| Aircraft Spruce West Catalog
Cars beget tools. There must be people who own cars and never need to turn a nut or squeeze something, but I can't imagine it. Tools are such a necessary part of car ownership that every car comes with the tools required to change a tire, and better cars come with well thought out, conveniently packed assortments. Many enthusiasts grow to care as much about the tools themselves they do the cars the work on. There can be many reasons for this.
The sense of empowerment that comes from having the ability to perform maintenance or make a repair is rewarding both inherently and in the sense of security it can bring. Both genders can appreciate the feeling, but it seems to be an overwhelmingly male trait to form an identity around such capability.
Another reason tools are loved is their continuity, like a dg that stays while relationships come and go. I have used the same hand tools, most given to me by my father, to work on the six cars I have owned and many I didn't. The bulk o these tools were received around the time I began to drive, but the screwdrivers that reside in my toolbox now been in my possession since I was 5 years old. My hands have grown to fit them. Good tools really are objects of desire, with the quality and purity of purpose of a race car. Sometimes they seem as expensive as a race car, too, but their usefulness will out the competitiveness of any car.
Many of the machine tools that helped the U.S. win World War II are still around, having filtered down to everything from hobbyist to academic institutions training the next generation of engineers to small but cutting-edge aerospace R&D firms.
This is the first edition of ec's new tool column, which honors the role tools perform in our hobby. Each month, a tool we find particularly neat will be profiled. It may be for a particular purpose, and only people who need to adjust the valves on a 1963 1/2 to 1968 Trabant will have a use for it. But if it's particularly elegant or indispensable, it has a shot at the spotlight. Generally, the tools chosen will be useful, or (we hope) at least interesting, to everybody.
The value of a tool is that it extends one's abilities. With bare hands, we cannot remove a bolt. With the right wrenches, it's simple. Tools, in a sense, are "attachments" for our hands, allowing us to do things we could not do otherwise. They make us more powerful, extending our world and multiplying the tasks we can perform.
For he first tool to be highlighted here, we wanted something unique, unknown and important enough to be worthy of being first; not the latest in mega-versa-grip wrenches or some nifty gadget to make bleeding brakes or changing oil more convenient.
While searching through catalogs for such a tool, we came to the conclusion that one catalog was itself what we were looking for. A bible in light aircraft and experimental aviation circles, the Aircraft Spruce and Specialty Co. catalog is essentially unheard of in the automotive arena. Those car enthusiasts who are ready to move beyond bolt-ons should know about it, though.
Want some aluminum tubing to make a strut tow brace? Some 4130 for a roll bar? Sheet metal and 57 different ways to bend, cut and join it? Plastics? Plumbing? Electrical? Welders? Do you want to make your own carbon fiber and Kevlar(TM) parts? Need fasteners? Do you want the most comfortable foam in the world to put on the fool or your Lotus after you took the seat out so fit in it? All that and more is in here.
Not only are the materials and tools available, there are books on how to use them, even hands-on seminars in aircraft (= race car) construction techniques. Oriented more toward new construction that repair, this catalog is a source for everything needed to move fro mechanic to fabricator. Best of all, the 550-page tome is free, pleasing to cheapskates everywhere.
Who knows, if you're extremely unlucky, you may find yourself getting a pilot's license and building a one of the experimental aircraft profiled in the front of the catalog. That hasn't happened to the write yet, but such good fortune can be fleeting.