Tool Users

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I like tools partly because they let me do more accurate work than I can by hand, so there's less concern about motor skills and timing. I also like them because, when pressed, one can make a more accurate machine using a less accurate machine, or there would be no accurate machines.
Half my house is full of tools, apart from the computers and library, and I have used them to make money, but more often to save money or build things for my own amusement, which includes design work.
At times, my tool kit has been easy to carry in a shoebox, but still adequate for making a living. On a bike tour, I had a very compact kit of the specialized items. A Swiss army knife can substitute for a cheese grater as well as kitchen knife. When I was briefly without any tools, I felt like my hands had become useless. Anyone else here have their favourite extensions?

My father was a tool and die maker and kept a lot of tools at home. neighbors used to come to him if they needed something fixed.
I used to play with his jars full of nuts and bolts and arange them into rows and patterns.

Crows make tools. If they find some food that they can't reach, they search for a twig or stick of the right size, and holding it with thier foot, they use thier beak to fashion it into the right shape to retrieve thier food.

A Chimpanzee has been taught to lite a campfire with a match and put marshmallows on a stick to roast them.

I have many times used a brick or a rock for a hammer.

I have wood working area with a bandsaw, drill press, wood planes, and belt sander.
I also have a room with small milling machine and two lathes.
I have a sewing area with two sewing machines, a serger, and an overlock machine.

I don't know if it is normal, but it doesn't take me long to remember how to use any of my machines

My tool collection is for the following uses. Model railways which include electrical work (Soldering etc), painting, carpentry work and various little machines and tools to make life easier.
As I have been employed in the bicycle trade specializing on the mechanical side, I have tools for my own use here. I also have a few tools to do more minor repairs on my car. While there are only a few small things I can't normally do on the bicydle side (I don't do frame building as welding, brazing etc petrify me! though I have been trained in straightening frames and forks if they are of a suitable alloy of steel).
Also have various little tools to help build wheels.
The model railway tools are ones which I need to expand on a little. I want to be able to do certain things which I can't yet do the way I want to do them, so this will require a little future investment.

Gosh, I love silver soldering and hotter torch work if I have the gear. It isn't quite as fussy as soft solder, and the glow tells you where heat is needed. One time, a friend had completely ruined the attachment point for her hot water tap, and that tap was a unique built-in that included the double sink, backsplash, and two drain boards. It was going to cost thousands of dollars, done the regular way. I got a $5 replacement cartridge, sawed the splined tip off, and silver-soldered it to the old part.
Usually, I use it in silversmithing, where I like using a mirror-polished hammer to leave facets on the work. Otherwise, I try to remove all tool marks. I learned a great deal by deciphering the marks left by other makers, but I like polishing them all out on my stuff. I also have some nickel alloy rods that are plenty strong for alloy steel without the problems of welding.

If silver soldering is like soldering I will be able to do it ok, as I can solder ok. I made my track via soldering the track to PCB sleepers. Ok, my soldeting is not neat but it works.

dear_one, I am very impressed by your abilities and tool-making.

I can repair a canoe with a swiss army knife, pliers, and duct tape.

Duct tape. Reminds me of watching "Handymans Corner" on the Red/Green show via Youtube. He has some interesting ideas.

dear_one That is great that you can silver solder! I can make usable joints with silver brazing rod, but I often need to clean stuff up afterwards with a file. Soft soldering is easy for me because I have a ton of practice.

Except for a few trick alloys, silver soldering is done with torches instead of irons. The miniature butane torches can do very fine work. It is the same process of cleaning, adding flux, and heating both sides so the solder can flow, either having a chunk in place, or feeding it in. I do it in dim light, so I can see the temperature by the colour of the glowing metal. There's more oxidation to clean up later, but you can minimize that with more flux, which washes off in hot water after turning to borax glass. Unless you are filling a tight gap like a bicycle lug just to the edge, there will usually be blobs to file off for the neatest appearance, although you get neat fillets of small radius automatically.

Torch work is also great for jobs like annealing brass to make it easy to bend again after working it too much.

Just be careful with fire, and use pliers to handle the hot bits on the way to a water quench. A bit of firebrick or something similar is handy to arrange things on, but I often work with just a vise.