10 must-have farm shop tools

Basic tools in a farm shop

A recent post in Agriculture Online Shop Talk discussion group really started me thinking. An individual had built a new shop, went over budget, and asked for suggestions for basic tools to get started on farm repairs.

Much of this article is directly from my reply, but because there are so many things every farmer needs as basic tools for elementary repairs it is difficult to list all of them. There are probably a lot of things a reader could add to the list, but this piece has to do with basics used on many farms just to keep our machinery and buildings held together. I offer these comments to begin the thought processes, not to act as an "expert" on shop materials. Everybody has different abilities in the shop, so each farmer will need different combinations of tools to do the necessary shop jobs on a well-equipped farm.

Years ago, in a simpler time, our farm had an excellent machinery dealer only three miles west of the farm, and our tool shed was very basic. Oil changes and adjustments were about all we did back in the 1950s. Most other repairs were done by an excellent local welder and the dealer repair shop.

The local welder left for a shop much farther away and stopped making farm visits. The dealer lost his franchise and made our local dealer many more miles away. That's when our farm began to accumulate tools to do more of the repairs ourselves.

Of course, at that time labor prices began to rise as well, making that choice even easier. As a very young farmer, the goal was set high; buy every tool needed to make repairs on the farm. I soon realized this was a goal that was out of our reach, and I scaled back the accumulation of tools to try to handle only the basics. There were many repairs that took more experience than I was able to accumulate, and I soon left that to dealer mechanics with more tools and experience.

Still, basic welding and bearing repairs took up a lot of shop time. I soon discovered the price of many tools as we did the work ourselves, often because the dealer mechanic could not handle all the work in a timely manner during planting and harvest seasons.

Below is a partial top ten list of basic tools I accumulated and used often in our shop.

Top 10 farm shop tools

1. Big air compressor

I bought several puny air compressors that wore out until we finally broke down and bought a good one. I now wonder why we ever tried to save money on that item. The larger compressors were very handy for dusting off radiators and machinery, as well as basic painting of machinery during winter weather. Air wrenches and other air tools added a lot to my productivity, as well as often locking down nuts much more tightly than I could by hand.

A previous article shows some pictures of how I used air hoses to make it easier to use the air supply. You can go crazy accumulating tools that go with a good air compressor, but my tools sure worked well in various ways. A good set of impact sockets is necessary to keep from breaking all of your regular sockets. I even went up to a 1" drive impact and sockets when I bought a semi truck.

I never knew of all the other uses I would find for them later. I did learn that sometimes a torque wrench was needed to keep from turning some nuts too tightly, and I added basic torque wrenches to finish the set on various items. As air over hydraulic jacks became more reasonably priced, I added a 12-ton and a 40-ton bottle jack with air controls.

Other than being handy, the long control hose gets one out from under the lifting point, a great safety feature. I had pallets full of wood blocking gleaned from construction to add for safety, but support jacks would have been handy. A long-handled floor jack in a large size is also a bid for more safety. An air jack in that model would have been nice.

2. Vise

I bought several cheap vises that seemed to be heavy duty, but they all broke quickly. You need a good Wilton; buy nothing of lesser quality. There are probably other good quality vises, but the Wilton was the only one I found that really stood up to the abuse most of us give a vise during farm repairs. At one time, Wilton made vises for Craftsman, but I don't know what other brands might have been of similar quality. All I know for sure is that just because a vise looks tough does not mean it will stand up to heavy use. There is a big difference in materials, and this is a place price sometimes determines quality.

A good anvil is handy as well as a vise, but heavy pieces of iron can do much of the work of an anvil if a good one is not available. Again, I found a poor quality anvil is worse than no anvil at all.

3. Workbench

If you really want a good workbench, you should make it yourself out of at least 2" lumber on the top, bracing it strongly across the sides. My workbench has 4x6 legs. My previous lighter benches just did not hold up to the abuse from impatient workers equipped with large hammers. It's best to put on a steel plate top, at least where the above vise is bolted on, to hold the vise more securely. Our first vise was bolted through the two-inch boards on the surface; I soon pulled the bolts through the wood while bending and prying objects in the vise. Adding a full steel plate on much of the surface was helpful, but I was advised by a professional mechanic in the family to leave at least half of the bench surface wood. Small, dissembled parts seem to be easier to work on with a wood surface; it is not as easy to damage precision parts on wood. You could make or buy a good all-steel bench, or have both.

4. Bolt bins and good selection of bolts

I preferred the bolt bins that were enclosed. In my experience with open-topped bins, I found them to be a great haven for sparrows that loved to lay nuts and bolts in their nests instead of eggs. If your doors are tight and you keep them closed, the open top bolt bins are easier to use. Plus, it's much easier to take inventory.

No amount of bins is useful if you let the bins get empty. We got by with a set of bolts and nuts up to 4" in graduated sizes by a half-inch from a beginning one-inch length. Add lock washers, flat washers, and up to one inch bolts and you'll save a lot of trips to town. The larger bolts I bought only after breaking a similar bolt more than once. After that I just bought at least twice as many to keep inventory up.

5. Drill press

The drill press was one of the later additions to our shop. A hand-held drill can do the job in many cases. After I began to do larger scale drilling projects, I bought a cheaper drill press. As with many tools, I soon found the drill press to be much more precise and easier to use, especially with larger sized holes. As our farm increased in acreage, it seemed the nuts, bolts, and hole sizes increased also due to larger equipment.

In the 1960s, for example, I bought our first 3/4" drive socket set and larger end wrenches. I thought it was an expense that would have little return, but it was not long before I reached for that sized socket almost as frequently as the smaller sizes. The same case can be made for the drill press. After having one, farmers usually find more and more uses.