Steve, I had a similar experience but with happier endings at the time.
I used to be a partner in a truck garage with a guy and his son who was just a bit younger than me.
In 1990 we decided to pack it in as the Guy was retiring and he owned the property, it would have meant Steve and myself having to take a big bank loan to buy him out with a business that was receding daily.
It was a very amicable split up, the old man wanted very little, his tools a few bit, bench grinder and trolley jack.
Steve was staying in the game and had a new position with a truck leasing company, I decided I'd had enough and went to pull back into engineering as I'd been running a small shop part time for a few years so the split of assets was easy.
I had the lathe, compressor, drill and a few more bits, Steve had all the big sockets and a lot of the tooling.
I had tool boxes full of personal tools that was wasn't liable to use again, swivel sockets, crow foot spanners, pipe spanners and many special tools.
I upended by tool boxes on the floor, [ they needed a good sort out anyway ] told Steve to make a pile of anything he wanted and if I wanted it more I'd put it back in my boxes when I sorted out.
He made a big pile of all the nice gear
I removed very little of it when I tidied up. That felt good.
Ironically the boxes are still on the floor in the back plate virtually untouched since 1990 as most of the machines have their own rack of tools and there is a rack of common ones over the bench. I could have just walked away from them.
But getting serious when we had the garage I used to have to work at a quarry on the dump trucks, mainly on electrical work as their fitter wasn't too hot on this, Older guy, really nice and we got on well together, he had this set of crimping pliers that were magic. Long strong handles, well made and with plastic covered handles, one red, one black, a play on positive - negative ? far better than my cheap pressed steel pair which was all we seemed to be able to get.
One day he fell ill and had to pack up work and he gave me the pliers, shortly after that he died. Every time I used those pliers I thought of him. Then one day I had my truck broken into and two toolboxes stolen full of tools, hundreds and hundreds of pounds of uninsured tools [ can't insure toolboxes in trucks here unless you pay very serious money ]
Out of the contents of two tool boxes full all I can remember are the crimping pliers.
.
I used to be a partner in a truck garage with a guy and his son who was just a bit younger than me.
In 1990 we decided to pack it in as the Guy was retiring and he owned the property, it would have meant Steve and myself having to take a big bank loan to buy him out with a business that was receding daily.
It was a very amicable split up, the old man wanted very little, his tools a few bit, bench grinder and trolley jack.
Steve was staying in the game and had a new position with a truck leasing company, I decided I'd had enough and went to pull back into engineering as I'd been running a small shop part time for a few years so the split of assets was easy.
I had the lathe, compressor, drill and a few more bits, Steve had all the big sockets and a lot of the tooling.
I had tool boxes full of personal tools that was wasn't liable to use again, swivel sockets, crow foot spanners, pipe spanners and many special tools.
I upended by tool boxes on the floor, [ they needed a good sort out anyway ] told Steve to make a pile of anything he wanted and if I wanted it more I'd put it back in my boxes when I sorted out.
He made a big pile of all the nice gear
I removed very little of it when I tidied up. That felt good.Ironically the boxes are still on the floor in the back plate virtually untouched since 1990 as most of the machines have their own rack of tools and there is a rack of common ones over the bench. I could have just walked away from them.
But getting serious when we had the garage I used to have to work at a quarry on the dump trucks, mainly on electrical work as their fitter wasn't too hot on this, Older guy, really nice and we got on well together, he had this set of crimping pliers that were magic. Long strong handles, well made and with plastic covered handles, one red, one black, a play on positive - negative ? far better than my cheap pressed steel pair which was all we seemed to be able to get.
One day he fell ill and had to pack up work and he gave me the pliers, shortly after that he died. Every time I used those pliers I thought of him. Then one day I had my truck broken into and two toolboxes stolen full of tools, hundreds and hundreds of pounds of uninsured tools [ can't insure toolboxes in trucks here unless you pay very serious money ]
Out of the contents of two tool boxes full all I can remember are the crimping pliers.
.
