Magic Tool box

 

Good afternoon my aeronautics enthusiasts,

Hope that all of you had a great weekend, in today’s blog will be covering our tools boxes at the workshop. After two weeks doing classes, we finally got the opportunity to start with the workshop practises. In the first week we haven’t done much but we will be levelling up the level as we progress at the workshop.

The first thing the instructors did was giving us our toolboxes, mine was the number 4. Everyone as his own box and we had to sign that we will be in charge of that toolbox during all the course. In other words, that means that we need to make sure that we keep everything in good conditions, and we cannot lose anything. If we miss something, we will be in a big problem!

In our box we have many kinds of tools, from screwdrivers to a field service kit. Don’t worry we are going to explain how they work and how to use them. I almost forgot to mention that all our tools sizes are in inches which is the standard measure in aviation. We’ll start with:

The screwdriver is a tool used for screwing (installing) and unscrewing (removing) screws. A typical simple screwdriver has a handle and a shaft. We have many types of different heads like the tri-wing, four-wing, Philips and the flat screwdriver head. It’s mechanism is very simple, you just we to make sure that the screwdriver has the correct head according to the screw and size and once you make contact you turn clockwise to install or anticlockwise to unscrew.

 

A wrench or spanner is a tool used to provide grip and mechanical advantage in applying torque to turn objects or keep them from turning. His mechanism is almost like the screwdriver, depending on the size and the turn direction you tight or loss the bolts but applying torque because you apply force from a distance. The screwdriver you apply force in the same shaft. In our box we have two types of wrench, the open wrench and the combination wrench. The main difference is that one has both sides opened and the other one is a combination of one opened and the other one closed.

 

 

Ratcheting socket wrench is another type of wrench but with the particularity of that you can exchange the socket and put different sizes. We have a little one in a box with 16 different socket sizes! As its name says, it works with the same mechanism of a normal wrench, but you have a switch for switching the sides for applying the torque. The ratchet incorporates a reversible ratcheting mechanism which allows the user to pivot the tool back and forth to turn its socket instead of removing and repositioning a wrench to do so.

 

The pliers are useful for bending and compressing a wide range of materials but also for cutting wires or plastics. Depending on the shape of the head their uses are different, in our case we have 3 different pliers. We have diagonal cutter pliers for cutting wires usually, universal pliers normally used for tight and loss nuts and finally the needle-nose pliers for cutting and holding pliers or reposition and snip wire.

 

The field service kit is blanket used normally while touching wiring of electrical circuits on the plane. The mechanism is very simple, you have a bracelet which you connect to your hand and the other strap to the plane. This makes that your body is fully electrostatic discharged through the bracelet. In that way, when you’re touching electrical compounds you don’t melt or damage them through an electric discharge. It is very useful in avionics!

 

Final but not least, I will be explaining very quickly other tools such as the nylon hammer also named a soft-faced hammer or mallet is a hammer designed to offer driving force without damaging surfaces. We can use it to shape some metals but just for making small corrections or maybe to smash the wrench while lossing some corroded or hard bolts. Therefore, we also have the set of allen keys which is a simple tool with a characteristic “L” shape used to drive bolts and screws with hexagonal sockets in their heads. In addition, we have also gloves used for protecting our hands from dirt and corrosive products.  Finally but not least, we also have ear protectors for protect our ears from loud noises and a pair of normal scissors for cutting papers or cloth.

As you can see we have many tools in our possession and you could think that we have too many but you are wrong! Usually when you start in a company you start with this little tool box, but as you gain more experience and finally you get your license you have more responsabilities. That means that you will have a bigger tool box with more tools and some of them will be more expensive also. I hope that day will come soon and have more responsabilities and a bigger toolbox like my father. This is the toolbox I was talking about:

As you can see it way bigger and you can have all your tools more organized than ever!

After all this information I hope you understood the value of my toolbox and the importance of being careful of not loosing anything. As every week I hope you had a great time reading my blog and had the opportunity to learn more about the job. You are never too old for starting a new career in your life, so if you like the idea of becoming a mechanician don’t hesitate to start studying!

Have a nice day, more fascinating info on next week!!