When you're in a pinch,
and you don't have any tools around,
a wrench or vice grips,
and you need to get a bolt out or a lag screw, you can use a "bolt wrench."
If you have this around, you can use a nut with a hex cap screw to make a wrench.
This is a short version. This is a long version with a shoulder.
You put two nuts on here to make the wrench.
You simply adjust the nuts to the size of the head.
If you have square nuts, you may be better off with those for this wrench.
I'm doing it here with hex nuts.
You'll see me start to turn this off now.
Now these hex nuts are chamfered. When they have a chamfer on them, it makes this a little harder.
But, you can see here that you can make this work when in a pinch.
You can do that on a hex lag screw. You can do that on here as well. It's the same type of head.
Now this is a 5/16" head across the flats.
You can also do this with a nut on the opposite side.
So let's see if I can get this off after I adjust this here.
It makes it harder when you have this scenario with the bolt sticking up, even just a little bit.
There it goes. It's starting to turn.
These are grade 8 bolts. Depending on the size of the bolts you're going to be taking off and how much torque you need is gonna make a difference on bolt choice.
Obviously, the longer the bolt, the more leverage you're going to have in removing the bolt.
You can also do it with a small one like this in tight spaces.
You can just use your fastener or a hex cap screw.
Install the hex cap screw all the way in to the insert.
Then take the insert and get it started.
Grab your ratchet and drive it in.
Okay, we're almost there. Not 100% yet.
Okay. That's pretty good. I've driven in the insert with a hex cap screw. I'm now going to back the screw off.
Take the screw out and you can see the insert is in place.
So I just put the zip tie in place. If you don't have snips, you can just use pliers.
Take your pliers and just turn it clockwise or counter clockwise.
Now it's finished off.
Now if you want to remove it and reuse it again, just turn it over to the back...
...and just snip a little bit away from the clasp.
Pop it back out and then you can reuse the zip tie again for smaller things.
When using imperial fasteners, do not use a metric socket to drive them.
If you do that, you'll see here, that there is play.
This is a 13mm socket and a 5/16"-18 hex cap screw.
If I use that, and I start torquing on the screw, I will be stripping out the head.
If you use the correct size, an imperial 1/2" socket driver, there is very little play in there.
If you use a 13mm, there is substantially more play, thus you will strip the head.
So I have here a magnet that I Krazy glued to the top of the extension handle of my ratchet set.
Let me show you what that will do for me. You can see it right here glued on with Krazy glue.
I'll slip my socket over. Now I can put my bolt in there and it won't fall out.
So when you're working on restoring a car, or an engine, and you can't get down into the car to find the bolt you dropped,
you would need to use one of these things to find it.
This prevents you from losing the bolt in the first place.
It works very effectively.
It also works with stainless; stainless is partially magnetic.
As you can see, it's not as strong as working with grade 8, grade 5, and alloy products, but it does hold it in there.
It will not work with aluminum. It will just fall out.
But with grade 8, grade 5, or grade 2 products, this is the perfect fix.
This way you don't have to look under the car, move the car, and get pissed you can't find the bolts.
When you're using an extension cord and a tool, such as a saw or anything that needs power, a lot of people just take it and plug it in.
That usually ends with having to pull on the plug or the extension cord wire is hooked on something and you just pull it apart.
What I like to do is take the two plugs,
put them together like that,
wrap it around,
bring it through a loop,
pull a knot,
and then take the two and put them together.
So when you pull on it, your cords never come apart. No matter where you are.
You can be up on the roof or the side of a house, maybe working in your shop and pulling on your extension cord.
With this, you have no worries.
Here's how to prevent damage to your threads.
If you were to take a threaded stud, like what I'm working on right now for a customer,
and you were to put it in the vice and tighten it up, you could damage the threads.
It would press them. Then when you try to put a nut on there it would basically gall on you.
To prevent that from happening, you can take a towel or rag and hang it from the top.
Then you can put the thread in the vice like this and tighten it up, putting just enough pressure on there.
You can then do your work, take it our, and find no damage to the threads.
So I have here some newspapers and a 9 volt battery.
I have some fine steel wool, 4 zeroes. The finer the better for this purpose.
It could be your old stuff too if you were a woodworker; you could use your old steel wool for this.
Never store a 9 volt battery along with steel wool in the same location such as in your backpack.
Always put them in separate areas to keep them isolated from each other.
I'm just gonna show you how to quickly start a fire; no need to take 2 pieces of wood and rub them together.
All those great things they do
This is the quickest way to get a fire going.
I'm gonna take the battery and connect the steel wool to the battery.
You're gonna see here, it's starting to ember.
Put some paper on it...
There we go.
So obviously, you would need a little more feeding to get the fire going further.
This was a demonstration of how a battery and a piece of steel wool will start a fire for you.