Well I will be honest here, I admit to you all I have a Tool fetish !  I have always had it and I have a huge amount of tools dating back to when I was 18 as a mechanic,  But I only buy tools from 2 places, Germany or Japan.My fetish is so bad that if I get bored I cover the lounge room floor with my tools and clean them all while watching telly.  I just ignore the odd looks I get when I do this ,Who cares ! Stuff it !

But I want to show you 4 tools I find the best for working on chassis where small tools work best and as a learner with Chassis it makes all the difference 
From the left.
First up is this pair of pliers which are identical to Linemans pliers but as you can see they are tiny!!! I don't use wire strippers,I use pliers and because this pair is so small you can feel when you have reached the end of the insolation when cutting, They are so accurate and they cut anything..great size for chassis.They were designed in Australia and made in JAPAN by minimax and came with a life time warranty when I bought them years ago . Minimax is no longer production but you can still buy NOS on line.
Second, up is The Duckbill Pliers,You can neatly make the leads on caps and resistors any shape with these. Spring loaded!Once again , Minimax Made in JAPAN ! And came with a lifetime warranty when I bought it...also still around in NOS , although no longer in production.
3rd long nose ... These I use for making a coil loop on lead ends by twisting the lead around the round beak.Minimax. Spring loaded and made in JAPAN 
4th this great pair of Fujiya cutters , perfect for strippers or cutting off all those little Dags when you finished a chassis.Fujiya is famous for making pliers , particularly electrical pliers and has been making them since 1923 !Nice cutter and spring loaded and made in JAPAN I use these when I was Mig welding to clip and clean the Tips !!
i have had these for years and  I use them all the time not just on chassis,but many small items,,, As you can see I have included my hand in the photo to give you an idea just how small and versatile they all are ,,They are all high quality and not so costly due to their size . All are only lightly insulated though! As they general purpose.If you have Hands like a marauding Ape? then they maybe too small for you,but for the average size hand they are excellent.Some other high quality tools you may want to look at that are made in JAPANAre "Vessel" known to make the best screwdrivers  or Sunflag if your looking for the best Tung screwdrivers ,not for electrical work as it's Tung through.I have both those sets and they are worth every penny.Asahi is also another one that makes great Spanners called Utra Lights .So there are some options to think about before you part with your money on chinese bunnings Rubbish .
Pete
PHOTOS sent in Brad and thanking you in Advance ,Pete

Oh I should Add each set of plies are about 125 mm in length !! Babies !!

Thanks for upload Brad ,,Pete

I was in need of some long nose pliers for radios so I went ahead and bought two of each type you have so six all up.
I figured I might aswell try out minimax while I can still get them.
Thanks for the recommendation Pete!

Photos taken with your new Olympus?

Well you won't be disappointed Lance.
I actually don't have good electronic skills,But I re cap Radiogram chassis and mostly that's all they need unless I make a boo boo when reading colour etc etc, But I'm a fussy bugger and I like chassis to be very neat so those little tools are great for recaps, I always replace all resistors and caps too. Many may not agree with that ,but my Radiograms play all day most days and I only want to fix it the once.
Now Olympus,no mate I have not been out taking photos. Due to I'm in isolation.
Wish I was out and about the light over the mountains in the winter here is beautiful.

All the best Pete
Lance put grease only on the little spring,no oil or you will loose the spring in time...

When it gets too painful and you can't get at it two haemostats, one in each hand can perform miracles.

I thought Nikon was the only Camera. I have worn out five cameras.

Marc,
On a decent camera you can expect a shutter life of about 300k ,but with a digital camera the menu buttons will be dead long before that and if it gets a drop it's all over.
Plus they date fast.
But I have no intention of getting involved with photography anymore as I spent years doing it and I've moved on.This Olympus I just use to take pics of my kids on outings etc, plus I use it to sell stuff on line with.but no intention of getting interested in photography again more than I just mentioned...too many things I want to do and if I do all the maths they can't all get done.

Pete

I must say photography is far too competitive and expensive to be worth my time that’s why it just stays a hobbie!
Your definitely right about the photo count though. Especially on mirrorless cameras a lot of their things will die before the sensor.
Marc the only thing I wore out on a camera was a shutter button on a canon T70 of all things!

One of the Nikons got damaged but I fixed that.

Doing the Weddings Funerals & Bar mitzva, type thing chomps through film and the mechanicals do wear in the older ones. The film cameras are too expensive to run now. It would have been nice if there was a digital back for the Bronica, as it still has a bit of life in it. It was mainly doing the odd Wedding, but mainly terrestrial orchids for a scientific project using reversal roll film. It has chewed up over 200 rolls just on that and a wedding could chew up around five. That one has 3 backs.

Being a studio camera nothing was cheap and it has bellows for the extreme close ups. The big advantage was an Iris shutter & it is computer linked to the Flash gun. The iris shutter never cuts of feet & heads etc and was good for 1/500th of a second with flash unless it was pitch black dark. The backs can be removed anytime & another put on without losing its place & then put back on to continue.

