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Five insights on metal fabrication hand tool basics

For small jobs or prototyping, basic tools step up to the task

Industry veterans may remember walking up to the tool crib manager who essentially stood guard over hand files, saws, drills, and other tools, which years ago were much pricier (in inflation-adjusted terms) than they are today. Now the tools aren’t so expensive, so shops rarely pay anyone to stand guard over the crib. If a worker can’t find a tool, he just fetches a replacement, and the shop orders more as needed. The result: People tend to take hand tools for granted.

Tom Lipton most certainly does not (see Figure 1). He’s a career metalworker, blogger, and author of several popular books, including Metalworking Sink or Swim and Metalworking: Doing It Better. Lipton’s father taught him to weld at a very young age. He did his sheet metal fabrication apprenticeship in the 1980s and has since worked at several fabricating and machining shops. He now spends his days managing Ox Tools Co., a San Francisco company that takes on job shop work but also engineers and builds custom machinery.

It’s a small job shop, the most common kind. You don’t find clearly marked value streams, 5S programs, and the other hallmarks of production work. You instead find a room with a few machines and a few metalworkers patiently making their way through the day’s projects. It’s highly likely that the parts or machines being made won’t be made again.

Technology seems to define so much in manufacturing, but, of course, machines do only what they’re told. A complicated deburring machine does the job faster (and in some applications, better) than a person ever could, but the idea of deburring—be it producing a cosmetically perfect edge or just knocking off the dross of a plasma-cut plate—came first from a person who picked up a hand tool to get the job done.

Five Insights on Metal Fabrication Hand Tools

This month The FABRICATOR spoke with Lipton about his experience and insights on the humble hand tool, and what it says about the culture and craft of the small job shop and prototyping operation. His message: Don’t forget the hand tool. In so many circumstances, it can make the job of making things a lot easier.

1. Foster the Appreciation for Building Things

Modern manufacturers must focus on efficiency—how long it takes to make this bend or insert that hardware. How can we increase capacity at the laser? How can the welders make it through more parts per hour? Achieving efficiency is a mentally rigorous pursuit, for sure, and it’s an absolute necessity for modern manufacturers to compete. But in a sense, it removes the craft aspect of the job. The focus turns toward shortening setup and overall manufacturing time and away from the big picture of making something out of sheet metal.

As Lipton described, there’s something about building a metal component with hand tools. It’s visceral. He recalled one shop he worked at where the owner allowed employees to spend time during a lunch break or after hours working on personal projects, like a grilling accessory or art project. One co-worker, after months of spending an hour here and there after work, actually built a sailboat.

Allowing workers to use tools to build something off the clock has real value. After hours, no one is analyzing efficiency or setup times. They can spend time learning to use a hand saw, a drill, or a file. They can learn the craft behind metalworking.

The time also gives workers the chance to show off their work, compare notes, and talk about the reason many get into manufacturing in the first place: They like to build things.

This appreciation can affect shop culture, including how people treat and organize their hand tools. Products like tape measures seem like a commodity, and considering their price, some may be considered throwaway tools. But a well-treated and correctly calibrated tape measure determines whether some products are good or not. Sure, plus or minus 0.125 in. is a very loose tolerance, but it’s a tolerance all the same, and it’s checked with the tape measure. There’s nothing “throwaway” about that.

Top Lipton, a longtime machinist and fabricator

Figure 1
Top Lipton, a longtime machinist and fabricator, manages the floor at Ox Tools Co., a small job shop and custom machinery builder in the San Francisco Bay area.

2. Incorporate Metal Fabrication Hand Tool Use Into Training

In a small shop environment, especially one where projects change daily and one person may carry parts through multiple steps of fabrication, that person ideally needs to know how to work a hand saw or file just as well as a band saw or deburring machine.

He should know what file patterns match which kind of edge—a flat edge versus a corner, for instance. He should be able to look at the print and job requirements, examine the part edge, and know whether it requires a quick deburring just to knock off the berries and dross, or if it needs a fine finish. If the edge just needs to be cleaned up a little, a few quick strokes with the hand file should do the trick.

If the part does need a fine finish, he could take it to the deburring machine, but he should also know how to hand-file that fine finish if necessary (see Figure 2). Files cut in one direction, so he strokes down, lifts it up, brings it back, and strokes downward again, referencing the surface to ensure the file is parallel. If the part needs an especially fine finish, the worker may need to perform draw filing by turning the file 90 degrees, holding the file on both ends. “The tooth is now shearing at a different angle,” Lipton said, “and that allows you to produce a very nice, smooth finish. This is why there are so many files. They each have specific uses.

