Hand Tool Kits, Blue and Yellow

Two boxes with the same set in each: screwdrivers, combination pliers, long-nose pliers, side cutters, water-pump pliers, a knife, a tape measure and a rule. The things you almost always need and almost never have to hand.

You take the whole kit to your bench and bring it back afterwards. No walking to a shared shelf for every screwdriver, and no hunting for tools all over the hackspace at the end.

Blue and yellow

The kits are identical, so every tool is colour-marked: one box is all blue, the other all yellow. The colour answers exactly one question — which box does this go back into.

That is not bureaucracy. Two identical unmarked kits become, within a month, one full kit and one full of gaps, and after that nobody can tell whether a tool is lost or just in the wrong box.

If you find a tool in the wrong box, move it across; it takes a second.

How to use

1. Take the whole box to your workplace.
2. Work. Tools from the kit can lie on the bench rather than going back in the box after every move — that is the point of it.
3. When you finish, collect everything back by colour and return the box to its place.
4. If something is missing, look in the other box: that is usually where it is.
5. A broken or lost tool — tell us. We restock; this is a consumable story.

What is not in the kit

This is a basic kit, not a workshop. Soldering, measuring and specialist tools are elsewhere:

• Precision screwdrivers, tweezers and bits are in the assorted hand tools on the shelf
• Crimping tools are on the wire and connector shelf
• Fasteners are on the fasteners shelf

Access

The boxes are in the hackspace room, so a plan that includes hackspace access is required. No induction is needed. The kits are not lent out — they travel between the shelf and a bench.