Hi,

I'm a budding locost-er, and whilst I have lots of "standard" tools, I am in need of a large number of more car specific tools and bench tools.

E.g. Metal Vice
Old Work Bench
Tin pincers
etc.etc.

Looked on ebay, but they all want stupid money, and then shaft you on postage, so I'm wondering if an autojumble might be worth a look?

Any other suggestions or comments on autojumbles.

What would be perfect is a house clearnence type thing where the garage was full of goodies!!

I have bought lots of tools from junk shops and boot sales. Fetched a huge vice out of a skip in the street, pulled a steel frame out of another skip then a sheet of laminate covered chipboard for the top came from yet another skip.

A few useful cheap tools have come from Aldi and Lidl. check local free ads paper for tools and tool boxes, you might be lucky and get a retiring mechanics tools!

Good luck

Caber

Autojumbles are well worth a lookas you'll often find older seconhand but decent quality tools at reasonable prices. Also have a poke around your local car boot sales - there will be lots of really cheap rubbish tools for sale which you should avoid, but they'll always be people clearing out their garages and shifting better quality tools.

Cheap tools are generally cheap for a reason too

autojumbles tend to be pretty expensive too in my opinion. You are unlikely to get a real bargain there coz the sellers know how much the tools are worth.

The best bargains I've found have been at bootsales where people are crying out to get rid of stuff they dont use anymore and arent so interested in making mega-bucks from it.

Bulky things like vices are usually pretty common.

Good luck!

Work bench is easy. Get some 4*4 or 2*4, whole load of chipboard and make some over- engineered SOB. Ain't going to be going anywhere.... I even put a shelf half-way up mine for my welder / drill / air tools etc. Now it definately isn't going anywhere!!!

Vices are often cheap enough. Just make sure you attach it to something and strong, you don't want the workbench flexing the first time you attach something to the vice and smack the hell out of it!!!!

If you know anyone in the antiques game get them to have a look out for old tools at auctions. Most of the people buying antiques want porcelain, jewellery etc. A garage load of old tools goes for pennies. Until, that is, they go to a specialist "old tool" seller at a car boot who are always suprisingly expensive.....

Lidl have swivel-base vices for £8.99, a fiver cheaper than Machine Mart.

U2U Worx as he has at least one good workshop vice for sale. I was going to have it but dont have time to arrange it so you are welcome to it if you can finalise the deal.

In some towns there will be tool specialists. I managed to get a good air ratchet and windy gun from one in Sunderland a few years back for a lot less than the shops, and they were brand new. Try checking Yell.co.uk etc to see if there is one in your area.

i buy a lot of tools from the kitcar shows and find them to be pretty reliable and of a good quality, spanners and sockets etc