And then there is the category of tools that are archaic and no longer relevant, yet somehow they still linger on the tool marketplace. Sure, it’s easy to pick on those “As Seen on TV” Billy Mays-type of tools. After all, they practically have failure designed into them. But what about those tools that aren’t so readily obvious as failures? Let’s take a look at our picks for the most overrated, if not downright useless, tools in the world. There is a nostalgic appeal to the Yankee driver, largely because most of us recall a father or grandfather using one. And it is fun to play with—an unusual tool with an interesting and rather ingenious mechanism. If you have one around the house, you (or your kids) might be a little fascinated by it as a symbol of a bygone era. In its day, the Yankee driver probably was of great appeal to DIYers and craftsman tired of wrists that ached from manually driving screws. The problem is that the tool never worked very well. Or rather, it worked only under the most optimal conditions. The screw has to fit perfectly into the hole, and there can be no resistance at all—zero friction. The slightest angle when driving the screw will cause the drive bit to jump out of the slot. In reality, the Yankee driver is only practical when driving or removing screws in metal. Wood—especially hardwoods—render the Yankee driver virtually useless. And although in theory a drill bit can be chucked into the tool, using it to actually boring a hole is a laughable exercise in futility. The Yankee driver began its slide into obsolescence about the time that people realized the screwdriver bits could be chucked into power drills, and as cordless drills came into their own, the Yankee driver began to gather serious rust. If you have a Yankee driver, it’s time to move along with the times: Get a nice lithium ion 18V cordless drill. And leave the Yankee driver to your grandson to play with. In reality, this tool works well in one situation only—on plaster walls where the construction used wooden lathe nailed to the studs. In this situation, there are many tiny nails embedded in each stud, and the tool has many targets to react to as you pass it across the wall. The magnetic stud finder is very frustrating to use on drywall construction, as the magnet is so weak that it will react only when it passes directly over the head of a screw or nail. And because drywall is nailed at wide intervals, detecting a stud is mostly a matter of accident. This means that you have a lot of sweeping and dragging across the wall to find a fastener. Today, a much better option is an electronic stud finder, which works by detecting density changes in the wall. For $20 or so, you can own a very effective electronic stud finder and stop throwing away $5 magnetic stud finders that don’t work. Foam painting edgers are a prime example of this kind of device—one that promises to simplify the one painting task that people often have trouble with—“cutting in” or edging around trim moldings, windows, and doors. But foam painting edgers are fraught with problems, beginning with the fact that foam is a terrible material to use for painting. Even after hundreds of years of evolving painting technology, the best material to apply paint remains good old horsehair or nylon bristles mounted in a brush. In the best of circumstances, edging is a difficult task, even with a regular bristle paint brush. Foam just complicates matters—giving something that looks more like a smear than a brush stroke. Because the foam does not adequately hold the paint, you are continually dealing with dripping paint, too. Improve on foam painting edgers by learning the “cut-in” technique with regular paint brushes. Or, get in the habit of using blue painter’s tape to form an edge. The adjustable crescent wrench is found in almost every toolbox and home workshop, which is something of a puzzle because few tools are less effective than this one. Adjustable wrenches have a terrible habit of loosening, no matter how tightly you adjust them, and this is exactly the wrong characteristic for a tool that needs to tightly grip a nut or bolt in order to work properly. In tests, we found that no brand of adjustable wrench really performed adequately. The Crescent brand adjustable wrench had the least amount of play in the head; the Sears Craftsman adjustable wrench had a bit more (about 1mm), and a no-name KR brand adjustable wrench had about 2mm of play. As an alternative to the frustrating adjustable wrench, you will be better served by a good collection of open-end wrenches or a ratchet wrench with a good selection of sockets. Channel-type pliers have a slot design in the head that includes notches for adjusting the tool for different gripping sizes. These notches are the problem with this tool since they never seem to give you the size you need. And because you end up adjusting the tool just a little too small or too large for the fastener, you often end up stripping the bolt head or nut you’re gripping. Most people who insist on using channel-type pliers find that they need to own several pairs of different sizes—which contradicts the whole idea of having an adjustable tool in the first place. One place that channel-type pliers can be useful is for plumbing work, especially in making the connections for drain traps. Other than this, channel-type pliers are most useful simply as a crude gripping tool. A single pair of channel-lock pliers is perhaps necessary for the workshop. But for most purposes, have a good collection of specialty wrenches is a better idea. A good pair of name-brand Vise-Grip pliers can also be a good alternative. Yet the world is filled with off-brand Vise-Grips—pliers that look like Vise-Grips and purport to do the same thing, but which fail miserably. There is no problem with using non-brand-name, less expensive versions of popular brand-name tools—provided they work. But the true Vise-Grip is a fairly delicate device, and you likely will be sorely disappointed if you buy a non-brand knockoff made by a shadowy manufacturing plant in a third-world nation. When it comes to a pair of locking pliers, you are best served by going with the original Vice-Grip (now sold by Irwin)—or at least a model from another name-brand tool manufacturer, such as Crescent or Craftsman.
