In lieu of my peanut butter 520 thread, its...


I've been meaning to ask this for the longest time. What tools have made your life just that bit easier as an aircraft mechanic? I've kinda changed course and got into an A&P school. I have no plans of getting on with an Airline as an AMT (yet) and was hoping to see some stuff that makes life easier or at least less frustrating for us general aviation guys. Fabricobbled stuff is a ok here!

Parallel pliers from Knipex are a must, can do everything from tightening axle nuts to squeezing small rivets.

Little 90degree picks are also super handy around airplanes.

I’m heavily biased towards snap-on, I was given a good deal while in A&P school and have stuck with the brand ever since. Particularly fond of their sockets and small 1/4” drive ratchets.

If you’re going to get into sheet metal work I suggest tungsten bucking bars and a rivet gun with a very fine trigger, both are expensive but worth it.


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For sheet metal, a rivet drill guide is a must.


Along with a rivet hole spacer


I went a while before buying each of those and then wondered why I waited so long before buying them.

@Halestorm

I LOVE my Knipex pliers. I have both the flat jaws and the cobras. Get a bit of use around the house.

Mr. Snappy has some great tools and I'm really thankful for their Student Excellence Program. Lets just say that I have gotten a few new shiny things over the last couple of months. A pick set was absolutely one of those items. The cotter pin puller is one of my favorites! Anything to make that job easier

Would you have a recommendation for a good rivet gun? Googling "Best rivet gun" produces a ton of interesting results.

@Bagarre

I was considering the drill guides. I'm a little skeptical about their practicality. The rivet hole spacer is an absolute must though! Completely forgot about that thing. Would you say to get them both from ATS?

Tools are very personal, and I tend to subscribe to the buy-once-cry-once philosophy.

$nap-On makes mostly good stuff, tho I have issues with the laser-marking legibility on some of their torque wrenches. Try before you buy...
A selection of these are always in my "airborne" toolbox/ballast:

12-pt crowfeet are for turbine engine steel b-nuts, 6-pt crowfeet are for aluminum b-nuts, XDH-78A wrench is for tiny MS21042L nuts when installed with an equally tiny edge distance, and the wobble extensions work better than a universal joint (pictured is a Wobble-Plus version, on which the socket can optionally be locked straight).

Knipex pliers are so excellent I give them as gifts. I get them, along with other cool tools, from https://chadstoolbox.com/ These days I try to source any Snap-On from eBay as NOS/surplus.

Storage-wise I use either Snap-on or Lista.

pilotryan wrote:@Halestorm

I LOVE my Knipex pliers. I have both the flat jaws and the cobras. Get a bit of use around the house.

Mr. Snappy has some great tools and I'm really thankful for their Student Excellence Program. Lets just say that I have gotten a few new shiny things over the last couple of months. A pick set was absolutely one of those items. The cotter pin puller is one of my favorites! Anything to make that job easier

Would you have a recommendation for a good rivet gun? Googling "Best rivet gun" produces a ton of interesting results.

@Bagarre

I was considering the drill guides. I'm a little skeptical about their practicality. The rivet hole spacer is an absolute must though! Completely forgot about that thing. Would you say to get them both from ATS?

I’ve had 20 years of excellent service from my USATCO gun and it has a delightful trigger.

At the risk of offending Bagarre we had one of those rivet drill guides in a box on the communal tool shelf at Kenmore, it was tactfully labeled “dumshit tool”. After you drill all the rivets out of a couple sets of EDO 4930 your aim gets pretty good.

I’ve got those rivet spacing fans in both 10” and 20”, they’re great. They take a 3/32 cleco nicely

I replace a lot of Windshields in corporate jets. The “El Brutus” Johnson bar type screw extractor is indispensable for removing stuck fasteners.
Tungsten bucking bars are definitely worth their weight in gold. I also have a sheet metal drill manufactured by Desouter I wouldn’t trade for a truck-load of Any others. The forward exhaust and sweet, sweet teasing throttle combined with high tourque make it a must have, for me.
Snap-on has nice stuff, MAC has nice stuff, and even Matco has some nice stuff. I pay more attention to the driver than the tools anymore. I was a Snap-on guy for years until we went through a bad batch of owner/operators that fought every warranty and stocked only automotive tool, for the most part. Now I own a bunch from all three and a splattering from Craftsman just Incase I need to cut and modify.
I guess when I stop and think about it; I’d have to say that the tools I have bent, cut, welded, and modified are really my favorites. Combined with holding your tongue just right, those are the tools that pay the bills most.

pilotryan wrote:@Bagarre

I was considering the drill guides. I'm a little skeptical about their practicality. The rivet hole spacer is an absolute must though! Completely forgot about that thing. Would you say to get them both from ATS?

I've used my drill guide so much on my 170 project that I wore out the #30 and #40 bits.
It really is that useful. Use it while replacing one skin and you'll never look back.

