Every Girl’s Toolbox

WITH TOOLS you can make stuff, and that is a powerful feeling. You can help your grandfather finish that dollhouse he’s been tinkering with for years. You can make a swing for the backyard, a bench for your clubhouse—or make the whole clubhouse.

Experiment with wood, nails, screws, hammers, screwdrivers, and drills. After a while, you’ll start to think in tools and materials, and you’ll see how screws and nails hold wood together. Then you’ll begin to come up with your own projects. Trial and error are the best teachers, and it doesn’t take long to feel comfortable.

VISITING THE HARDWARE STORE

Before we turn to the basic tools, a word on hardware stores. You might be intimidated by them, as many people are. Especially those antiquated-looking, small hardware stores, with their dusty shelves filled to the brim with unfamiliar, scary-looking objects, usually guarded by men who are burly and possibly gruff.

Fear not, we are here to tell you. Said hardware stores mark the entrance to a world in which you can create and repair anything imaginable. And the hardware store’s burly guardians? The truth is, they may look gruff, but usually they’re very nice, and they love to problem-solve and to find the perfect nail or wire for you. Ask for help when you’re matching bolts and nuts. Get their advice on what kind of drill bit will attach a wood plaque to the stone wall outside your house. They’ll show you where to find hardware store exotica, and they know fix-it secrets you’ll never learn in books.

Besides, many of them have daughters, too, and you can bet they’ve taught their girls a thing or two about what to do with a hammer and a box of nails.

CREATING YOUR TOOLBOX

Every girl needs her own toolbox. You can get a decent toolbox, with a latch and an organizing tray, for as little as ten dollars. Here are the basics to fill it with.

1. Safety Glasses

These are an absolute must when hammering, drilling, or sawing.

2. Claw Hammer

The flat side of the hammer bangs nails into wood; the V-shaped claw side pulls them out.

To hammer, grip the handle solidly, near the bottom. Hold a nail with your thumb and forefinger, and tap it in to the wood, gently, until it stands on its own. Then move your fingers away and hammer harder, from your forearm (that is, don’t use your entire arm), and keep your wrist straight. Keep your eye on the nail, and trust your eye-hand coordination.

3. Nails

The measurements for nails derive from the British custom of selling 100 nails for a certain number of pennies. Nails are thus described in pennyweights, except the resulting abbreviation is not p, but, oddly enough, d, in reference to an ancient Roman coin, the denarius.

Once upon a time you could walk into a store in Yorkshire and purchase one hundred 1½-inch nails for 4 pence, and because of that, they are now labeled 4d nails. Much of the world, it must be said, uses the metric system for a more systematic and reasonable way to measure nails.

4. Screwdriver

The screwdriver not only gets screws where they’re going and takes them out, it can be used in a bazillion creative ways to do almost anything. Try a 6-in-1 screwdriver (which has six changeable heads). To get jobs done faster, we recommend a battery-operated screwdriver.

5. Screws

Screws and bolts live in those mysteriously thin cabinets in the back aisle of the hardware store, along with their friends, bolts, nuts, and washers. Tighten a nut on a bolt to keep things ultrasecure. A washer—that’s a flat circular object that slips on the bolt between the nut and the surface—protects the surface and helps tighten the nut.

Remembering the saying “righty-tighty, lefty-loosy” will help you recall which direction to turn a screw.

6. Wrench

Wrenches tighten and untighten the nuts that go at the end of bolts. They come in the openend (fixed size) variety, and the adjustable. A small set of open-end wrenches, or one adjustable wrench, should start you off well.

7. Pliers

For gripping objects, like a stuck faucet, get a versatile groove-joint pliers. Also handy is a needlenose pliers to grab small objects, like wire. It often has a little wire cutter built in (peek at the intersection of the handles and you’ll find it).

8. Glue Gun

When you can’t use screws, bolts, or nails, a glue gun saves the day, and is quite fun to operate. A small one should do, and don’t forget plenty of glue sticks to melt in it.

9. Tape Measure

A 16-foot retractable tape measure that can lock in place is a good start.

10. Saw

A saw is not for the very young, of course, but it’s a necessity for cutting wood to size and making shapes. A handsaw is a flat hand tool. A modern jigsaw is a power tool, activated by a trigger. All power tools are extremely dangerous if they are not used exactly as specified in their instructions, and you should always have adult supervision when operating them.

Hold long strips of wood on a sawhorse (a beam connected by four legs); cut small pieces of wood off the edge of a work table. Be careful, ask for help, and, as always, use your safety glasses.

11. Drill

To drill, start with an awl or center punch (hand tools that look like small spikes) to make an indentation in your surface so the drill bit won’t slip. Bits are the small cutting pieces you fit into your drill for each project.

A battery-operated power drill is very handy. It will come with a basic set of bits, or you can get a set if it doesn’t. There’s an art to matching up the right drill bit to the size of the hole you’ll need for the screw. If you know the size of the bolt or screw, that helps. Otherwise, the best we can tell you is to peer closely at the sizes and when in doubt try the smaller bit first. Experience will make it all the more clear. As always, keep the twirling drill bit far from your body, or anywhere it can do harm.

Once you have your own toolbox, you might begin to truly love the hardware store. You’ll stand for hours looking at the display of unique drill bits to make holes in metal, brick, plastic, or stone; at the sander attachment that can remove paint or brush wood’s rough edges clean; at the buffer that smoothes it to perfection. You’ll handle each one carefully, and after much deliberation with the burly hardware store guy about the pros and cons of each, take some home to try out on a project of your own imagination.