Aviation snips,,the end of the story,

I've never taken notice of the colors and kept the lower blade on the outside lifting the waste, so the color denotes the hand they're used comfortably in and the yellow ones naturally favor the majority who are right handed.
Hotroddon 16 gauge would be aluminium, nearly all the brand name ones are rated to 20 gauge mild steel by the manufacturers.

 

someone make that a sticky, PLEASE! I actually own all aviation snips, just used to calling them tin snips is all. I don't think I've used my actual tin snips in years.

 

Port wine is red - old sailors memory aid.

 

anyone got a left handed drill bit with a right hand twist? or a straight edge phillips screwdriver?

 

I thought they were RED and GREEN for the Christmas Holiday.

 

Years ago, at one of my Military assignments, I had a guy in my shop who, while an OK guy, had no clue about tools and such. Our shop (Nondestructive Testing) was in a hangar, the rest of which was the Ground Equipment repair section, and they had plenty of tools. They knew how to go along with the joke when I sent my young dude out to borrow a metric phillips screwdriver, or a left-hand crescent wrench, or some such imaginary tool.

Ya'll are right; Industrial Arts in school seems to be dying. But then, the last Industrial Arts teacher in my local high school couldn't get anyone to sign up; if they did, they didn't want to get their hands dirty. They also wanted to know where the damn keyboard was.

I do know of one young guy who will know some of those arts; my 7 year old grandson goes with me when I help a friend with his Super Late Model Stock Car, and he also is starting to learn to use my Mig welder. Gotta get him past that initial jump.
Add to that his Dad works in a hot rod shop, and he helps him do stuff on his rat rod.

 

It's sad,I took every shop class I could from 7th grade up to tenth,then I went to a pilot type of Votech school the last two years of high school. instead of going back to the high school, were took all our classes there. just like a tech school for an adult. graduated out of there and got our diplomas. I had old school northern Ohio shop teachers. We got to do cool stuff like pour sand castings of aluminum. My favorit comment of all time and good advice, in wood shop class, "all the machines are nut height, if the board kicks backwards,you might as well go down the hall and learn to sew and cook" never saw anyone stand directly behind a board. or " if it's hot, it's sharp,it'll shock you,it'll hurt you,don't put your dam fingers in there and you'll be fine"

 

When asked "what's a diode" I usually reply the it's a battery driven device the women use to relax with and say AHHHHH.

As a Petty Officer in charge of compass calibration in an avaition electrical shop we used to get newbies that others sent to us looking for relative bearing greese. They were told it was used on the chains when we did a compass swing (term for calibration). I would sit the young man down and explaing how his shop leader is wasting his time. I would tell them to take the rest of the day off and go to the EM Club and drink. When asked the next day he should tell his supervisor that I directed him to the club and told him I would bring the Relative Bearing Greese there for him when we got some spare.

 

That came from an old Wiess catalog

 

Yes and no.

The drill bit is a weird looking wonder.
Ground it myself.
Easy to do when you need a left hand cut - removing broken bolts etc. - but if the drilling is deep you have to pull it out of the hole to get rid of the shavings then start again.

Got a Reed & Prince screwdriver and an angled nut driver....

 

One time we were buying spark plugs for a VW lab project at school. The NAPA guy went through his standard list of questions: make, model, gas or diesel... We paused, with a funny look on our faces -- he got it pretty quickly -- although there was that pause.

 

belive it or not there is a metric phillips....for the euro screws in/on european cabinet hardware....any normal + will strip em fast

 

i'm still looking for a metric Crescent wrench

 

Sears brand "Midwest" offset snips ftw.

 

Ya know, I have been doing sheetmetal work for over 15 years. Funny thing is every single pair of snips comes with a diagram on them showing which way they cut. F'n morons at the hardware, Lowe's, Home Depot.....i don't care where at, should look at what they are actually selling. Most don't, and are ignorant to the knowledge that they could learn by reading the label.

Mott

 

Since Crescent is a Brand, not a type of wrench, here ya go ;

Crescent part # FRRM4
4 Piece Reversible Ratcheting Combination Wrench Set, Metric

 

You mean it is not anymore? I think I learned more skills from Industrial Arts that I use today than any other subject.
They still are a regular part of Jr. & SR. High up here.

