 One, two, one, two. Hello, welcome to Bricolage Live. Woo! So this is very representative of our listenership. Yeah, I think this is actually everybody. It's about 2% of the listenership in this room right now. Wow. I don't think many major podcasts can boast having that many of their listeners in the room. Yep. Okay, I don't know what they can see. Can they see this? Yeah, that sounds great. Can you guys see this? So I know it's not being recorded or anything because Robert didn't show up. Oh, he's here! Round of applause for Mr. Robert Nixdorf. So just to introduce myself, I'm Dominic Morrow. I'm Paul Beech. And we're gonna do a live tool autopsie. And we have the tools right here. I know you can't see them. So first, what's the premise of this? Why are we here? Why do we do this? Well, Paul and I know almost nothing about tools. I mean, we know a little bit. It's like there's been a monkey in an MKUltra program to make it learn tools and it's just not very good at it, that's us. It's more like a monkey opening a box of tools and just throwing them over his shoulder and then doing a poo in the toolbox. Yeah. Are we allowed to show that on the internet? Anyway, these are rich imaginations. This is radio, my friend. Yes. I don't know why we have this weight on here. I'm gonna get rid of that. It's not one of the tools. So what we do is we, every month or two, we wander around car boot sales around the Nottingham area and in Virens and we route through really rusty boxes of house clearances for the undiscovered gems. That's right. And I like to think I know a little tiny bit about tools but really I don't know anything. Whereas I know nothing at all. So we've chosen how many? One, two, three, four, five, six. And one of them is like a bundle of tools. And we're going to very un-expertly try and work out what each of them are. Yeah. And you can laugh along with us if you know exactly what it is. Then, wow. Do we have any tool experts in this vast audience? There's about a thousand people here, frankly. It's scary. Listen to the roar. We'll put that in later. Yeah. Can we get the ducks in here? What ducks? Which ducks? The ducks. The ducks. Should we start right to left? The slides are in the opposite order. No, left to right. Okay. Just so people can play alongside in the audience. Okay. So numero uno or whatever Russian is for numero. So you pick this out. Yeah. Should we describe where some of these tools came from first? So we went to the car boot sale at the Nottingham Racecourse. Yep. It was one of my favorite boot sales. And this weekend it was slim pickings. It was. Why was that? I don't know. Whether maybe they all summon out after the heat wave, they've been there slogging in the heat and they're just tired of it. I thought it would be packed. Yeah. But I did not look at the weather. And apparently there was a big rainstorm forecast so later that day. And it did rain quite heavily later that day. Yeah. And that clears out the suckers. Yeah. So no private sellers of people that have just cleared out their own sheds and don't know what anything's worth. It's all the hard-nosed house clearing people. One South London geezer. So most of these came from this one guy who was from Bermondsey and he made the mistake of saying that one of the things that he had for sale was worth 60 pounds on eBay. Yeah. But he wanted to cancel it. And I was like, well, if it's worth that much, why don't you put it on eBay? Well, who's got time to do it anyway? Right, let's work for it. So what's this? So this here, this I know a little bit about. Can I describe it for people? So it is a small sort of bakelite e-plastic-y thing with a big dial on the front that says Lenin grad four on the front. And it's in what I would describe as a faux alligator skin. Hang on, is that real leather? That's duck leather that is. I don't know. I think this is real leather that's been punched to make it look like alligator skin. And it has a little popper and it has a gauge on it. And I think it's probably a light meter, but I don't know much about them. So tell me what you know Russian stock photography light meter so you can expose your peoples properly. So there, yeah, we're never going to get a photo of you. Do I like butter? Is that how it works? Let me just turn the ISO down because we've got the ISO down here. And then, yeah, there's actually a film one. It's got loads of film camera settings on here. It's just a beautiful piece of- So at least half of the audience are millennials and probably don't know what this is for. Right. So I imagine that you hold this near your subject. Yeah. Once you wiggle this little thing