Tool library / tool exchange. Post what you got and where you are

tools like these don't get used that often so while its only a few quid that gets spent, thats still money that could be saved...part of the joy in lending and borrowing tools is meeting new people and sharing a passion for cycling!

I think we have a culture clash, and possibly a clash of generations. When I were a lad, probably before you were born, I would sit at my father's knee while he regreased a bottom bracket on the back kitchen table. The Campagnolo tools 712, 712-1 and 713 required to do this were objects of beauty just as much as the 151mm PCD Record cranks.

That he served an apprenticeship as a tool maker probably instilled in him, and by osmosis in me, a sense that a tool was just as important a part of the marriage as the workpiece to which it was applied, and it was therefore reasonable to spend on tools as freely as on parts, and to enjoy ownership of tools as much as ownership of parts. This is perhaps old fashioned, now that parts are modules which are discarded rather than serviced, but in the olden days a BB, hub or headset might serve 20 years, with perhaps a couple of changes of balls, but it would be dismantled and regreased every year.

Having been brought up this way, it would not occur to me to own a part for which I didn't own the corresponding tool, regarding the two as so intimately related. If a new part requires a tool I don't already have, I regard the cost of the tool as an integral part of the cost of acquisition of the said part.