One camera actually wore out the threads on the lens.

Tools here do get big, its a Farm: Lathe is the biggest in the mechanical repair section; albeit that it gets used to make extensions shafts & pulleys for radios. C-19 has proved handy. I did manage to dismantle the headstock & put new belts on it & modify the cutting fluid tank, without interruptions.

My big gun camera is a Canon 7D and is in a bag with four L-Series lenses. 8-15mm, 17-45mm, 24-105mm and a 70-200mm. I also have a 2x extender which takes the last lens out to a maximum of 400mm, though it goes a little further in reality because the 7D isn't a full frame camera like the 5D is. The 7D is ageing a little bit but is still far better than a phone camera for most things. One day, when the funds are available I may upgrade to a 5D. For now though I just don't need the extra oomph.

My 5 year old grand-daughter showed me how to use my old IPhone 4 (why is your phone so small Grandpa?) to take good, properly focussed closeup shots by touching the object on the screen that you want the camera to focus on.

When I worked as a photographer ,It's not like people think and you specialise in a particular area ,so I specialise in promo ideas or advertising and travel no other areas.
I did not do weddings or nudes etc etc .
One day a lady I was dating had work friend who was getting married and she nagged me to do the wedding of this person I did not know! Finally I gave in and said right oh ok,you win I will do it.
So turn up at the house and from the outside I could tell these people look a bit rough . I go inside the house and there is hand guns about the place and man collecting them all up and putting them some place, Then I meet the bride to be, who wanted a photograph of her self in nude on the bed for her wedding day , oh boy ! I really didn't want to upset these people who all looked like ex cons to me. So I said ok.
I walk in the bedroom and there the bride to be is on the bed in the nude and not one bit of her flesh that wasn't covered in Tattoos ! Shit I thought! There is no way I'm going to be able to make this " lady " and her Tats look like the a sweet bride. Anyway I did the shoot and the shots looked like they belonged on the cover of a Bikie magazine. About a week later I had the photos put into a Album and gave them to her . What a nightmare!

Pete

Most professional photographers specialise to a degree. Max Dupain, a renowned photographer from the middle of the last century specialised in taking photos of Sydney. Whether it be the harbour, Cockatoo Island, Garden Island, Hyde Park or people working in the streets dodging horses, carts, trams and poop, he covered it all but took photos of little else.

Then, going back a further 60-odd years, we had Bernard Holtermann, who rose to world fame by discovering the world's largest specimen of gold at Hill End and later becoming the Mayor of North Sydney. Holtermann built a huge mansion in Nth Sydney and this came with a tower that was about six storeys high. He used this tower to take panoramic photos of Port Jackson and Darling Harbour, right out to about where the Gladesville Bridge now sits. These photos were taken on custom-built equipment using the world's largest plate glass negatives - 5 foot by 3 foot.

Holtermann also photographed portraits of buildings and their owners at the Hill End goldfields and many of these photos have been repeated on etched aluminium signs which are mounted in front of where the buildings once stood.

These blokes would have loved having the digital technology we enjoy now. It is very forgiving and it is far less costly to repeat any shots than before because you had to get a roll of film processed and put on paper before realising any mistakes made.

In the industry it's considered professional if you don't specialise in a particular area.There are other reasons for it too, Equipment set up, because I did promo and advertising it was all large format or minimum was 6x7.
You would always even try to do travel set ups on 6x7. I loved doing it for a job and took me everywhere ,but once I had kids it was the end of it,you can't just be gone from home all the time.

Pete

I should add here and this may shock some ,but when I called it a day working as a photographer and I went into selling mid century furniture and collectables I enjoyed it much more ,it really was a fun and interesting way to pay the bills ,. So other doors do open in life sometimes.

As we needed book quality 645 was the best at the time and I hand built a tripod for them. 70mm lenses with the shutter mechanism in the actual lens, are not light and the bellows actually supported camera and lens. The bellows were on a substantial track. This project has gone on for over 25years.

As the Orchids were being taken where they grew in the forests etc. that represented considerable weight to be lugged in some interesting terrain. Orchids just loved moving in the slightest breeze and most awkward places, like the edge of a steep glacial gully and one lot with 2mm flowers in a narrow strip with an abandoned mineshaft either side.

That is something you need to be aware of around Beechworth & the surrounding goldfields. Never walk without a separation, some were only covered with boards and will give way.

Marc

I think my total kit weighs about 12 or 13kg in the Lowepro carry bag. I am one of the lucky ones as I only have one body. Most professionals carry two Canon 5D or equivalent bodies plus a small selection of lenses. Those who work for newspapers and covering things like demonstrations or ANZAC Day marches usually have two bodies, one with a telephoto lens and one, say 17-45mm for close-up stuff.

A Canon L Series 70-200mm lens is like a housebrick and would easily knock someone out with no injury to the lens if used in self defence. L Series lenses are all aluminium with rubber seals to keep out dust and water. I protect the lens coatings by having UV filters permanently on the front of all bar my 8-15mm which cannot have a screw on filter.