here to reflect how you've set your camera when you could automatically set things like that up manually. When you were using film, yeah. So set your exposure and your aperture. And it says on here, you're not going to get a photo. That's what it says. Yeah, it's too dark in here. Yeah. Yeah. Surprise. And how much did you pay for that, Jen? That one I paid a whole one pound for. And do you think you'll ever use it? No, no, no. I don't think I can even tidy that up because I need to polish the plastic just to have it as a shelf piece. Oh, does it work? The needle moves. What does that switch do there? I don't know. It moves some stuff. Maybe expose it. Oh, look! Oh, that's when it... I have no idea what I'm doing. Wow. That's lovely, Paul. Thank you. Right, next. Let's go to something where we don't know what we're doing. Okay, so I've got a plier light thing and I'm holding it up for everybody to see. Oh yeah, we can pass them round. Right. Jillian, please. Oh, hang on, Tanya. We have to fight over it. Okay, you can have one leg of it each. Oh yeah, that's a good idea. So now we actually can't see it or describe it. Oh, we've got it on the screen here. So this is a plier-like object. Yeah, but the jaws are a bit weird. Well, the jaws are interesting to me. Yep. They're in the configuration that probably has a proper technical name that I don't know. That means that the jaws will not close like this, but they'll close like this. I'm doing, if anybody ever saw kids in the hall, I'm doing, I'm crushing your head. I'm squeezing your face. Yeah, so they kind of come over or something. They crush your head. They don't squeeze your face. They go parallel instead of kind of angle of force. The force is, the force, it's really hard to do things with your hands on the podcast. The force goes like this and not like this, which means it's putting something in something else straight. Have you any thoughts about this tool? Okay, so again, this is something where through this weird relationship where we used to have kind of a friendly lingerie company in our offices, they used to do eyelets a lot and they had a big version of this. They would, you know, you punch the hole in the material and then you put an eyelet in and this will press it. I see. You're saying that this is putting like poppers into panties or something. Yeah. Or corsets, that kind of thing. It could be for putting an eyelet in almost anything, but I agree, I think it's an eyelet tool. So it's got the top bit as well, which seems to have a punch. That does, when you activate the handles, does that, I'm pointing at the piece that goes in over the top. This is fascinating stuff, isn't it? Does it do anything? Does something move? Who's got that tool? Thank you. Let's have a look. Yes. Yeah. And you're right, it has like a bit of punches. Thank you, Robert. Cool. Oh, so that's like a hole punch bit. Yeah. Oh, this is like the whole system. Yeah. And I did notice it says Made in England on it. So it must be pretty old. Yeah. And it says Velos. Well, doesn't Velos mean bicycle? Velo Velo. It's probably a town in Greece somewhere. Maybe. And it says number 950 on it. I don't know why I'm holding my microphone like that. I've gone all the bit of gangster rap. Yeah. That's all right. Yeah, so we haven't got a clue. So that's tool number 2. So you can set the tension here. And then it's got an interesting arrow. It's got UX. Yeah, but that just means that's where you put the piece in. That's where you put that shape. That's thoughtful, that is. And then you squeeze it like that and then it does the business. Yeah, cool. And what's that bit? Is that locking piece? I think it just sets the depth. So you can set how far your material goes in so you can get repeatable depth of eyelet. That is a fantastic tool. It's all right, that. Next. So I'm going to hold it up. Yeah. And then I'm going to give it to Tanya to pass around. Chief tool wrangler. Okay, so I actually already have one of these. So what do you think it is, Paul? I don't know. These are, again, these look like a set with the previous one. They kind of, they come over. They have a kind of snippy bit on top. And then. Here's the thing. This is my top boot sale tool tip. Proximity does not create a relationship with tools. Yeah, but they kind of have similar things in similar places so they must be related, right? Well, they have that same handle mechanism so they cut straight. Okay. But it's for grabbing wire. Okay. And doing things with wire. So if you want to straighten a piece of wire and turn it on a right angle, you don't want to be pulling it like this. On the scissors straight