No, no, it's one of the most essential of all tools! If I had to recreate civilization, I would start with antibiotics and vise-grip pliers. I mean, what are you going to use if you can't find your wrench, pliers, screwdriver, hammer, or tooth extraction tool?
Unfortunately fixed gauges (feeler gauges, spark gap tools, profile gauges, wire gauge tools, bolt sizers, etc) didn't make it into any of the top-level categories, so they are lumped in with the mess of "Other Tools": https://www.periodictableoftools.com/Categories/Other.html
Some day I might create some new rows, because there are a lot of important categories that are completely absent.
Judging from this thread it sounds like most people think I'm an idiot, and/or didn't even try to organize the tools.... Perhaps my organizational principles are just too subtle.
What really surprised me, and speaks to the lack of a periodic table tooling configuration community, is that the domain periodictableoftools.com was unclaimed even late last year, well over 20 years into the era when someone surely would have thought of wanting it.
I wanted to include them. Believe me, I wanted to! My publisher felt strongly that I should not stretch the definition of tools into metaphor. Beds are tools: they help you sleep better. There's just too many narrow-definition tools I needed to fit in. Otherwise I would have been more than happy to including a dig about how Jupyter Notebooks are a poor imitation of my Mathematica notebook design.
I put screwdrivers bits at the top of the drivers column specifically because I think that photo is hilarious and I want to make it as prominent as possible. This is why 3D printers were invented.
See my long comment in this thread: I categorically reject the notion that there isn't any order to my arrangement of tools. It's actually quite detailed in how it follows the chemical structure, because your pet peeve is also my pet peeve. I wrote a whole book about the actual periodic table ("The Elements" by me), so it's a subject dear to my heart. Please look more closely.
(Also, I would name gauge blocks over granite flats as fundamental to precision, but in any case, all measuring tools are in the same row because they are related, just as are the lanthanides and actinides.) They are at the bottom because that's where they fit most naturally. My logic they should be the noble gasses, because they don't change anything. But there were too many I wanted to include. It was anodizing having to move them to a larger space.
For what it's worth, I had absolutely nothing to do with the post: I didn't make it or encourage anyone to make it. I just noticed a sharp uptick in sales earlier today. Which I love since I spent a lot of time and money designing the poster and getting it printed. Here's the real buy bait: Please buy my book and poster! You can find the book "Tools" on Amazon, and the poster at theodoregray.com
Also for what it's worth, it's a very cool art project! And I'm always happy to have more computer nerds get an introduction to the tools required to make stuff in the physical world.
OK, you've made the first criticism I actually agree with! Bung hole augers do belong with reamers, not with augers. In my defense, they are called bung hole augers, and all the ones I have are antique, so they naturally gravitated to the antique augers category, but I should have known better, and for that I am sorry. Some of them don't even have augers at the front!
The criticism of saws I reject: I split them by material in columns (wood- v.s metal-cutting), and by size vertically (getting heavier/more powerful as you go down a column). Bow saws are under hacksaws kind of out of desperation, but there are at least as many metal-cutting bow saws as wood-cutting. In fact given the popularity of hacksaws, perhaps in modern times that is the more common application of this style of stretched blade.
This table seems heavily biased towards the home woodworker/DIYer with some random antique hand tools thrown into the mix.
I also can't really make heads or tails of the organization. How can "saw teeth," "air pressure tools," and "crescent wrench" each occupy a square? Saw teeth are a part of a blade, air pressure tools is category of power source for any tool, and crescent wrench is a brand of adjustable spanner/wrench. This system makes no sense.
I also cannot find shitloads of common tools even if we are sticking with home scale woodworking. Off the top of my head, where is the router table? The shaper? The jointer? The impact driver? The drum sander? The wide belt sander? The spindle sander?
> The criticism of saws I reject: I split them by material in columns (wood- v.s metal-cutting), and by size vertically (getting heavier/more powerful as you go down a column).
You have a single square for Bandsaws regardless of size or materials. Beneath band saw is a square called "other tools" which is on the same row as "big saws" but has an image of WD-40 and Duct Tape.
