What's your best "worst" investment as far as tools?

[Gary Fowler]

My best investment was some free yard tools, a battery powered weedeater and a 6.5 HP push mower with grass catcher given to me by a friend of my daughter. FREE is always good. The battery powered weedeater is pretty useless even with two batteries, however the batteries also fit my 20V drill so I do get good use from them. The push mower, I use once a year to mulch up leaves where I cant get my lawn sweeper in. I also used it a couple of times this year to "mow my garden". It rained so much that the grass took over and rather than try to muck it out, I just mowed the grass down in the middles. It works pretty good and I don't get my shoes muddy when gathering the tomatoes, peppers and okra.

 

[CobyRupert]

Seeing all the posts about leaf blowers: I bought a gutter cleaning attachment kit for my leaf blower, thought it save me from moving around a ladder. Worst purchase ever.

Trying to balance 10ft+ of 3"-4" plastic tubing that only snaps into the blower with 2-3" inches of overlap while holding the blower trigger with one hand is impossible. Once it gets a couple degrees off vertical it would just pop off the blower. Okay: Lets drill that sucker and put a bolt through it. That helped the connection, but still awkward to use.

Now that I got it to hold together I can then see it's pretty ineffective on anything but dry maple leaves. Any sort of twig or a wet clump of pine needles & you're better off getting the ladder.
Plus it can't clean out the gutter drain opening which is where 90 of the problem is. And how do you know if there's a blockage unless you get out the ladder?

Nope, used it once, to the shed it stays. A 6" wide brush on a long handle let's me clean about 16' of gutter at a time without leaning on the ladder is still preferred method.

Never used the blower for leaves, but it's great for cleaning off large driveways prior to seal coating (sure beats pushing a broom), blowing off equipment, and especially well for blowing out the hot tub water lines when closing it up the fall, etc..

 

[moriboy]

I had to replace ball joints in my Dodge truck. I rented a cheapie ball joint press to help make the job easier, and that thing just about killed me. I was so mad that I bought a $650 ball joint press kit from Snap On. I finished the job with ease, and those new tools have never seen the light of day again.

 

[AaronS]

I use my leaf blower (Echo gas) for most of the jobs mentioned above, as well as when starting fires. Just let it idle to fan the flames.

 

[boblibido]

I bought a Farmall super a on a whim at an auction. It had a woods mower on it and the price seemed too good to pass up. The only problem is that I already had a lawnmower. (47 cub)

Well, it saw no action for quite some time as it did not start easily. That is until the cub stopped stating. Now she fires up within the first turn or two of the crank and she mows all 4 acres that I consider my lawn. And the cub is sitting around collecting dirt until I can find time to figure out why she isn't starting.

So my bad investment turned out to be very handy.

 

[CobyRupert]

I use my leaf blower (Echo gas) for most of the jobs mentioned above, as well as when starting fires. Just let it idle to fan the flames.

Hmm, never used it to start a fire. That's a great idea (and obvious to everyone except me apparently)!

 

[RobertBrown]

Well, it saw no action for quite some time as it did not start easily. That is until the cub stopped stating. Now she fires up within the first turn or two of the crank and she mows all 4 acres that I consider my lawn. And the cub is sitting around collecting dirt until I can find time to figure out why she isn't starting.

Ummm...
She?
Where do I check to determine my tractor's gender ? I thought it was an "It"...

 

[garacuda]

Years ago I bought a leaf shredder thinking it would speed up the chore of disposing of all of the leaves and twigs in my yard. You know the kind, that's supposed to be a "chipper/shredder" with maybe a 5 hp briggs motor? Well, I think I used it about 2 hours, stuffing mounds of leaves into the maybe 20" chute, only to end up with a smaller mound of "shredded" leaves 20' over. I chained to a tree out by the road with a For Sale sign on it the same day. I got about half of my money back and ended up burning the leaves. Still do it that way. That's my best "worst" investment that came to mind right away.

Some interesting reading here.

 

[Sysop]

Well, it probably doesn't count, but considering who the OP is, I'm going to post it anyway...

My best worst tool investment would have to be my Sig Sauer P938SAS and my 556SWAT Classic. Purchased them for personal/home defense tools and haven't yet had an opportunity to test them "in the real world". Sure they're fun to play with at the range I have setup, but a total waste of money as the tools they're intended to be... I hope that continues to be the case...

 

[tcreeley]

Best overall tool is probably my Huskie 266 chainsaw that I bought in 1984. I am still using it. It has tons of power and runs regardless of the gas I use or leave in it!