to the battery connector terminals in the drill, and fitted a plug on the end of that cable, to mate with the plug on the solar system battery.
Viola, electric drill usable on the demol-site. And OK in the pouring rain too, since it's only 12V.
However this situation has converted me — I should get a decent battery powered drill, for urgent situations like this.
Next question; what rainjacket to wear? I have a couple of soundly waterproof yellow workman's rainjackets. But dismantling a sheet metal shed sounds like a good way to rip one of those on a sharp metal edge. So I took a bag of tools, battery and drill, and an old nylon camo rainjacket, that isn't fully waterproof anymore but should do.
The rest of that Monday isn't worth relating in detail. I got both sheds dismantled and the pieces transported back to my place. The jacket was quite leaky, and for most of the day I was soaking wet and cold. Wearing soaking wet leather gloves all day wasn't great for the hands either, and in a couple of spots wore through damp skin leaving painfull sores. I'd also spent the last hour or so in the rain pulling up the pavers that formed a base for the sheds, and stacking them for pickup later after the site is cleared. By the end of the day I was completely stuffed.
Around 6pm after I'd finished everything, stacked the shed sections out of the way in my yard, cleaned and dried tools, had a hot shower, dry clothes, sat down exhausted to have a net browse and check on some package tracking numbers, the phone rang. It's my mum, wondering if I could come and clear her gutters since one is overflowing. Urrgh!
I'd been there on Sunday, and do have to go back soon to replace the coin cell in her PC's motherboard. But not tonight! I had a look at the online Sydney weather radar and forecast. Hmm... doesn't look like it's going to continue raining heavily overnight, so the gutters should be OK tonight. "How about I come round tomorrow morning?" "OK"
And so at last the story gets to the dead guy. Or at least, closer.
On Tuesday morning (well around 11.45am, it had taken me ages to find the pack of new coin cell batteries I knew I had somewhere) I'm driving round to my mum's place. On a long straight section of main road, I spy a pile of stuff on the kerb. Very typical street toss, boxes, bits of wood, some broken furniture, etc. The roadside here is a clearway, no stopping, and I'm in a hurry and later than I said I'd be. So I wouldn't have stopped to have a look, except... standing out in the front of the pile is a large bright, silvery LPG cylinder. Very eye-catching.
For readers in other countries, there's something here that needs explaining. Australia is a country beset by excessive government regulation in all things, small and large. One of the 'small things', is gas cylinders. For instance it's not permitted to own welding gas cylinders - you must rent them from the industrial gas supply companies — who of course make more money from cylinder rental than they do selling the gas. If you have a hobby workshop, with (like me) four cylinders (oxygen, acetelene, argon for TIG welding and a cylinder of MIG gas) the rental fees are the major workshop overhead and a serious financial strain.
The situation with LPG cylinders is equally stupid. You can own the cylinders (perhaps the government couldn't figure out a way to force so many people to rent them) but they are stamped with an expiry date (10 years) and it's illegal for any retailer to refill an 'expired' cylinder. Theoretically you can get old cylinders tested and restamped, but there's not actually any practical affordable way to do this unless you are say, elgas, who run a 'swap and go' gas bottle business. So, individuals must buy new cylinders regularly, and dispose of the old ones. Never mind that the cylinders actually last indefinitely under normal use and care.
As another component of that 'keep cylinder manufacturers profitable' scam (though none are made in Australia, so you have to wonder about the real motives), it's impossible to buy the fittings that would be needed to do your own cylinder to cylinder refilling. Ah, but if you could make your own adapters... Anyone with the ability to get to this point can work out the rest themselves, and I certainly wouldn't want to be advising anyone to do something illegal.
So, for whatever reason I pick up large LPG cylinders in good condition when I see them tossed out. Oh, and I happen to have a borescope, if I wanted to check the internal condition of something large and hollow. On this day I turn into the first sidestreet and park. This won't take a moment...
It's about 100m walk back to the pile. Naturally I have a quick look at the rest of it.
Among the typical backyard rubbish there are two bags. One a nice black sportsbag, the other a travel suitcase. I open them.