in my hand. He's doing big scissors for people on the internet. You want to do this, right? And then that bit there, the little jaw at the top, that's for cutting the wire. Cutting the wire, yeah. And I know this because the one I have is a free gift from a wire company. And I was able to look it up. So I have one very similar. And they're really good for wire because they, unlike a plier, where the force is uneven across the holding part. The force on this is even across the whole jaw. So you can grab like an inch and a half or whatever that is in new money, which I do know, but I'm on stage and my brain is now mush. Yeah. And hold it really tightly without it slipping out. Good, cool. So this would be really great for those kind of odd hairs as well because the tweezers I've got, the force across them is just not even and it's really hard to get a hold. So I'll use that tip. That really paints a picture, Paul. Thank you. It's ear hairs. They're the worst. It's just nose ones, you know, the black ones that you can get. Don't touch those. It leads to tears. Moving on. Moving swiftly on. But didn't look at the markings. Oh, it's made in England. And is there anything else on there? A lot of oily rust. Yeah. Normally we'd kind of clean these up superficially, wouldn't we? Normally. Wallsly. Speak louder. Wallsly from Birmingham. Wallsly from Birmingham. There we go. Wallsly clearly written on the other side. Almost all tools, with the exception of those made in Sheffield and London, are made in Birmingham pretty much. Of when you buy old tools if they're made in England. So Sheffield, Birmingham and then, you know, like if there was a ranking, it would be Birmingham, Sheffield, everywhere else. Okay, cool. Just from observationally. Next. I picked this up because I'm really into, like I went through a stage last year of going to a lot of boot sales and buying an awful lot of very heavy tools, which I ended up not really wanting. And I benefited from that. I stole some. See, you think you benefited? I'm like, thank goodness I got rid of that pile of stuff. And I am actually someone that preaches quite a lot about not buying and hoarding broken old tools. Yeah, I can see that from your workshop. Actually, no, your wall of tools you've recovered and repaired is beautiful. One of each in the right thing on a pegboard. It's a thing of beauty. Yeah, you know, like, yeah. Anyway, let's move the cabinet to the back where you keep the bodies and all the other tools. Moving on to the things on the table and away from my kleptomania. I don't steal the tools, by the way. My, I don't know what the right mania is for that. Or the mania. Anyway, this, holding it up, I'm gonna give it to Tanya. I'm not gonna throw it at you. It's not school. All it is, is it a pair of compasses? Pair of compasses. But I really like small, elegant, older tools like that. Yeah, see, I didn't like this one, because this is... It's grown on you, I can tell from your face. It's not solid, it's folded. So tell us about this folded thing, because I didn't even notice this and you pointed it out later. Yes, so the pieces look like they're made from flat parts and folded over with a form, which always screams cheap tool to me, most of the time. Quick, lasted. Oh well, show must go on. But it's lasted so long and it still looks nice compared to a modern one, which are cast out of some horrible, what's the metal that melts very quickly, that one. Yeah, whittled from cheese. Whittled from cheese, that's right. I wonder if one of the AV guys will come and fix my microphone, because I'm an idiot. Here it comes. We're going to have to fight over the microphone now. What I don't know is whether it fits a modern pencil inside it. You know, like, because it might be like an old-fashioned size of pencil thing going on. I probably just turned it off with a button. But I really, really like it and that will go in my pencil case instead of my modern one that I have. What I will say is the tip on it looks pretty good, so that looks like you could sharpen that, keep using it. That'll take an edge for sure. I can probably put that on the bench grinder and, you know, make it lethal, like a dart. And it'll mark metal and all of that, so... Just stay where it's told to. I mean, the number of occasions in any given year when I actually need to draw a circle are less than one. But I am a tool hoarder. So there you go. Oh, moving on to the next lot. So this was a value bundle. This was a whole tool fold that just felt kind of loved. There was one box there that was obviously from Granddad's garage and it had a lot of stuff in it. Again, a bunch of