The Complete Illustrated Guide to Everything Sold in Hardware Stores - Softcover

Ettlinger, Steve

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9780028625751: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Everything Sold in Hardware Stores

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0028625757 ISBN 13: 9780028625751

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2002

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A guide to hardware store supplies identifies tools by name and function, provides a visual and textual dictionary for thousands of common and uncommon gadgets, and includes advice on how to use them, safety issues, and buying tips. Original. 25,000 first printing.

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From the Author:

All the whatchamacallits and thingamajigs explained!
I have always been the befuddled consumer in hardware stores, wondering what the various gadgets and goops and tools were for, which were best for me, and so on. But that's not why I wrote this book.

One day, when I was starting to renovate an apartment, a carpenter who was bidding on the job saw me staring at the floorboards I wanted to rip up. "Get yerself a cat's paw, son, and you'll have those boards ripped up in no time!" he said, as he sauntered out of the picture. Armed for once with the name of the specific tool I wanted, though not having a clue as to what it looked like, I strode boldly up to the macho clerk at my corner hardware store and demanded a cat's paw, sure of myself for once (not asking for "...the doo-hickey that you use for, you know....."). But he had never heard of one. "Whaddya think this is, a pet store?!?" he snarled. When I told him what I planned to use it for, he said sarcastically, "Oooh, what you need is a Wonder Bar!" and proceeded to sell me what turned out to be the wrong tool.

It took me forever to rip up those boards, and I looked through all my big how-to books for a cat's paw, without finding even a mention.

That's when I said, "Someone oughtta do a book that just lists the darn stuff!" and sketched out what I thought it should look like.

Well, the book looks like my sketch, after two years of raw research and another year of updating. The cat's paw is on page 18, by the way.

You'll also find a nut driver, window zipper, groover, stud finder, tung oil, pig's foot, and a butterfly trowel, among a thousand other doo-hickeys.

Very helpful to the no-nothing do-it-yourselfer, and fun for the old pro, too.

About the Author:

Steve Ettlinger has been the book producer, author, or coauthor of over 20 consumer–oriented books since 1985 (he produced Marty′s first book). He is president of Ettlinger Editorial Projects, an idea–developing and book–producing firm, and was president of the American Book Producers Association, a trade group, from 1991 to 1995. Among his own titles are The Restaurant Lover′s Companion and The Complete Illustrated Guide to Everything Sold in Hardware Stores. He also covers dining–related subjects for national magazines and Web sites.

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