WHAT THE...? Both of them are full of tools. I'm shocked. Who?... why?... A very quick examination shows that this is a mix of some old, broken tools, together with a few nice and obviously workable tools. Plus a curious mix of other things. It's... yes I'm certain of it. It's a deceased clearout, by spouse or other family who felt no need to keep even useful things. I've seen this before and in a way it's very sad. But also good fortune to find it.
They were apparently put out on the street late yesterday, as there's some dampness in the bags from the rain, but not much. There's no point now going through it in detail right there on the sidewalk, and I'm running late. After a couple of minutes I just zip up the two bags, heft them and the gas cylinder, and walk back up the hill to my car. I'll examine this stuff later, at home.
Two bags full.
I'd opened the black sports bag first. On top it contained a couple of obviously broken battery powered drills (seen below) missing battery packs. So at first I thought "Oh, bag of junk." Then I pulled out this blue molded tool case. These get thrown out a lot, as mostly the case is just a nuisance after people buy tools. Picking it up I expected it to be light due to being empty. But no, it was heavy. Still expecting it to contain only junk I opened it. Oh hey! These don't look broken. They must be old, with long-dead batteries. I pressed the drill trigger. It ran!
This was the point where I realised this wasn't all junk. The batteries are Nickel Cadmium not Lithium Ion. So this isn't so recent. But the batteries still retain charge. It can't have been more than a year, or two at most, since this was last used. Why is it thrown out?
Both batteries turned out to be near fully charged, and with the matching charger in the box even. I don't know what the missing tool is that originally fitted in the space on the left, but I'm not complaining!
Around about that point I'd have wondered if this was some mistake, and maybe I should go knock on the house door and ask what was up. But the next thing I found in the black bag was these two pairs of sheet metal shears. No, they are not just randomly different coloured plastic handles. These are a left and right hand pair, used for cutting in tight places where 'handedness' of the cutting blades really matters. To anyone who works with sheet metal these are priceless. They've been much used, but there are no nicks in the blades. Heavy careful use.
And... they are rusty. They're in a damp bag, having been left out in the rain overnight. What you see could easily be just 24 hours worth of surface rust. It's also inexcusable. These were put here by someone who does not value tools at all.
As I was thinking this I was still speedily rummaging. I'd come across the leather tool pouches, and what they contained. Suddenly I knew this guy, and what he'd done for a living. There was no way in hell this guy would have put his tools out in the rain, either accidentally or deliberately, especially those tin snips. 'Over his dead body', or words to that effect. Therefore he was dead, since here they are.
Also here is another battery powered drill, also charged up, and in this case virtually brand new. Not a mark on it and together with its charger. This was in the suitcase, and kind of threw me into a daze. You see the brand name is XU1, and one of the perils of a highly associative mind is that just reading a name brings back years of memories. Even a jumbled name. In this case a girl named Xiu. Who's Chinese and so is this drill. Sigh. Painful memories. Anyway, that's not part of this story. Getting back to which, seeing fine tools left to rust dismissed any hesitation and doubts. These have been thrown out, and I'm rescuing them. (Heart thrown out in rain, rusting, needs rescue. Sorry... but it's what I was thinking.)
Then two angle grinders, identical models except different wheel sizes. The picture of what this fellow did for a living is getting very clear. If I hadn't given it away in the title, I'd ask you to guess.
But now I'm also starting to see some coincidences lining up. It was just yesterday I was wishing I had a working battery powered drill, and here are several, of which at least two work. Now angle grinders, and it was just last week I told myself I should buy another. Huh...
In the bottom row here is a story of years of hard work. The two green and black drills are both very heavily worn, and busted. One was in pieces in the bag, together with all the screws and internal parts. I put it back together roughly for the photo. They have no manufacturer name visible, but the form of the missing battery packs matches the Hitachi charger. The yellow and black Dewalt drill is also heavily used and broken. On the far right is a battery pack from some other unknown tool, not present but probably a drill.
So that's four drills he'd worn out, plus the one in the blue case which has seen some use too. That's a lot of work; probably many years.
He'd also worn out two robust leather builder's tool pouches. Those things last a long time normally, and these two have had it. Still one last duty they served him, or rather his memory. In the pocket of the still moderately functional one, were the items in the yellow tray. (My tray, for the photos.) I knew it already but these pouches confirm, he was a roofer. Those are all roofing screws, and the thing with the hexagonal tip is a socket driver that fits these screws. Locked in the chuck of those drills, it has a magnet in the socket that holds the screw head in place. I have one of those, which I used to put in the couple of hundred roofing screws when I was owner-building my workshop. My one still looks shiny and new, while this one has the patina of years and years of use. Perhaps this one socket driver outlasted all those drills, which would mean he was exceptionally careful to never lose it.
