Shoutout to that old boiler room in Detroit where I found a 1940s rivet gun still hanging on the wall

I walked into a building last week to replace a feedwater line and there it was just sitting there like a museum piece, still caked in grease from the original install, anyone else ever stumble across a tool older than your grandpa still in use?

2 comments

2 Comments

alicebarnes16d ago

...and here I am with a brand new drill from the hardware store that stopped working after I dropped it once from a ladder. That's the kinda luck I run with. I found an old hand-cranked caulk gun at a job site once, probably from the 50s, still had some original dried up caulk in it. Tried to use it and the thing worked better than my new one. My grandpa would've said something about making things to last, while I'm just out here breaking my stuff by looking at it wrong.

keith_henderson16d ago

Pulled that exact move with a brand new circular saw once, dropped it from about six feet up and it never cut straight again. Old tools are something else though, right? I remember finding a rusty old brace and bit in my dad's shed, thing had to be from the 1920s, and it drilled through a stud like butter while my cordless was struggling with a fresh battery. Makes you wonder if they just over-engineered everything back then because nobody wanted to waste time fixing junk. Now you drop something once and the plastic housing cracks, the motor shifts, it's basically a paperweight. Your grandpa was right about that stuff, but i guess we traded durability for convenience and lighter weight.