Tools and Spares. What we carry most of the time.

This post was suggested by my sons a long time ago. Then again some friends were talking about the tools they carried on board and I was like.. Let me pull some things out of the tool chest and see what I might have. 

First things first. I have a bit of a Makita fetish. I used to have the 9V system and I used the tools for 25 years with ZERO failures. When I worked in the marine industry in the 1990s my 9V system was thoroughly abused and hammered on daily.  When I decided I wanted to upgrade because I was having a hard time getting the batteries I hit the “tool only” aisle of Amazon, did some comparison shopping as stuff started arriving. Sydney is very supportive as the cost of the tools has been saved dozens of times over in me or my sons doing significant amounts of work.

To be able to do some more projects I’m likely going to add the new 18V detail sander and the new 18V heat gun that Makita put on the market. There is a cordless rivet tool that Makita makes but it is nearly $2000 so I’m going to buy bourbon instead. 

Here we have 8 Makita 18VLXT batteries, router, 90 degree drill, impact driver, roto tool, sawzall, jig saw, stapler, 120VAC heat gun, buffer, electric caulk gun, circular saw, orbital sander, air compressor, spot light, drill, 2 battery charger, fan, multi-tool, and work light.  With these tools we can basically do everything from major upholstery work to fine detail cabinetry work. We’ve replaced entire deck plates and done the deck seams. 

Hand tools are an important part of the kit. Between normal wrenches and screw drivers I also have a pretty significant number of tools for doing electronics. With these tools we’ve run wires all over the boat, rewired big chunks of previous owner mess, and done fairly major engine work. Before you ask. Yes I have a significant number of sockets they just aren’t easy to take pictures of quickly. 

I have electrical snips, crimpers, and cutters, hammers, scrapers, various hex wrenches, hot knife from sail right, soldering irons, hydraulic lug crimpers, socket offsets, bendy wrenches and straight wrenches in SAE and Metric (English boat has it all), fish tape, moisture detector, various nut drivers in SAE and Metric, crawl space camera, torch, portable drill press, various crescent wrenches, and screw drivers, including a Makita (not pictured) screw driver. 

When you live in a house you have things like a junk drawer. I always had a roll-away with a parts center attached. Yeah I’m that guy.  I now have organizers that keep everything in its place and I can inventory as needed. 

Bits, and bother. I have THREE of these hose clamp kits. These are perforated but I have the same set plus various other sizes (and many more than here) in non-perforated Scandvik brand. They’re both stainless but the Scandvik is just about 10 times better or seems so on first blush. You can never have to much in the way of repair screws and I bought several kits from Amazon in stainless. 

I also have electronic repair parts for lights and sensors. I have another bag of repair parts that are like this a consumable. Having this kind of stuff means I can reach into a cabinet and just fix stuff as needed. I can see a day when I go for a red LED only to find I have green ones. I’ll be happy if the blinky things blink.

The tackle boxes you buy are great places to put all the other bits. I keep LEDs to repair everything on the boat. From instrument LEDs, to power panel LEDs, to the cabin LEDs in the headliner. I also keep three spares for every high power fused junction on the boat. 

When doing projects I keep track of the consumable and simply buy the same brand and such to replace the most often used consumable. Wiring pieces are a good example. I have an Amazon list with the various brands and parts so I can buy them with no fuss whenever I need. 

I only use “marine” grade where “marine” grade connectors are crimped, have longer than normal sleeves, they glue to the wire, and are aluminum in general. I do have some high speed connectors that I can use when trouble shooting. Backing this up is another bin with dozens up dozens of multi-colored shrink wrap. I also have shrink wrap that runs in my label maker to label neatly all connections on the boat. 

There are the things I’ve learned about or found I needed but didn’t know. I continue to be amazed how much stuff I do better when I have the actual items on board rather than taking a short cut to do something when I can’t get to a store (we don’t have a car). 

A friend with a YouTube Channel called Ruby Rose by the name of Nick Fabri suggested this bit of kit in an episode what has to be 3 years ago. He said if it leaks and it isn’t supposed to the issue is an o-ring. If is supposed to pump water and it doesn’t then it is an impeller. I have used this kit so many times to fix things. You have no idea. It is actually quite useful.  I have also had people showing up when the call goes out for a part no chandler in the area can even find. An o-ring for free beer on somebody’s boat you just helped is a pretty good cruiser level trade. 

The truth is o-rings aren’t the only seal you need. I wanted to cover my bases for various other jobs and bought these neat little kits. 

These are “hard” nylon shims that you put between different items that wear. You’re thinking “Yeah, but you’ll only use one every few years!” Actually (mansplain warning) I use the heck out of these for Bimini, and electronic components and other things I want to keep isolated on connected. They work as shims and have dozens of other uses. 

I have fuses. You need fuses. I have this variety pack plus I have some in an electronics repair back so they are at hand. I find they get a work out when I’m trouble shooting. That is usually something like, “Oh here is the issue. There now it is fixed.” Insert sound of fuse popping when power is applied. Which is usually followed by, “Oh I missed that. Here now it is fixed.” This is usually repeated until you run out of fuzes and install the next larger size. Actually, don’t do that. 

Various navigation components, power components, and systems components on the moody use pin connectors instead of forks, or rings. This connector kit was invaluable in repairing several navigation units that a contractor messed up after installing an unrelated piece of equipment. My Radar now runs from either the nav station or the helm. 

If you have a Bimini you have snaps. Just buy the real kit instead of the one that requires a hammer. I have both but prefer this one. 

More bolts. 

And, then again more bolts (see to the right I have two of these kits).

Finally SOFT gaskets. This goes along with the o-ring kit above. This kit does all those silly places that start leaking for no reason whatsoever creating the nuts and crazy to come out of the woodwork. OF course that isn’t all you need. We also keep a significant number of spares, consumables and such on board. 

Spares Inventory

Spares replace, fix or change something. Consumables are just that. They are the filters and the things you are going to use no matter what. Wheras spares are fix and replaces the consumables just get used at some rate. 

I think that about covers it. I realized after writing this list I had an entire other cabinet of spares and need to get them on the list too. To go along with spares we have a significant amount of adhesives, epoxies, and other materials for fixing, repairing and refitting the boat on hand. There is also a significant crash kit (in case of emergency repair stuff) that I will write about at a later time. There are also tools like I have an AC pump cleaner kit that I built out of a sump pump that I can use to clean our ACs of the sea life growth in the lines. That pump can also be used as a fairly high volume crash pump. 

When you think about all of these things there is a “keeping up with the Jones” kind of mentality that sinks into the psyche. I used to do this stuff as a primary job. Fixing boats. I have zero interest in working on other peoples boats but many of the selections of updated tools were based on that thinking. I in my past rebuilt and refurbished cars and motorcycles including frame off restorations. I gave away to a friend from work a HUGE roll away tool cabinet. I was sad to see it go but that is part of the experience. 
I expect to get 20 to 25 years use out of these tools EVEN IN THE SALTWATER environment. Properly taking care of your tools makes them last a lot longer. 

I would point out. Like I said this is “some” of the tools and spares. I have more stuff I just figured nobody would want to see.