Basic toolkit for college boy going off to live in a dorm

People have been talking about screwdrivers. I have a set named Hyper Tough.

I distinctly remember having one with a faux horn handle. Maybe it's in AZ. Even when I drank beer, which goes back about 40 years, bottled beer had twist-off caps and canned beer had pull tabs. In fact my wife's engagement/wedding ring was a pull tab with the sharp edges filed down.

I should get one. Sometimes I put evaporated milk in my tea and stabbing holes in the can with a chefs knife isn't the safest operation.

Yeah, the Nuvi is a #4 or #5, I forget which. These days I'm sort of operating by Braille with stuff that small.

I never did forgive Harley for sneaking a few #27 Torx into the mix. Back in the '90s most Torx sets skipped that one. I had to go to a tool supply that carried Proto. I hope Stanley hasn't pissed on that brand like they did B&D.

Would that be #0, #1, #2, #3, #4..... A #1 is just right for stripping out a #2 screw. I never was a fan of phillips. You don't see them too much in the US but Robertson had a much better idea.

Ain't nothing like an 18" Crescent to relieve frustration...

Look at a Leatherman bracelet. Here is mine. You can add a watch for a price.

More and more stuff use square drive now - not Robertson, which are tapered.

Kreg pocket hole screws are Robertson. They flirted with a combo heads - Phillips and Robertson - for a little while but they got too many complaints about cam out. I'm not sure what they were thinking. Once head goes into the hole, you are drill-driving blind at an angle. Worst possible situation for a Phillips head. They eventually went back to plain old Robertson.

Square drive and Robertson both beat Phillips by a long shot, as do star heads.

Pozidriv made a brief showing in the US but I think they went away because people just screwed (NPI) them up by using a Phillips bit. They didn't know the difference and blamed the screw head when they couldn't get it out with the Phillips bit. I still have the #1 and #2 PZ drivers I used when I worked on those washing machine sized disc drives back in the 80's. Every now and then I run into something that uses PZ screws (some cars) and I'm ready.

The one review I partially watched started off by saying what a kewl piece of man jewelry it is and then went on to show the twisted straight blade driver, cutter that dulls easily, and glass breaker that failed to break a jar.

The Tread is steeply discounted on the Leatherman site but a search for '29 in 1 multitool' will show many cheaper knockoffs. Those probably took care of Leatherman's original nosebleed pricing.

Imported and craft beer. No twist-off.

And it's not good for the knife, either.

I'm in my late 70's, lived my entire life in the U.S.; lived in dorms, apartments, private single family homes, and done most typical "handyman" tasks including working on and with autos and power garden tools, plus done plenty of poking around radios, audio equipment, computers and their peripherals and seem to always need a phillips head screwdriver many times/year. Yet I've never found need for more than a #1, a #2, and a set of jeweler's screwdrivers and have never stripped a phillips head screw yet.

Having lived in dorms during 4 years in college and 4 years in graduate school, I can't image a dorm resident needing 44 precision screwdriver heads in addition to a couple of mid-sized screwdrivers, or need a crescent wrench. If you've never lived in a dorm, electrical and plumbing repairs are the responsibility of the school, not the resident. Typically the student might want/need to tighten a loose screw holding the leg on a table, chair, cabinet hinge, closet door hinge, drawer knob or curtain rod. If there's space in the dorm room for student-provided small table or free standing bookcase, and the student purchases assembly-required stuff, only a few very basic tools are normally required if not included in the box. If allowed, hanging decorations on the walls also might require a push drill, light hammer, or screwdriver. Student may need screwdriver to attach wires from audio equipment to speakers.

That assumes you never want to attempt the repair of a small appliance you own.

You must have forgotten that the OP stated that his son is a "typical non-mechanical" person. I suspect that a non-mechanical person is not going to try much less be able to diagnose and repair the type of appliances that may be allowed in dorm rooms.

My upscale beer was imported from Milwaukee (Miller High Life). Otherwise it was what was going fro 99 cents a six pack. (Gilt Edge, Fort Schuyler, etc).

I missed the craft beer years. When I was trucking in the '90s I sometimes loaded beer. It amused me to see a few pallets of 'craft beer' in the load along with the usual swill. Maybe there were a few elves in a dark corner of an Anheuser-Busch brewery handcrafting the good stuff. I wrote it off like putting Bud in a fancy bottle and labeling it Michelob.

Obviously I was not a beer connoisseur. It was an alcohol delivery system and not a very efficient one.

No I didn't forget that and meant to say that it would be useful to have tools that can be used by others to fix his small appliances.

Yes, but may well be able to get their roommate or someone else they know there to use their tools to do that.

The ham can bolts on a '98 Harley Sportster are #4. I've used it someplace else, can't remember where at the moment.

Ever try removing Phillips head deck screws after 10 years or so? A Grabit set is your friend.

You can try, but can't wiggle out of that one. First of all, the OP didn't ask what tools his son should take to college to equip his dorm-mates to repair small appliances his son can't. Second, if the dorm-mates are competent to repair the appliances, they very likely brought their own tools to college with them.

There is no wriggling involved, just a statement of fact, that kids in that situation do often get others involved when something they have stops working properly and they aren't capable of fixing it themselves.

Irrelevant, what matters is what the basic tool kit may well be used for, not what the OP asked about.

Plenty don't realise that they may well be asked to do that.

And it isn't academic either, someone else said that when they had supplied their girls with a basic tool kit, lots of others in the dorm did borrow tools to do useful stuff with.

I have a Swiss type Army knife in desk drawer in front of me and sometimes use the knife part as a package or letter opener and even the tooth pick. Little scissors can clip an erratic nose hair. Cabelas gave me a little multitool as a long time member and it has pliers, wire cutter and even little flashlight.

Reminds me that I bought a genuine Swiss Army knife in Switzerland and gave it to a son before he went to college.

I only lived in a dorm for a year but had only a cheap hot plate and never needed any tools.