Speaking of losing things, there's a third coincidence. For years I had a tool pouch that I really liked. In 2010 by unfortunate circumstance I lost it ('lost' isn't exactly the right word, but neither is 'had it stolen'.) I've been searching ever since for a similar one, with no luck. A simple tool holder, with two free-swinging pouches. Can't find one anywhere. All the ones I see in stores are ridiculously big, over complicated, or have some other stupid feature. Now here in this gift package from Fate I find a leather tool pouch that is almost exactly the same form as the one I lost. It's intact apart from one split sewn seam, that would be easy to re-sew.
That all went through my mind in the space of a minute or two of rummaging in the kerbside pile. I was really starting to find it odd that I'd be given, all at once, so many things I'd been wishing I had. It's not Christmas or my birthday, so what's going on? Then I opened the two yellow envelopes that were in the suitcase.
Oh. OK, so it is Christmas today is it? Christmas wrapping paper, and a few unused christmas cards. Oh and what's this down the bottom of the suitcase? A packet of cake candles? So it's my birthday too, just to rub it in? Ha ha ha! Fate is playing some funny tricks today. If there was a huge assortment of stuff in this find then sure, some wrapping paper and candles wouldn't be so odd. But here they are, with pretty much nothing else but tools. A small number of other items, that each fill in a little more of this man's life. A life which continued actively at least until 2007 apparently.
By the way, I'm used to stuff like this. Eventually I'll tidy up some other event notes from my past that should convince everyone I must be making stuff up, because such things are simply not possible. Nonetheless...
Some cards, the best two shown here. It would appear he spent some time in New Zealand. The Firecats Strip Club counts him as a member, and he liked a fine motorcycle ride too. A roofer with a taste for life's pleasures. And why not, he worked hard.
Bare handed mostly, to judge by these little-used hi-vis work gloves. An assortment of other business cards, mostly from the USA.
Then these. Three catalogs, with many bookmarks and quite a few hand written notes jotted throughout. They are lists of yearling horses for sale. Potential racehorses, I gather. He took a serious interest in these, making inquiries about asking prices, and so on. The last catalog from 2009. There's nothing after that.
One last shot of his well-worn workhorse drills. What were his dreams? Did he ever get to own a racehorse?
Let it be known, that I cleaned the rust off his metal shears, and oiled them. I keep most of my tools in drawers, more or less sorted by type. These shears will go in a container with some other sheet metal working tools I have. These are now the best tin shears I have, and they'll see many more years of intermittent but always valued and careful use. Then I'll try to see to it that they are passed on to someone else who can use them.
That's the saddest part of this tale. As he approached death he had no one to pass these tools on to. Or perhaps it was sudden, and he had not prepared. I hate to think what would happen to all my tools and equipment if I passed away suddenly now. So much effort, a lifetime of building up my resources, and who would it all go to?
As I mentioned, I've seen other cases like this, and heard of countless more. One day I was driving along, on the 'garbage bin out' afternoon. As I drove past one big rolley bin (the yellow-lid recycling one) I noticed the lid was propped up by the over-full contents. And it was all books. Books!? In a bin? This should not be! I slammed on the brakes and pulled over just meters down the road.
That rolley bin contained the life's collection of medical textbooks, of a doctor. Who had worked in New Guinea for many years. Many, many excellent texts, including a Gray's Anatomy and Grant's Atlas of Anatomy. The usual story - spouse clearing out deceased partner's 'junk', with no sense of the value or utility. Whether due to senility, or hostility, or plain lack of comprehension, it's unbearably sad to think of.
I could relate a few other such tragedies, including from my own family. But what's the point? I don't even know what the moral is here, apart from one should prepare for one's demise. Perhaps it's a story about a man who had no friends who could be trusted to look after his tools when he died. Perhaps I was supposed to find those, since I certainly will look after them.
Or perhaps it's all random. He didn't get to enjoy owning a racehorse for long, if he ever did.
Still, here's to his life. He buildeth many rooves.