A Place I Can Hang My Jacket

 I've always been a tool guy. I remember at a very young age getting my first 1/2" drive Craftsman ratchet and socket set as a Christmas present. Nothing in the house with a 3/8 through 15/16 nut was safe from my shiny new tool. Receiving tools as gifts was a regular thing and pretty soon I needed a tool box to store them in. That first box was the traditional silver metal Craftsman box with top handle and red removable tray. The bottom rusted out and that box has long since been recycled as scrap.

 I've got a lot more tools now that I did almost fifty years ago and the tool boxes have continually gotten bigger as time rolled on. Some of those tools seemed like a good idea when I bought them but have turned out to be dust collectors. One of those tools is a set of Craftsman nut drivers. I almost never use them. If you're familiar with the set then you know the standard set has clear handles with a colored band on them. The shank is chrome and the whole tool is shiny. I must be a sucker for shiny because I never bought the metric version that has the boring grey handles.

 When I decided to add a coat rack to the side of my tool box I wanted to make it out of something either tool or small engine related. I considered a lot of things but one day when I was in the garage at home I spotted the nut drivers. It must have been driving me nuts that they weren't driving any nuts and knew the only way I would ever get any real pleasure out of these tools was to make my coat rack out of them. Yes I had to destroy them but this way I use them every day at work and that makes me happy. You may notice I found another use for those Harbor Freight magnetic strip steel holders that used to contain magnets. Re-purposing those makes me happy too.

Later.