Let me tell you about that 5# hammer.
Sixteen years ago, when I started working on school buses, the boss sent me to a three-day seminar, taught by a retired mechanic (or so he said). One of the first comments he made was that a good mechanic always used the best tool for the job. He then went on to tell us that some woman race car driver (can't remember the name now) tells her crew that there is no use for a hammer, other than building houses. The instructor then proceeded to tell how he agreed with that philosophy and recommended that we all throw away our hammers when we went back to work. Of course me and the other mechanics at the seminar started to snicker behind the guys back, but I took his word for it, went back to work and threw my hammers in the trash.
On the first day back to work, a bus driver attacked me because I had her bus in the garage trying to get some work done on it. Bus drivers are very possessive of their busses and hate to drive a spare. In the past, all I had to do is grab the old 5# hammer and they would leave me alone, but not this time... I had thrown the bad boy away!
Next, the boss started to order me around. Again, I was unable to depend on the persuader to save me from his aggression.
Later that day, one of the buses had a flat tire. I went to remove the open style wheel but had a hard time of it, because the wedges, under the lug nuts, that lock the wheel to the hub wouldn't pop loose on their own. Without a hammer I was stuck. I finally figured that the right tool for the job was the back of the 3/4" air wrench, so I beat them loose with that. Unfortunately the air wrench broke, so I had to call the SnapOn man to get it fixed. In the mean time the bus sat there waiting to go back together for a few days.
Soon, I found that I was unable to remove drag links and tie rods because my pickle fork was designed to be hit by a hammer. Again, I called the SnapOn guy and bought a pickle fork that fit my air hammer. Then I discovered that my old air hammer didn't have enough power to drive the connections apart. Oh well. . I got to buy a new air hammer.
After a few other frustrating moments, I decided that hammers were necessary tools in my toolbox. I grabbed my metal detector and went to the local dump, to find my hammers. For two days, I prowled around the dump, competing with sea gulls, rats and bears for land rights. The guys who worked at the dump were very much amused and kept trying to run me over with those big spike wheeled compactors. I eventually found all my hammers and went happily back to work.
Doc
Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