 

So do all you guys who think red cuts left etc use them that way? Looking at them yesterday I discovered I've been doing the opposite for 35 years, lifting the waste allows me to tweak the waste coil with my off hand and confine distortion to it. It all comes down to minimizing the waste on the last cut to the point it will happily distort in preference to the keep. I think you're all crazy

I gotta disagree with the Weiss less effort than tin snips claim too, don't you have Gilbows in the states? They don't look much different to other snips apart from thicker stiffer blades but they perform much better.I find them better down to about 2" radii, with the material clamped and used towards me I push with my palm on the end of the lower handle and use my good hand to squeeze. Way faster and less effort, distortion and marring.
I've used Mitsubishi compound snips that could rip a sheet of 14 gauge steel up the middle, I've never seen them for sale anywhere and suspect the have more cool sheet metal stuff they're not selling us.

I doubt there's such an animal as metric phillips, I think you're referring to pozi drive which has a light + stamped 90 degrees to the socket. The bit has an extra smaller +.

 

Granpa will explain....again.....
Years ago, they were called "tinner's snips". That's when a lot of sheetmetal was soldered together. Before aviation snips, too.
A soldering iron was called "a tinner's copper". That would be the copper soldering iron that they heated with a blow torch. The guy doing this would have more than one of these on the go. Soldering with one, while they other is being heated.
Also, a Crescent wrench is a brand name. If someone asked you to hand them a Craftsman, what would you do?
Yup, I'm old....
Granpa

 

I think a lot of this has to do with where you are from,,,tomato tomotto,,creek or crick,,

All I know is I cut sheet metal with my snips and they work just fine and they don't care what I call them. HRP

 

It's great to listen to guys who think we should still have Industrial Arts in our schools, I thank you. I am a frustrated INdustrial Arts teacher now teaching Industrial Technology (computers thrown in for good measure). I do manage to sneak in some IA stuf, metal shaping and cutting, but since I started teaching, 18 years ago the pressures in other areas have intensified so we now are forced to focus on passing the "test". It's always been a pretty common fact that on average only 50% go on to post secondary education and most do not complete that. I teach 7th grade and try to spark an interest in the trades as best I can. Unfortunately, when they get to the high school their class selections are so severely limited by graduation requirements that electives are not usually an option.
Beleive it or not some of my female students are better and have more exposure to shop tools than their male counterparts!

On the Aviators snips question, I tell my students that they are designed to cut different ways, try each of them and use the one that works the best for you. I have discovered in a separate location from my shop, a large assorment of metal working tools, bead rollers, wire edge formers etc. I've talked to my dad, (retired IA, 37 yrs, old school) and he's going to find some time to teach me what they are about.
I wsa just told recently that I could not use my AL furnace ever again in school. Bummer!

Keep up the great posts and thanks for your support. Go after your school board members and local trade industries and tell them we need a change. There are moves affoot to bring it back, but for many, once your tools are gone, you'll never get them back.

inuke
'49 Fleetline, '49 Sub

 

I have one of those irons around here somewhere.

 

If you want to cut a pc of sheet metal into 2 pc without
distorting the metal,use one pair in one hand and the
opposite pair in the other.cut about 1 inch apart.
yes there is preference if you are right or left handed

 

I "WISS" you a Merry Christmas and a HNY. (These oldies cut straight.) BCC Before color coding.

 

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those would come with yellow handles.M5 is like the m3 that
you have but snub nose-(bulldog aviations) very handy
for body work cutting pcs

 

Happy New Year to you too! I've been using these snips forever, just never told anybody about it. Don't have an airplane, didn't want to get in trouble.....

 

It's not the same thing, but since I'm left handed I have several pairs of left handed scissors. It's fun to watch a right handed person pick up a pair and try to cut with them...

 

all this talk of snips and i'm still looking for my ASE whitworth stuff.

 

LOL.. My Mom had a similar story... She was such a sweet woman.

She worked in a hardware store about the same time. A man came in and asked for a file.. He said he wanted a 10" Bastard. My Mom blushed and said that they were out of them, but they had some 8" Motherfuckers in the back.

 

inuke. Not trying to discourage you but make sure you are ALSO certified to teach an academic area . I graduated from Stout (1971) and Oswego (1967) when IA was king. Retired in 2006 when "shop" was phased out. Kids today will never know what they missed, unfortunately.