“You have to pay attention to how you’re holding the file, making sure it’s the right height—there’s a lot to filing, even though it looks like this totally simple operation,” Lipton continued. “How you use the file affects the finish more than the apparent coarseness of the file.” Files that look coarse actually can leave extremely fine finishes if used properly and cleaned regularly.

3. Know That There’s More Than One Way to Get the Job Done

Lipton recalled working at a sheet metal shop years ago where he observed an industry veteran at an adjacent workstation. He seemed to work slowly, yet at the end of the day he produced more parts and got more done. How did he do this? He used hand tools.

When Lipton needed to cut a part, he walked over to the horizontal band saw, waited for a co-worker to finish using it, then set up his part and cut away. “When I used the horizontal band saw, I put it in and started my cut, and then just stood there and watched it,” Lipton said.

The pieces weren’t massive—barstock less than 0.75 in. in diameter—and there weren’t many to cut, so the industry veteran knew that the mechanized saw wasn’t the only way to cut them. In fact, he rarely left his workbench. He simply clamped the sheet metal and cut it with a hack saw. He let the saw do the work, and with his years of experience, the cuts he made with that hand tool were precise enough for the application (see Figure 3). True, the automatic band saw could have cut an even cleaner edge, but if the piece didn’t require it, why bother?

“Hack sawing looks simple, but to do it efficiently, you need to stand the right way and hold the saw the right way,” Lipton said. “You need to select the right blade, and know you can’t cut sheet metal with a 14-tooth blade. Conversely, if you’re cutting off a 0.75-in. round, you’re not going to use a 32-tooth blade. You’ll be there all day.

“This is part of the craft,” Lipton continued. “It’s knowing when to use power tools or machines, and knowing when hand tools may be the best option. When you’re filing something or cutting something by hand, you really get the sense of the material.” Walking back and forth to machines and setting them up can make a person look busy, but how many parts are going out the door? “If you don’t pay attention, you can feel like you’re going like the devil, but you’re not really getting a whole lot done.”

Unlike Lipton, the industry veteran didn’t have to spend time walking to the machine or waiting for it to become available. Using hand tools, he continued to work quietly and earnestly. Like the tortoise against the hare, he won the productivity race.

Figure 2
Different files have specific uses, and the size of teeth does not necessarily dictate the level of finish you get. Handled properly, a seemingly coarse-tooth file can produce an extraordinarily smooth edge.

Lipton summed it up this way: “A craftsperson is constantly gauging his effort and output based on the tolerance and requirements of the job.”

4. Foster Good Shop Etiquette

Knowing and appreciating the value of hand tools can foster good shop floor etiquette, which, as Lipton explained, is basically commonsense politeness and professionalism: Leave tools and equipment in the same or better shape than you found them.

A professional doesn’t abuse the shop’s hand tools, no matter how inexpensive they may be, but instead inspects the tool before putting it back. Ideally, the worker makes a note about any tool that may need to be replenished, so that a shop foreman or other manager can order more.

Etiquette can fall by the wayside these days for many reasons, one being that most small job shops no longer employ a person to watch over the tool crib. “This has become a problem in small shops. We no longer have tool crib managers, and they played an important part in a shop operation,” Lipton said. “They inspected the tools and replenished the supply. Now, it’s nobody’s job … The whole balance has shifted, so now the tools are less important compared to labor costs.” He added that some shops do have a cabinet, locked and managed by a supervisor, for some of the more critical hand tools and supplies, be it fasteners, abrasives, or anything else. Larger shops may still employ a tool crib manager, and perhaps use vending machines (basically an unattended tool crib) managed and replenished by a tool supply vendor. Regardless, abusing shop tools can cost a shop time. People may need to perform rework to fix a job done with a poorly maintained tool.

Lipton recalled one time when a co-worker borrowed a tape measure. He had an extra one, so it was no problem. Weeks passed, and Lipton kept asking his co-worker for his tape measure back. The co-worker always had an excuse. Finally, Lipton went up to him and demanded his tape measure. The co-worker eventually gave it to him. It was scuffed, the end was bent, and some of the markings were tough to read.

“No, that’s not the tape measure I lent you,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” his co-worker said.

“No, I gave you a brand-new tape measure, not one in that condition. You can keep that old one.”

“OK, fine. I’ll pay you for it. How much do I owe you?”

“No,” Lipton said. “I don’t want money. I want a new tape measure.”

clamping a workpiece in a vise

Figure 3
Sometimes clamping a workpiece in a vise and cutting it with a hack saw is the quickest way to get a small job done.

The co-worker eventually got him a new tape measure. Could Lipton have bought a new one himself? Sure, but he’d be ignoring shop etiquette, a subtle yet foundational part of a healthy fab shop culture, one where people value and appreciate the work of others, their time, and their tools.