When working on projects other then aircraft, it is amazing to me how useful my tools bought for aircraft work come in handy. Clecos, the fan spacer, and 12" drill bits being used a lot. And a good stash of aircraft hardware/fasteners/nutplates etc. really come in handy when doing things like building a large aluminum box for my crane, or a battery container for an ebike. I even suggest to people who will never work on a plane, when faced with a task involving sheet metal or maybe needing some trick fasteners, to get an Aircraft Spruce catalog and get educated on what's out there that will be really handy for their project. It seems that bikes and airplanes, their parts and hardware, still are a serendipitous matchup, thanks Wright Bros.! Lot's of misc. plane stuff on my ebikes, cars, and on my crane, my tractor etc. Just another benefit to being a pilot/builder.

My favorite airplane tool has got to be my block plane. There is nothing quite like a sharp blade shaving a perfect translucent curl of spruce as you sculpt the shape of the leading edge... the smooth feel of the tool as it cuts through the grain, the smell of the spruce.

Pete

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Thanks guys, I do appreciate it! I guess I'll be ordering some stuff next month

Talking about power tools, most of my stuff is DeWalt. I'm considering giving some of the Sioux stuff a try. Delta's $nap On man (is also the school's guy since we are based inside of TechOps) is associated with Sioux and sells it as his kiosk. Haven't gotten to use it, but just about everything they have in the kiosk feels good in my hands which is a huge plus for me.

A set of anap on double offset wrenches are a must, and some 12 point 1/4 drive sockets. The older mac universal sockets had set screws to adjust the tightness of the swivel which was handy, but the new ones dont have that anymore. I also have a set of master craft sockets handy in case I need to make a socket for something special. I'd rather spin it cut up a cheap socket then an expensive one. I'm reality the snap on and mac guys dont come to my rural shop, so I can buy 2 cheaper tools for much less then an expensive one, and when one breaks I can have another to use until i make it to town to replace it on warranty. I like the Warren and brown deflecting beam torque wrenches, but they aren't for everyone, just what I'm used to.

Don't forget a good quality torque wrench or wrench's.

Kurt

And another item, a good borescope.

Kurt

glacier wrote:

courierguy wrote:It seems that bikes and airplanes, their parts and hardware, still are a serendipitous matchup, thanks Wright Bros

I've always felt that working on airplanes is a lot more like working on bikes than cars. If you go at with a car mechanic approach, things can end up broken and/or heavy. Having said that, access to a fastener is never an issue on a bike, but its often the case that the engineers did not build in serviceability to airframes. Some mini 1/4 ratchets (Mac has a nice one), wobble extensions and u-joint sockets can be handy.

The countersink version of that drill guide is nice too for flush rivets.

A selection of hammers, brass, rawhide, dead blow, etc.

I’ll agree with that. I’m nowhere close to being experienced working on airplanes, but I worked as a bike mechanic for a bit, and they seem similar in some ways.

I do lots of wrenching on both motorcycles and airplanes.

For aluminum sheet metal work, this vise grip with a couple rollers that turn the edge of a sheet down slightly as you pull the pliars along the edge. When riveted together, the edge of the sheet stays flush with the slight turndown.





Cannon plug pliers. Made of aluminum with soft jaws, these are really handy to generate a lot of force without marring the work surface.



Spring compressor to install spring loaded pushrod tubes.



Tungsten bucking bar for riveting. Makes the steel ones feel light!



Hog ring pliers for upholstery and spring loaded hose clamps on the pushrod tube rubbers on Continental engines.





Offset wrenches to remove the base nuts off airplane cylinders.



Doohickey that perfectly marks the center of any hole.





Spark plug holder for threading them into deep wells (BMW tool, but most just use a piece of small hose)



Shaviv deburring tool



Safety wire tool that lets you hand wind wire with precision in tight spots.





Milbar reversible wire pliers.



Flexible magnetic drain plug removal tool.



These are expanding brake caliper piston pliers which have a ton of other uses...also pictured is an unrelated custom socket for a large castle nut on motorcycle steering head bearings.



Dial torque wrenches accurate to 1%





Motion Pro liquid filled pressure gauge



Aircraft brake lining press/tool kit



Contour gauge



Sheet metal nibbling tool





Motion Pro 90 degree hex driver is a lifesaver when changing flap roller bearings on Cessnas.



And lastly for now, my old bottle and beer can opener. I'm sure some of you guys remember the old oil and beer cans that you pierced open.



More to follow...

.

Arash has some great suggestions. I second the edge rolling tool... works awesome. Here are some of my favorites:

I really like my Cleaveland Main Squeeze.

http://www.cleavelandtool.com/mobile/Ma ... KD43R5lAzQ


Microstop countersink:

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/ ... ersink.php

Parker-Hannifin flaring tool:

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/ ... tools2.php

A guy could spend thousands on good tools, and even more on this specialty stuff. I'd suggest waiting until the need arises. Figure out which tools you're expected to own for the A&P program and which can be borrowed from the school.

Those edge rolling vice grips are awesome! Wish I’d known about them a long time ago.