Digby the moleDigby FindsGems dug up by a mole with good taste.

Best Gifts for Tradesmen

The tools electricians, carpenters, HVAC techs and mechanics paid for themselves and still carry, and which trade each one suits.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Digby the mole smiles at the present in his paws, wrapped in red paper with a gold ribbon, in a garage workshop where every hook on the pegboard already holds a tool. A notepad and pencil sit on the workbench, and a grey work van is parked outside the open door.

A tradesman already owns the tool you were going to buy, and a better one than you'd have picked. The way around that is to buy what they recommend to each other.

Everything below comes from the forums where the trades talk shop, and each one came up when somebody asked what was worth buying. Each has its own write-up, linked from its entry.

Four of them fit in a stocking. The other four won't.

Useful in every trade

Pliers for the screw that rounded out

The driver spins in a rounded-out head, and the usual advice is an extractor kit and a drill. Aircraft mechanics try pliers first, and the trick is in the jaws.

Close on the loose hinge: Digby grips the rounded head of the screw with a pair of slim-nosed pliers and smiles, his eyes on the screw. His other paw steadies the cabinet door, and the screwdriver lies on the floor.

They have teeth cut to bite the rim of the head from the outside, which is the one part a stripped screw still has.

For the mechanic, or anyone whose day is small machine screws. One mechanic's boss found a pair online and had a full set within the week.

The standard Engineer pair is the one mechanics name for small screws. For the person who works on bigger fasteners, the Knipex TwinGrip is the pair that opens wider.

One mechanic has an order of attack on a stripped screw.

Bombproof, says a plumber

The bag the pros carry into the house

The box system stays in the van. What goes through the customer's front door is a bag, and on the forums the pros keep naming the same one.

Digby strolls through his garage with one black tool bag in his paw and every tool upright in its own pocket, while the empty bucket holds a broom.

It's Veto Pro Pac. A commercial electrician told an apprentice to go for quality and spend the money. A service plumber three years into daily use has one word for theirs, bombproof. A field mechanic owns eight.

For anyone who carries tools into other people's homes. It's an expensive bag, and that's what makes it a present. The Veto service bag is the plumber's, with an open tray for the tools they reach for most. The Veto backpack is for the one who's always on a ladder or a staircase.

Both weigh a fair bit empty, so take one service tech's advice and buy a size down from the one that looks right. Here's how to pick the size.

Sinks nails one-handed

A nail set that needs no hammer

The nailer leaves a few heads standing out of the trim. Sinking them takes a punch, a hammer and a third hand to hold the wood, unless you ask a trim carpenter.

Digby stands on a hallway floor beside a white door casing, a claw hammer in one paw and a plain steel punch in the other, both lowered. He frowns up at a slim finish nail sticking slightly out of the trim at eye level, next to a scuffed patch in the paint. An open tin of nails sits at his feet.

Trim carpenters keep a spring-loaded punch in a pocket instead. Point on the nail, pull back on the body, release, and the spring drives it under. The hinge-pin tip pops a stuck pin out of a door the same way.

This gift is for a carpenter who has everything, because the owners' one grumble is how often these go missing. Another is never wasted. The Spring Tools hinge pin and nail set is the version one carpenter never takes out of the tool bag.

Pine and oak take a different pull, so check how hard to pull the nail set for each.

Both hands free

An air shim for hanging a door alone

Hanging a door with nobody to hold it means a knee under the slab and a screw you can't reach. Door hangers let a foot do the holding.

Down at the bottom of the door, Digby presses his foot on a small black rubber bulb. Its hose runs to a flat dark shape under the door's edge, and his paws rest on the door above.

They slide a flat rubber bag under the door and pump it up until the hinges line up. It holds the door there while both hands drive screws.

For the carpenter, remodeler or handyman who works alone most days. One reader on ToolGuyd hung twenty solid-core doors in under three hours with no helper. The Calculated Industries Air Shim is the one that comes up by name, and one is enough for a door.

It does cabinet and fridge jobs on the side too.

Shade plus a screw tray

A magnetic umbrella for the HVAC tech

There's no shade on a flat roof in July, and nothing up there to lean an umbrella against. Except the unit you came to fix.

The same rooftop, now with Digby working calmly in the shade of the umbrella, a bungee cord taut from its pole to the unit and a neat row of screws stuck to the base.

HVAC techs stick an umbrella with a magnet for a base to the unit's steel cabinet, and the base doubles as a tray for the screws. One commercial tech called it a lifesaver. Another had used it on a call twenty minutes before posting.

For the HVAC tech who spends summers on rooftops. The Supco TradeFox kit is the one the trade names.

See how the techs rig theirs on a windy roof.

Fewer patched holes

A magnet instead of a stud finder

Three beeps from the electronic finder, a row of holes in the wall, and still no stud. Handymen find them with something that can't beep at all.

Close on the wall from the side: Digby slides a small silver disc magnet up the paint with one paw, a pencil in the other. Two more magnets already hold on above it, each with a short pencil mark beside it, and the drill holes sit off to the right.

It's a strong magnet in a plastic body. It sticks to the heads of the drywall screws, and those went into the studs.

For a handyman who has everything, including three stud finders that lie. The Hanson three-pack is the one to buy, because the method puts several magnets on the wall at once to find the line of screws.

The handymen knock on the wall first, then find the stud with the magnet.

Fits their existing stack

One more box for the stack in their van

Every modular box has to click onto the ones already in the van, so the brand was picked before you had a say. That makes it the easiest gift here to get right.

Digby kneels on the garage floor beside his van, trying to seat an amber drawer crate on a stack of raspberry crates that won't take it.

Look in the van before you order. The two systems don't lock together without a plate neither maker sells.

For anyone whose van already has a stack. A plumber who runs both buys the red Packout organizers for small parts and the orange MODbox drawer box for tools. So a red stack gets the organizer, and an orange one gets the drawer box.

Owners have their say on which Packout and MODbox boxes to buy.

The belt they'll wear daily

A tool belt, once they've told you which

Leather or nylon is the argument every belt thread turns into. Both sides have a point, and only the person wearing it gets a vote.

Digby stands in a tool shop holding up two belts, a tan leather one in one paw and a black nylon one in the other, glancing sideways while he tries to choose.

Leather holds its pockets open and lasts twenty years. Nylon weighs less and dries quickly after a day in the rain. The best advice anyone gives is to try them on, with your own tools in the pockets. That makes a belt the one gift here to ask about rather than guess.

For the electrician who's said the word Occidental out loud. Occidental's electrician's set is the leather rig one electrician asked the forum about.

If they answer nylon, look at the nylon makers tradespeople wear.

If you had to pick one

When you don't know their trade, get the Engineer pliers, since every trade rounds out a screw. With more to spend, it's the Veto service bag. Everything else is for one trade, so match it to theirs.