Building tool chest for good friends bday, need advice

[Mumbly00]

So one of my good friends doesn't have any hand tools, and now that he has a garage I'm thinking for his birthday I will surprise him with a decent entry set.

With my recent purchase of a 27" Kennedy I have no real need for my 24" cman stack, and I could try to sell it and deal with the loonies on CL, but I'm thinking if I gift it to him it would mean a whole lot more. I have a bunch of 1/4 and 3/8 Stanley and other brand sockets laying around, I was going to piece together a set for him, with a couple extra rails I have laying around.

Now onto him, he is trying to get started in the computer building/ repair field so I would like to include some relevant tools. His birthday isn't till November so I have some time to get this put together. He has a cman 19.2 drill, and dewalt cordless drill, but no real hand tools.

I would like to keep my new out of pocket cost around $50 plus whatever my girl, and his wife want to throw in the fund. But I would like him to be able to do basic car maintenance.

So far on the list I'm thinking a couple ratchets, some nut drivers, and screwdrivers.

Let me know what you guys are thinking I should throw in.

Thanks

 

[zkling]

What craftsman 24" stack do you have? Are you sure it is a 24" stack?

As for the computer building tools. A good set of screwdrivers, one or two sizes of nut driver (don't recall off the top of my head what size), a pair of sharp needle nose and a pair of small wire cutters is about all he will need.

 

[Mumbly00]

It's a 5 year old 24" standard duty stack, 4 drawer roller, 4 drawer top chest. With friction slides, grey in color, I bought it new, and out grew it even before I got completely moved in.
I know it's 24" cause it's the same width as my 24" 1/2" breaker bar, my breaker had to live outside my chest a couple years cause it would not fit

 

[disston]

You do realize you are not going to get a lot of tools for $50?

It sounds like you can put together a socket set. 3/8 drive is the most useful for car work but the others come in handy. 1/4 & 1/2 drive. The 1/4 will have some applications in computer work.

A wrench set is nice.

The Cman store has these Torx driver sets in smaller sizes. They are often needed for computer work. I had to find a T6 last year and the best deal was at Sears.

A really big Cman screwdriver set will eat that $50 up pretty fast.

 

[Hpozzuoli]

He will probably need lots of precision stuff like screwdrivers and pliers. Maybe some tweezers, soldering set up....magnifying glass. Not sure what else you need for computer related tools. Normal around the house stuff will be great to have on hand for home repairs, but I think he may need computer centric stuff....ie small.

That's really nice you are doing that for him.

 

[Jrussell86]

Check out item number 69960 at Lowes a 24 piece precision tool set in the Kobalt line for $20.

 

[Hammer1963]

First off, your'e a hell of a guy for doing this. Secondly, I would look for used tools for the vehicle and household issues and search for tool liquidator for the precision tools

 

[scaron]

the single most useful tool you can get a computer or IT guy is a klein 11-in-1 screwdriver! add in a nice pair of needlenose pliers and a pair of dikes (klein, channellock, ...) and he will be pretty well set to cover pretty much any job in a computer nowadays. he can add more specialized tools for voice/data/video as the time comes.

 

[devoncoolman]

Precision screwdrivers come in handy for computer repair. When i repaired computers what i used the most was a #2 phillips screwdriver. You really need a quallity set of phillips drivers. I always used snap-on. But witte drivers are super nice for the price.

 

[Farmall450]

What craftsman 24" stack do you have? Are you sure it is a 24" stack?

As for the computer building tools. A good set of screwdrivers, one or two sizes of nut driver (don't recall off the top of my head what size), a pair of sharp needle nose and a pair of small wire cutters is about all he will need.

Agreed, the cman mini pliers are great, they have a 3 piece set of needlenose, dykes/sidecutters, and mini pliers.

 

[metaldad]

Methinks a BFH will be real handy.

 

[wolf_from_wv]

#2 phillips
#1 phillips - maybe
nutdrivers 1/4" and 3/16" (I put some sockets in the lathe and cut them down for this)

possibly security driver bits
tiny bits for laptops
plastic pry tools for laptops

Maybe CAT5 crimper
phone crimper
phone line tester

needle nose pliers
small part pick up tool
flashlight
inspection mirror

power supply tester
multimeter

soldering iron

They sell a crimper for 9/15/25 pin connectors, but they don't seem to be used much anymore.

Is he going to be doing custom cases?

 

[mbatarga]

Don't skimp on the nutdrivers!

 

[Mumbly00]

Thanks for all the replies, I put the $50 limit in there just as a guideline. If I spend $10 1 month, $20 another month, I could easily have over $100 more into it then I already do.

I've known this guy for more then 10 years and a couple years ago he called me out on kind of treating him a bit ******. So for his 30th birthday I really want to go out and show him I value our friendship

 

[nicksnothereman]

So one of my good friends doesn't have any hand tools, and now that he has a garage I'm thinking for his birthday I will surprise him with a decent entry set.

With my recent purchase of a 27" Kennedy I have no real need for my 24" cman stack, and I could try to sell it and deal with the loonies on CL, but I'm thinking if I gift it to him it would mean a whole lot more. I have a bunch of 1/4 and 3/8 Stanley and other brand sockets laying around, I was going to piece together a set for him, with a couple extra rails I have laying around.

Now onto him, he is trying to get started in the computer building/ repair field so I would like to include some relevant tools. His birthday isn't till November so I have some time to get this put together. He has a cman 19.2 drill, and dewalt cordless drill, but no real hand tools.

I would like to keep my new out of pocket cost around $50 plus whatever my girl, and his wife want to throw in the fund. But I would like him to be able to do basic car maintenance.

So far on the list I'm thinking a couple ratchets, some nut drivers, and screwdrivers.

Let me know what you guys are thinking I should throw in.

Thanks

For computers or electronics...tool wise (not including multimeter, soldering iron, solder, assorted other accessory type stuff) you basically need precision and a couple of larger screw drivers and a pair of needlenose, that's about it. Some have proprietary fasteners, in more mainstream stuff they cap out at torx (regular). Xbox 360 has those torx screws, I know them well, have a craftsman torx driver specifically for taking apart that p.o.s. . Oh and they use a small hex "positioning caps" on the rails of the dvd drive.

Nutdrivers...I think would be useless, usually the machine screws they use are bi-use (slotted driver but hex head) so don't really need nutdrivers.

I'd say get a semi-decent set of precision, a decent set of needlenose, and a smaller craftsman clear handles, some metric hex keys (any), and call it a day. Would be around 30 bucks. Let him buy the rest. Don't buy a bitdriver, won't fit for the casing on most electronics (outside screws). Kobalt, husky, and most pittsburgh stuff is okay for electronics. Not a lot of torque on any of those screws, sometimes they use threadlocker on internals of a device like a cd/dvd drive but rarely do people rip those apart unless they're really cheap like me. Even then the fasteners aren't hard to remove or adjust like they can be on a car.

 

[jeffmoss26]

I've been working on computers for years. Most of the actual in-case work can be done with a #2 phillips screwdriver and a pair of pliers...BUT here are some recommendations:
-piquic teeny turner for laptops
-a good multimeter
-power supply tester
-1/4 nutdriver for case screws
-long #2 phillips (Dell CPU fans are buried deep)
-some kind of tweezers for when you drop small parts or need to remove a hard drive jumper

If he needs cabling tools I can give you a whole different list!

 

[Supe]

I don't work in computer repair but the HP tech that attends onsite uses an assortment of Torx bits for his cordless screwdriver and precision philips screwdrivers (laptops).

 

[Canadian Charlie]

I have a Birthday coming up if you want to get me something, lol