OT] Accurate tyre gauge

The piston in cylinder sort are very accurate and small. Pen sized.

Can you still get those? I had to settle for a digital thingumybob t'other day.

Bought ne last year so I think so.

Came in a repair kit or something. All I wanted was the thing that unscrews valves but I got a pressure gauge three spare dustcaps and some other crap as well.

I got one not so long ago. I'd be extremely surprised if they ever stop making them. I'm not keen on digital ones. Less to go wrong with pen type.

A few patches, rubber solution and a bit of french chalk?

Don't think so. Had that already. This was valve service rather than puncture IIRC. Anyway I only needed to pull the valves out of my lawn tractor to fill the ruddy tyres up with green slime. Mowing the hawthorn clippings saves a shredder, but beats hell out of the tyres.

I bought a £3 one from asda last week, it reads the same as my stick one but is much easier to read.

It is worth making a valve unscrewer of a bit meatier stuff than tends to be in the shops - often plastic, and get chewed up straight away, and even the old reversible brass caps used to get chewed up fairly quickly. I just cut the top end off a 4" nail and filed a slot in it in the end. Now the only problem is finding it.

Incidentally I had quite a silly row a year or two back with a man who was about to pay a garage to change a valve for him, and simply refused to believe me that he could unscrew it and replace it for a few pence himself. He would not even believe there was a removable valve inside the filler tube. He was a black belt karate instructor, and very 'sure of himself', so I didn't pursue the matter too far!