What's mine is mine

December 27, 2006 10:46 PM

I bought a 348 piece tool set from Craftsman to work on my car. This is usually a group effort, multiple tool boxes involved. How can I mark my tools to insure at the end of the day, I have all of my sockets and wrenches. (more inside)

I am trying to find a way to mark my tools as mine so there is no argument over who's 1/2 drive socket it is. I have thought of a metal engraver, would this be strong enough to engrave on my new craftsman tools? Please help me keep my tools!

posted by JujuB to sports, hobbies, & recreation (24 comments total)

Couldn't you just dab each piece with some metal primer? It sounds like a lot of work to individually engrave 348 pieces.
posted by forallmankind at 10:56 PM on December 27, 2006

Buy a roll of vinyl electrical tape in an unusual color. Put a band somewhere on the handle of each of your tools, or a thin band around the circumference of your sockets.

Or put a dot of acrylic nail polish on them. Again, get an unusual color.
posted by toxic at 10:59 PM on December 27, 2006

My dad used to use bands of heat-shrink plastic on his tools. Perfect for screwdrivers etc, not much use for smaller pieces.
posted by Leon at 11:00 PM on December 27, 2006

An engraver should work, but they tend to be loud and hard to control. Pick up some earplugs, and practice on some junk tools first. Plan to do your engraving over a few days, as your hand will be numb after a few minutes with the cursed thing, and it'll take more than a few minutes to do 348 pieces. Perhaps a Sorbothane glove...?

For the time being, try a paint marker or greasepencil. Firearms types prefer the lacquer stick. After you do your engraving, you'll want to go over the markings with paint anyway to make them stand out. Think of the engraved marks as an indelible fallback, but your at-a-glance identification should be bolder.
posted by Myself at 11:05 PM on December 27, 2006

Paint on chrome plated tools isn't a permanent mark. Engraving can be a source of stress cracks, so limit your mark to something as simple as a large and small dot. An electric engraving tool is great for engraving letters or script in soft metals, but it's not all that useful for making lots of simple ID marks. Marking a two or 3 dot pattern with a couple of hard end tools is faster than marking your initials, and normally distinctive in small groups of people. Also provides a smaller "fingerprint" for the start of corrosion and cracks.
posted by paulsc at 11:17 PM on December 27, 2006

Maybe rather than painting, you want to look at stamping? 348 pieces is a lot of work with a hand engraver. You might be able to find some small letters and just put a single initial on each of your tools. If you wanted to make it stand out more, you could just take some bright white paint and paint it, then wipe it off, so that it remained in the impression.

There is a word for the type of stamps that I'm thinking about, but I can't think of it. Here is an example, though. You can get them in different hardnesses (obviously you need them to be harder than the tools you'll be stamping!), sizes, and letter shapes.

If stamping is out, then I think paulsc's idea about using a pattern of dots rather than letters is a good one. A series of dots could be distinctive, particularly if you filled them in with a bright shade of paint.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:53 PM on December 27, 2006

You could get a label maker. A manual label maker will run you about $15(at least, that's what the one at staples.com costs), the labels don't peel off too easily(they're thicker and stickier than normal stickers) and it should be fairly easy to make even 348 of them(especially if you go with just initials).

Maybe not much good for the smaller ones, though.
posted by sleeplessunderwater at 12:03 AM on December 28, 2006

Tools are easy, sockets and the like are not. As such, toxic already listed the fastest and simplest solution:

put a dot of acrylic nail polish on them. Again, get an unusual color.

No harm to the tool, easily renewable, and hard to remove.
posted by quin at 12:09 AM on December 28, 2006

...Also, if it's a 348 piece set, I assume some of those are bits and other things that fit into other tools. Definitely make sure you don't engrave on the surfaces that fit in(or put anything that sticks up, like nail polish, on them). That could interfere with the fit. The best thing for those kinds of things might be not to mark them individually, but to mark their case and just be sure to put them all in their slots so you can see if any are missing.
posted by sleeplessunderwater at 12:11 AM on December 28, 2006

I use nail polish to mark my climbing gear (similar problem since mixing/matching gear is common). According to Petzl, this will not damage the metal. It might eventually chip off with heavy use, but it's cheap and easy to apply/remove.
posted by 0xFCAF at 12:45 AM on December 28, 2006

My fella got my son some tools for his birthday. They went outside and had a spraypainting bonding ritual. It would all scrub off if needed, but marked my son's tools as HIS. Specific color and all.

