{"id":2825,"date":"2009-01-02T19:53:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-03T00:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2009\/01\/socket-to-me\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:00:57","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:00:57","slug":"socket-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2009\/01\/socket-to-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Socket to Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"3\/8-inch<\/a><\/p>\n

One thing instilled in me by my late father<\/a> was an appreciation for tools, their care and feeding and especially the use of the right tool for the job. As a jack of many trades, in his 89-year lifetime he accumulated quite an array of tools, many of which I still have.<\/p>\n

One Christmas, some time after I started messing with cars, my parents gave me a set of socket wrenches. It was a wonderful present for a car-obsessed boy, and in the ensuing 50 years I’ve added to it. The initial set<\/a> was half-inch drive<\/a>, entirely adequate for the engines of that day<\/a>, but over time I’ve acquired 3\/8<\/a> and 1\/4-inch drive<\/a> sets and many specialized tools<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, one never has enough tools. That was brought home to me shortly before Christmas when I decided to treat my current Chevy Suburban<\/a> to a tune up, which these days consists merely of spark plugs, new wires and a distributor cap. The Suburban’s small block Chevy V8<\/a> is very old-tech, forty years and counting when it was built. You’d think that any old tools would fit, but I found it impossible to remove the last two plugs on the left bank. My deep sockets<\/a> were half-inch drive; the location demanded an extension<\/a> but my short extension<\/a> was too long. I had beaucoup extensions<\/a> for my 3\/8-drive set, but not for the half. Luckily, my next-door neighbor is a diesel mechanic with a cellar full of tools, and he doesn’t mind lending. Fortunately, he was home so I borrowed a 3\/8 drive deep socket. Instantly, though, I had an item to add to my Christmas wish list. While I was at it, I also asked for a new tool box, as my old ones had started to overflow<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My family did not disappoint. Jill and Harriet came up with 3\/8-drive deep sockets<\/a>, one set in inch sizes and the other metric. Nick followed with a superb tool box<\/a> with three-drawer<\/a> storage, plus a swiveling<\/a> ratchet handle<\/a> that will make the next plug change a breeze<\/a>. Edward suggested I get some household drawer liner<\/a> for the new box, which I duly installed before moving the tools to their new home<\/a>. My traveling tools<\/a>, however, the ones I take everywhere, remain in the Army surplus ammo box<\/a> that’s been their nest for decades.<\/p>\n

Each of our children, male and female, has been given a tool set when they’ve reached the tinkering age. It occurred to me, though, that, while Jill has a collection of odd tools she keeps in her car, she has never had a proper set of socket wrenches. So for Christmas this year I got her a 53-piece set<\/a> that should accomplish most any task<\/a> she’ll face. It’s already seeing good use<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing instilled in me by my late father was an appreciation for tools, their care and feeding and especially the use of the right tool for the job. As a jack of many trades, in his 89-year lifetime he accumulated quite an array of tools, many of which I still have. One Christmas, some….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2825"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3249,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825\/revisions\/3249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}