I painted my office in the last couple of weeks and suddenly the off-white faceplates, switches and outlets looked funny. My wife bought some that matched the trim color. It messed up my three-way switch, but I'll live. I was taking out the old and putting in the new, and I kept getting interrupted. When I got back to the job the last time, my tools were not with me, but my Leatherman Wave was. I ended up replacing the last three or four outlets using just that multitool.
It kind of goes without saying that it probably wasn't a good idea. The Wave is all stainless steel and a very good conductor of electical current. If there had been any juice in the circuits I would probably have found out about it the hard way. Fortunately, I know that those outlets are all on a single breaker, which is part of my emergency generator set-up. They were dead, and I experienced no shocking surprises.
It is still always a good idea to remove watches, rings, and cellphones when working on circuitry. Back in the good old pager days, I had a friend who often worked on boilers. He said every time his pager vibrated while he was working on electrical panels he thought he was shocked.
A multitool is rarely the best tool for a given job, but it will often serve quite well and save a lot of steps and frustration when doing minor repairs. Whether it is a SAK, a Leatherman, a Gerber, or a SOG, the multitool is the pocketknife of the 21st Century.
No comments:
Post a Comment