Borrowing Tools

[Mason]

So I just got home from work and walked in the house to find my roommate assembling his new telescope on the living room floor with a number of my tools strewn across the floor all around him. Then he looked up at me and said, “…can I use your tools?” with a smile that said he knew he f!&#ed up. Normally I have no problem lending tools to friends and I’ve never really felt that same reluctance to do so that people always talk about, but this time it bugged me. I didn’t even imagine one could use so many sockets and screwdrivers and wrenches to assemble a simple telescope, and I almost felt compelled to make him put them all away exactly where they were and never touch them again.

This got me wondering; how does everyone out there feel about letting people borrow their tools?

Topic

[none]

This is actually an already well beaten topic here:

If you go to the ETCG1 forum, there’ll be a few more videos regarding other aspects about tools as well.

[jarek]

I wouldn’t be mad unless he didn’t pit them back just as they were

[James O’Hara]

I use to have no problem loaning tools to people. Though every time someone just takes without asking they are breaking my tools. Best part is they try to hide. It has cost me $100 dollars to get a low profile ratchet that works as the warrantied one is now junk and a set of impact 1/4″ wobble extensions for $40 bucks that may or may not actually arrive since they are discontinued I will not know till I see them.

[Andrew Button]

I used my little titan wrench yesterday, the 1/4 ratchet and see how its basically something that is a lifesaver, I would not loan it out.

[Mike]

I find that most guys treat their own tools worse than I would treat anybody’s, so loaning tools makes me nervous. My usual response to “can I use an xxxx?” is “What are you using it for?”. Like making sure they are going to use your screwdriver to engage a screw and not use it as a pry bar. I also give a usual spiel of ‘return it as clean as it is now’ and ‘don’t do this, this, and that with it’ as I hand the tool over.

Only after somebody has heard me say that so many times that they have long since been cutting me off saying “I know, I know”, will I just hand something over and only give them ‘the look’. Of course if I get something back dirty or damaged from someone, the very least consequence is ballbusting and ballbusting plus likely denial of the next ask to make sure it’s understood that I’m serious. Most everyone, aside from a commonly unliked few, have always been respectful of how anal I am about it and I’m appreciative of that.

The junior guy we have that I like, but who’s always in a hurry with a phone in his hand, was recently using my aluminum floor jack in pool of muck where cars get washed all day. I yelled at him while he was doing it and told him to take a minute and squeegee the filth water into the drain before lifting a car with winter sand/salt paste grinding under its metal wheels. He ignored me and I just cleaned my jack up afterwards, but I’m still waiting till his next ask, so I can give him a ballbusting about it.

[Andrew Button]

Fopeano, I have to remove some frozen lug nuts on a concrete truck out in the back forty, and it rained really hard here the last three days, and the truck is now stuck in the mud, including half the wheels I need to remove. Do you mind if I swing by the shop tomorrow and borrow your impact gun and chrome sockets so I can get this done ?

[Mike]

I don’t know man, I don’t think you’re gonna like the color :woohoo:

[Andrew Button]

Yea, I wont borrow a blue tool. I just don’t like them. I would rather buy a red and black tool.

[Dan]

I have a hard time with people borrowing my tools. Usually when I let people borrow them in the past they ended up being dirty and like they weren’t used properly. I feel if you ask to borrow the same tool more than once a day, then you should probably purchase one for yourself, especially if you are going to be needing it a lot.

[Dan]

[quote=”SacTownTuner” post=131378]So I just got home from work and walked in the house to find my roommate assembling his new telescope on the living room floor with a number of my tools strewn across the floor all around him. Then he looked up at me and said, “…can I use your tools?” with a smile that said he knew he f!&#ed up. Normally I have no problem lending tools to friends and I’ve never really felt that same reluctance to do so that people always talk about, but this time it bugged me. I didn’t even imagine one could use so many sockets and screwdrivers and wrenches to assemble a simple telescope, and I almost felt compelled to make him put them all away exactly where they were and never touch them again.

This got me wondering; how does everyone out there feel about letting people borrow their tools?[/quote]
I would be mad, because they should have asked first, what if he took something and you didn’t realize it at the moment and they didn’t tell you? And you needed it later on for something and you couldn’t find it. I would lock your tools up

[Andrew Button]

I went to rent a carpet power stretcher. The rental guy told me people rent those constantly and those people are carpet people. Yea, so the DIY carpet guy gets shut out by people who should just buy the tools. I just went and bought the carpet stretcher so I don’t have to put up with that. Nobody should borrow a tool more than twice, or it would imply that they should just buy the tool. Far as my Carpet stretcher, I wouldn’t loan it out. To expensive and easily breakable if used wrong. Anybody have one of signs or stickers on their box that says “I make my living with Snap-on tools, don’t ask to borrow them” ? One my best tech friends in the industry would be more likely to loan me a car out of their inventory than loan me his tools that he needs day to day.

[Author]

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