pliers, like a complete set of pliers, which I love. And they're still pretty shiny. I don't know how good they are, but yeah. And they go right down to we and the action feels pretty good on them, then, you know. Oh, look at that. Oh, get the action on those pliers. That's just a bit loose, if I'm honest with you. So this is the sort, you know, when I was talking about the cheapo cast metal that a lot of pairs of compasses were in the 80s. This is exactly that. You can see the casting line on the back here is they're not great quality things. Maybe in West Germany. So they had kind of shortages and things, maybe. They had to make it out of whatever was around. I don't know. I mean, this AJ here is tiny and cute, but the jaws are deformed already. I don't think it's the shortest thing. I think they're just low quality. They needed to make a lot. Which is pretty unusual for a German set of tools, if I'm honest. So let's describe what we have. A needle nose plier, a small plier, a slightly larger plier. I don't think they're from the same set. You've got, I think they call this a multi-tool. So this is the old screwdriver with different bits before it all became modern. Nice plastic kind of jelly handle with a slot with a key. Goes in there, locks in, and then you can change the tip between all your different screws. And yeah, they're pretty tarnished, but it's all still intact. So I think it didn't get much use. Now I can't get that bit out. So that's staying in there. One of the bits is actually a gimlet. That's actually really nice. I didn't notice that piece before. So we've got one that's got a little screw head and then like a, I don't know how we do describe that, that has a name, that twisty drill shape thing. I don't know what it is. We're not experts, by the way. And you could push that in a hole and run it backwards and forwards and- A reamer. A reamer. It's not weird. Let's call it that. So it's got a reamer. And then it's got one of these. Do you know what I think that is? I would call that- Just a, it's just a socket, right? But why is it that shape? I actually think this is a bed spanner for building a bed. An iron bedstead. A bed pool. Okay, so we've got the professional toolkit of a bed builder. Well, it probably also fits a bike wheel. So it could be that. And looking at this little roll, it's much more likely to be a, assuming these aren't just tools that never belong to it, it's much more likely to have been this and a few tools for a motorcycle or a bike. Oh, and what we failed to mention was the whole thing's in a lovely little roll. Lovely bit of green canvas, pretty simply stitched from a more innocent time. It's probably from World War II or something. I mean, that's not really an innocent time, Paul. Well, I think the West Germany kind of, you know. Yeah, well, yeah, okay. Maybe 1960s, 1950s, something like that. Yeah, so more innocent, harsher times. Thank you. Don't touch it. I was just gonna make a microphone. I think we've got another five minutes. Okay, so. The lady will hold the five minute thing up. Is it five minutes? There we go. Okay, we're fine. She's doing that hand movement. Speak more. Basically, the next talker isn't here, the next speaker isn't here, so we can waffle. Well, you say that, but they might be just hanging. Is it you? As opposed to our highly focused chat so far. Mr. Rital. Yay. Mr. Rital. Yeah. I had some strong opinions about what I thought this was when we picked it up. I, too, have reasonably strong opinions. The person who didn't have strong opinions was the guy from Burmesey with a van. Oh, he didn't know where any of it was, didn't he? And I was like, oh, I know what that is. Yeah, careful in it. What's the word? What's the word? Everything he was selling was off of the first-class service of British Airways. Do you remember what he kept saying? Oh, that was used first-class British Airways, that was. Right. I don't know what he kept pointing out. It was like bedding or something. I mean, who buys bedding from the boot sale? And hand drills and that kind of thing. Well, me, that's me. I don't buy bedding from there, though. No, but that's what I have standards. What would you use a drill for in first-class of British Airways? I, well, anyway, this tool. Let's describe it for radio. It looks a bit like a catapult that's been drawn in the Beano circa 1980. Yeah, so a Y-shape with an elongated leg and a curved top. And there's a whole, either end of either of those, what do you call them, forks, times? The forks are the times at the top of the Y. And when I first saw it, I assumed it was for... I think we can pretty safely say it's