I have loaned many a tool. These days, I am a little more reluctant. My best friend borrowed my Makita grinder, it was like new. It came back with cracked casting, he broke the lock to get the wheels off, and it has been run through the ringer, all this black sticky shit all over it.
He returned it, and told me he liked it so much he bought a new one for himself. WTF?
I loaned a lawn roller to my other friend, I haven't gotten it back yet. It's been 6 months, I asked him if he had used it yet, and no he hasn't. I said I like it back multiple times and he says when he's done.
So needless to say, I think I am done loaning.
I wound up replacing my makita with a HF unit. So far I'm pretty happy, bought 3 of them for $9.99. Would still think he should have replaced the totally F'd up makita and kept that one.
Jeff, If he is truly your best friend: a. He would have never returned the tool in that condition and b. You should have no problem educating him on proper tool care/responsibility...
I have a neighbour of nearly 20 years, he has a ton of tools. I have asked him if he had things in the past, he usually said, what are you doing?, would grab the tool, come over to my place, do the job, and take the tool back home with him. He is over 80 now, I buy or rent the missing tool. Rather share a beer and chat, than go down that road.
I have two sets of some tools. My tools and loaner tools. I will help people by doing some operations that need my tools to do the work. If people want to fix or build something themselves, they can borrow my loaner grade tools or buy their own. The loaner tools are things I will never miss if they don't come back, but I do keep track of who has what.
I came home a couple of months ago and my neighbor, who I'd met only a handful of times, was walking out of my garage with one of my ladders. My wife let him borrow it, so OK, I lost that one. I told her never to do that again. Too much of a liability problem, particularly with someone who I don't know. I ended up repairing his roof (didn't have to get off the ladder) because he couldn't even use a hammer.
Electric Comet wrote in news:nqaffl$cq6$3 @dont-email.me:
Some people have a pencil and paper they keep in a certain spot. You could probably store it in your phone, even "feature phones" sometimes have some kind of note app.
I can only say that I am generally much more careful with other people's tools, cars and houses than I am with my own.
And although I haven't done that much lending, I've had much better luck. I recently loaned a sander, a biscuit joiner and two routers to a friend of mine. The fact those tools are more for fine work than random destruction probably helped. But the guy who borrowed the individual tools has also "borrowed" my home shop a couple of times. Each time he left it cleaner and neater than before he started. So the human factor was in my favor as well.
But the Fluke costs 100x what the HF costs. Unless the features are necessary, there's no reason to take the risk. I would but few would be willing to buy me a new Fluke if the screwed it up. I don't care about the HF. It's bait anyway.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.