That said, if you're talking about LOTS of pieces (and you are), I really like the nail polish option and will recommend that to all tool users in my house.
posted by lilywing13 at 1:26 AM on December 28, 2006

I had an art professor in college who spray-painted all the tools in the sculpture studio bright pink.

It worked. All the tools stayed in sculpture studio.
posted by Colloquial Collision at 5:09 AM on December 28, 2006

I am a professional mechanic. I engrave my initials in every tool I own. That's pretty much what all the pros do.

A slight etching on the side of a tool does not induce weakened metal. Just use common sense as to where on the tool you engrave it.

Do a dozen or two a day until they are all engraved.

Paint, nail polish and plastic wrap are not very permanent at all.....
posted by peewinkle at 5:36 AM on December 28, 2006

When I was a kid my dad got a really really great deal on some tools at a garage sale. Every last one of them had been engraged RWP, and the gentelman despaired of ever finding someone to buy them.

This was extra great for my dad because those were his initials, so he was not concerned with looking to all the world like he had a truck full of stolen stuff.

If there is any chance you might be selling or gifting these tools in your later life, maybe don't do this with initials.

You could try a lightning bolt or some other shape that you find easy to make with that engraver. (Think like branding marks.)
posted by bilabial at 6:01 AM on December 28, 2006

Maybe a vinyl dip instead?
http://www.plastidip.com/consumer/index.html
A quick browse found the stuff above. Not as permanant as engraving, but enough so that you can tell your tools apart.
posted by defcom1 at 6:52 AM on December 28, 2006

I use my air brush to apply a band of paint in a distinctive colour. This makes for quick friendly identification. I am also in the process of stamping all my tools with a micro stamp of my initials for permanent id.
posted by Mitheral at 7:26 AM on December 28, 2006

In the OR we use marking tape to differentiate instrument sets in a manner similar to the electrical tape mentioned above. This stuff is designed to withstand repeated autoclave cycles and so is pretty durable, although not permanent. The stuff I linked to was just the first Google hit, so there may be better deals elsewhere.
posted by TedW at 8:19 AM on December 28, 2006

Stamp or engrave them, and also add a stripe of bright orange paint or ducktape on each tool, because it's such a nice visual cue when you're looking for a tool that you just put down somewhere, and also when you clean the workshop.
posted by theora55 at 8:58 AM on December 28, 2006

When I was a carpenter, I got the same advice as Kadin2048 gives - stamp something into the metal. I went to a yard sale and found a stray stamp of the number "7" which I stamped on all my tools.

I also have wrapped a bare wood hammer handle with bright yellow plastic electrician's tape, which is instantly identifiable and gives a better grip. An alternative is to go to a bicycle shop and get a roll of the tape used on handlebars, which is slightly tacky and slip-resistant.

A hint I picked up I-don't-remember-where is that to make "dip it" tool handle rubber covering compound stick, coat the metal first with contact cement, allowed to dry thoroughly.
posted by KRS at 9:16 AM on December 28, 2006

I don't recommend tape. With time tape can come unstuck and you wind up with a sticky, funky residue that's a pain to remove and then you're back where you started.
posted by wsg at 11:34 AM on December 28, 2006

i'm also on the nailpolish bandwagon. i used to play the flute, and we used nail polish to mark dots so we could quickly align our head joints.
it will eventually flake off, but it's quick and easy to do (you have a million tools! this matters!), equally easy to re-do, and almost free. maybe do it while they're all in the case, so that once in a while you can look at your full case of used tools and see at a glance which ones need a touchup.
when you paint your dot/stripe/whatever, keep in mind that a thick coat will flake off faster than a thin coat. also, maybe try to mark a textured part of the tool, for better adherence, or a slightly depressed part (like in the centre of a wrench, or on the shank just above the handle of a hammer) for protection against your mark scraping off.
posted by twistofrhyme at 12:24 PM on December 28, 2006

Get a locking toolbox, some socket racks (so you can tell at a glance if any pieces are missing) and don't let anyone borrow your tools. ever.
posted by bizwank at 1:00 PM on December 28, 2006

If you take bizwank's advice (which is good), you might want one of these for your toolbox as well.
posted by TedW at 2:00 PM on December 28, 2006

Thanks everyone, nail polish for now, will be ordering the micro stamp suggested by Mitheral
posted by JujuB at 2:47 PM on December 28, 2006