At least, tools that I’ve found to be highly useful. And not even necessarily tools, but it’s a loose enough category to let me shoehorn in a few debatable items.
I can’t say much for power tools, as I only own two: A drill and a cordless Dremel. A non-manual drill is pretty damn essential when you’re doing any amount of drilling. I tried using a hand drill when hanging curtains in our house, and ended up bending the thing’s shaft on a stud.
The Dremel is really a mini power tool. It would be highly difficult to kill or even seriously maim yourself with it, so it’s not a Real Power Tool. Like a band saw or circular saw. You could easily take off a few fingers or sever a major artery with one of those. The Dremel, though, is highly useful for all sorts of minor things: pinning miniatures, sharpening garden tools, cleaning corroded crap out of a small flashlight. Thousands of household uses, in other words.
Nylon zip ties are damned handy to have around. I picked up a container of 650 of the things, multiple sizes, for under $10. I think. Probably around $7 or so, because that’s about what I’d pay for it. I used a few to wrap up a way too long piece of network cable, then just cut the things when I needed more cable a few months later. Who cares about losing a few? I have 650 of ‘em (ok, fine: 646, now). Sometimes epoxy just won’t work (and oh, how I love epoxy glue), and you just need to physically tie something to something else. A broken toy shopping cart was like this: Epoxy just won’t work well with smooth plastic. I’ve barely made a dent in the number of ties in the past two years, so this might be something that I pass on to my children. Or I’ll go crazy in my old age and wrap nylon ties around everything.
You also need a good hammer. Not the cheapest wood-handled thing you can find, and…look, that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? I’ll just say that I hate those tiny wee little mini-hammer things. Why the hell would you want a tiny hammer? To be more likely to strike a glancing blow at a nail and leave a mark on the wall, or your finger? Not that it would do all that much damage, but it would probably sting a bit. Can you seriously injure someone with it? No? Then it’s not a proper hand tool!
Let’s see…socket wrench set, very handy…a good multi-bit screwdriver is a given…
Actually, maybe it’s not. I’ve found that the multi-bit screwdrivers with a triangular cross section work the best, as it’s a good shape that allows you to get a good grip and apply a decent amount of torque. Too much, sometimes, as I have stripped a couple of screws with one. But if it’s a choice between a bit of damage to the screw or having the screwdriver skip out of the hole and scrape across the nearby surface (and quite possibly into a nearby hand), I’ll accept a damaged screw.
I’ll let you know when I find a screw/bolt loosening spray that works.
Speaking of tools, I’m going to break my self-imposed vow of political silence to make on tiny little comment: Senate panel probes ways super-rich can avoid taxes. Well, duh: They vote Republican.