probably for loosening and tightening of something. Yeah, so I have a similar thing for my lathe with only one side where you use it to undo the drawbar. How do you know if someone has a lathe? Don't worry, they'll tell you. They'll tell you, yes. Actually, no, I mean the milling machine. Oh, my God, I really don't know tools. One spinny that way, one spinny that way. Is it round and round this way or round and round this way? Round and round that way. That's not a lathe, Paul. Oh, I might have my lathe set up really badly. Oh, you should put your lathe on the wall. Yeah, ball mounted, takes up less space. I thought it was not for a lathe. I thought it was for an angle grinder for removing the disc. But then I remembered that actually on an angle grinder you don't have too little... I'm just giving everyone the Vs. You don't have two pins sticking up like that. You have two holes and this should have two pins. Well, maybe it was different back then. Which means back then. They couldn't afford pins back then, so they had to have holes. You're assuming this is old because it's rusty. I mean, it might have been made in like 2010 and left in a puddle. And it's really corroded, yeah. It has absolutely zero quality to it whatsoever. Oh, five minutes. Five minutes. We've got nothing left to talk about. Well, I know we're pretty much done. Can we treat your mouse like an ancient tool? No, no, I don't think so. We could take question one. But we don't know anything. Well, I don't know. Has anybody got a question about the podcast or these tools? Lucy Rogers, Dr. Lucy Rogers. What's your favourite boot fair find? I'll say what people always say when they can't think of an immediate answer. Well, that's a really good question. Gilt was... Yankee. Oh, I don't know. I'll tell you my favourite boot sale find. It is, and I have one not with me right here, but back at my village. It's called a footprint spanner and you can get them in three different sizes and they still make them and it's just a wrench for tightening and loosening plumbing pipes and they're just really good quality. And if you find them, they're usually really rusty and in terrible condition. But if you clean them up, then they're perfect. And often what's happened, it has like a screw bolt that holds the spanner for adjustment. Often they're missing. And if you email footprint, they'll send you a brand new replacement screw for free. In fact, I've emailed them six times now. And on the third occasion, I said, look, let me pay for these because I'm just finding these at boot sales and doing them up. I'm not selling them on anything. They said, no, we know who you are and we're happy with what you're doing. So I was like, all right. And that's my favorite. And I have all three different sizes and the biggest one is this size and the smallest one is this size. But just to go further, adjustable spanners are my favorite things to find at boot sales because there is hundreds of different types and the guy that produced a lot of the Pink Floyd albums, not a member of the band, has written a definitive guide on the history of the adjustable spanner and you can cross reference the spanners against the book written by a guy who produces Pink Floyd. That's how deep my nerdery goes on this subject. Paul, what's your favorite boot sale tool? I'm just going to say that sounded like the most middle-aged man thing ever. Well done. Okay. So now I'm going to take over and supersede it. Mine's a lot more obvious. It's vintage Stanley Life handles. Some of the older ones have beautiful knurling and cross patterns on them and you find a lot of slightly different variants of the 199 and the 99 and what have you. And they clean up lovely. They're very therapeutic to clean up. So they're my favorite find always, just filling in the collection of those. And you started me off with that because you had the lovely red one. And when they're finished, they gleam like the sun. I will just say that like actually older Stanley tools, whilst they're not terribly great quality, they are quite good fun to pick up at boot sales because every Stanley tool generally has a number and with the number, it's quite easy then to go back and like find spares for it and stuff like that. And on that note, thank you very much for attending Brickalage Live. If you want to speak to me or Paul or just chitchat, we're going to go out onto the lawn near that area over to the right there and sign autographs. Thank you. Thank you so much to the Brickalage podcast, Dominic and Paul. Next up, we're going to just have a quick change over time and then we'll get on with our next talk. So thanks.