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Thank you for your concern, however we have an allowed/required tool list. All power tools must be supplied by the contractor. Speed tools are verboten. Contractor has to supply those and things like ratchets etc. Considering how many ratchets I destroy in a year I am glad I am not buying them...

I have a constant baby crying in my right ear due to working near an excavating machine in my youth and neglecting to wear ear muffs. Every morning we go through and reiterate the need for PPE - eye protection, ear protection and gloves - and I let the crew take whatever they might need for...

Am I 100% sure of it? No. However based on where the parts come from and where the money goes I am relatively certain of it. Not to get into the union/non union thing either ( which seems to upset folks around here ) one can question the survey and the interpretation of the 'content' of the...

Job performance rarely comes into play with the highly trained and skilled workforce I deal with. Essentially we are all equivalent cogs in an industry that has difficulty with standard metrics. Normally any of us can do pretty much anything required. if given the tools and materials required.

Perhaps you are missing the point. Construction jobs are not forever. Eventually the building gets built. We all get laid off at the end. Including myself. Who goes first? On my jobs - the guys who could not even bother to pretend to support america or union labor. Parking lot full of chevys...

Absolutely you would. However, the largest single consumer purchase you can make is an automobile. Buy something that supports your own country. Toyota does not support american labor. They consider the US a market, which they should, seeing as they are from Japan, which I am not.

It really does. US union made foreign cars with american branding. I just recently worked at the budweiser plant in newark, nj. American union made foreign owned beer. Don't know if I should drink it or not. At least my bourbon is easy to figure out.

It actually is. We talk about buying local, buying american, yet when someone mentions supporting union labor... You should be aware that many of these american tools that are so fondly missed were union made. The machines that made them were union made. The steel plants that provided the...

Layoff. Not fire. And yes, when the jobs shrink and I have to make a decision on who goes soonest things like how well they support other union workers comes into play. And no, there are almost no foreign made usa assembled usa union involved automobiles. It is more likely that a foreign made...

I make a good living as a union electrician and am usually responsible for the purchasing choices of any project I am running. I buy USA made and union made whenever possible. If that is not possible, then I look to friends and neighbors of the US. I absolutely avoid purchasing from the...

So completely tangential...for years I have been using a pair of 'aussie' lineman pliers for my low voltage work and I incorrectly assumed that they were only made by Benner Nawman. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M1MBF9A/?tag=atomicindus08-20 My pair is going on better than 20 years. Benner...

Occasionally work on live equipment requires insulated tools ( and arc flash safety gear etc. ). They make entire ranges of live work 1000v tools, including the most cumbersome ratchets and sockets imaginable. Personally I prefer to just turn off the equipment. Always safer in the long run and...

< nevermind reading fail >

I have actually used some of these style wire twisting tools. While they appear quicker and I suspect with practice they might be quicker, I have not found them to be so. Additionally, they are 'one shot' tools. You still need linesman pliers if you add a wire or if you need to take the splice...

Out in the field ( steel erection and beam modification ) we use Hougan slick sticks - a waxy stick lubricant - to great effect. No where near as messy as oil. I pretty much use these slick sticks for all of my out and about drilling and taping. Pretty sure they come in a little 2oz and a 16oz...

As an electrician it would never occur to me to use them to cut nails or drill bits. It is for light metal cuts and wire cutting. However the main purpose is cutting tie wraps, pulling staples and nails, trimming mc cable and the like. I actually have gramp's dykes around here somewhere. My edc...

The madison bars are not an issue, however, not snapping in the mc connector is. Instead of a snap in, the electrician could have used one with locknut. If you are concerned about the box depth, they make those boxes up to 3 1/2 inches deep. As far as the mud ring ...ummm... situation. The box...

One alternative, you could use copper 'diesel' cable off of the 125A breaker then bug that onto your aluminum cable. Expensive and extra work. A second alternative, use the feed through lugs on the bottom to feed another breaker enclosure using 200 amp wire ( the 200 amp main protects this...

As long as both photocells are on the same power source ( ie the same breaker ) you can do what you described but it will not work as you expect. When either device decides the light should come on, it will. So it will still come on prematurely and then turn off late. I have to go with point it...

Anything over 18" I use Stabila levels, but under I have a range of checkpoint billet levels. As an electrician the smaller levels need to have good magnets and off level glasses ( 30 and 45 degrees minimum ) . For my small protractor I have a stabila but usually reach for my stanley fat max...