When Lipton trains new employees, he looks for this etiquette right away. “Say someone never worked in a metal shop, but he’s real enthusiastic and he’s a hard worker. So we’re going to put him to work, and we’re going to give him a job that he can’t cause much trouble on. But I observe that person, how he behaves in the shop, and how he handles himself. Is he courteous? Is he helpful? Is he asking the right kind of questions, or even asking questions at all? Or is he just looking at his phone all day?”

He offers training, but he also looks for feedback, questions, and engagement. The foundation for effective training and knowledge transfer lies in a person’s soft skills, and this includes proper shop etiquette—to be present, engaged, and curious about how things are done.

5. Learn Metal Fabrication Hand Tool Organization Strategies

The 5S component of lean manufacturing has its origins in production work. It certainly can be adapted to a job shop environment, particularly one large enough to have separate departments, such as for cutting, bending, and welding. Shadow boards and standard tool layouts work wonders for shortening changeover time.

But in a project-based job shop and prototype operation, people follow a product through production. They may have a standard set of tools at their workbench or on their tool belt, such as a tape measure, a marker, or a scribe (see Figure 4), but every project involves such a variety of tools, it’s difficult to standardize.

For this environment, Lipton described two components of successful tool organization. The first is to know a person’s organizational style. A person’s work speaks louder than the appearance of his workbench. If a person’s workbench is messy, yet that person is extremely productive (relative to his co-workers) and knows where everything is, then there’s no problem.

However, if tools are shared and his co-workers can’t find tools on his messy desk, then of course things need to change. The same thinking goes if co-workers or customers who tour the shop value neatness. The bottom line: If a messy workbench affects others, some organization is in order.

Although Lipton said he’s hands-off when it comes to certain aspects of personal organization, he does provide workspaces that help people find tools quickly. For instance, most toolboxes and bins in the shop have drawers that aren’t very deep so that people can fit only so many layers of tools, usually just one.

“We never want to use a 2-foot-deep hopper, with stuff at the bottom that never sees the light of day,” Lipton said. “If people can’t put their hands on the tools they need quickly, you’re just throwing money away.”

The second component of Lipton’s organizational strategy involves creating kits of tools for the day’s work. This adapts the ideas behind 5S, which states that a workbench should have only the minimum tools necessary to complete a job. Excess tools at the workbench open the door for disorganization and inefficiency.

Figure 4
Well-prepared metalworkers have coveralls, aprons, or shirts with pockets for often used hand tools—a ruler, a marker, a tape measure—that stay with them always.

Managing a job shop in which workers tackle disparate projects from day to day requires a different approach (see Figure 5). At the beginning of each day, Lipton and his co-workers create a kit of tools for the day’s work. If it’s an assembly job, they put together a kit of wrenches, screwdrivers, and other mechanical tools. If the day’s jobs will entail weld prep, joining, and holemaking, they grab the kit developed for this kind of work. If they’re installing a machine, they retrieve tools to transport the system, level it, and set it up for the customer. That calls for a rigging kit, with jacks, pry bars, dolly, wedge, blocks, and similar items. The next day he may be running power to the machine, which requires another toolkit, this one involving electrical equipment. Some days may call for several kits, depending on the schedule.

“The mix of jobs drives how exactly you kit your tools,” he said.

Lipton added that, of course, if something unexpected comes up, he may need to get an extra tool here and there. But he shouldn’t be making trips to the toolroom every whipstitch.

The Apprentice-Journeyman Relationship

So much about the use of hand tools used to be passed on from journeyman to apprentice. Lipton conceded that the classic apprentice-journeyman relationship is rarer than it was, mainly due to pricing pressure and labor costs. A person needs to be productive quickly these days and doesn’t have the luxury of shadowing an industry veteran.

But in his shop, Lipton still abides by at least some of the principles behind that relationship. It provides a structure for passing on fundamental knowledge, including the proper use of the now-often-disregarded hand tool. It’s not about programming or pushing buttons. It’s about gaining a feel for the tool as it touches the metal. That’s the craft part of metalworking, and using it is sometimes the best way to get the job done.

Figure 5
Lipton puts hand tools in kits, organized by job type. If a worker takes one of each at the beginning of the day, chances are he won’t have to visit the tool crib for the remainder of his shift.

About the Author
The Fabricator

Tim Heston

Senior Editor

2135 Point Blvd

Elgin, IL 60123

815-381-1314

Tim Heston, The Fabricator's senior editor, has covered the metal fabrication industry since 1998, starting his career at the American Welding Society's Welding Journal. Since then he has covered the full range of metal fabrication processes, from stamping, bending, and cutting to grinding and polishing. He joined The Fabricator's staff in October 2007.