5 Garage Tools That Make Small Jobs Much Easier

Classic slip-joint pliers have a habit of opening up right when you lean on them. The Cobra sets its size with a button on the joint, so you can close the jaws onto a pipe or a rounded nut and fine-tune the fit without taking the pliers off. The jaw geometry is made to lock under load, which means the grip gets tighter as you turn instead of sliding around.

The 10-inch size is the usual middle choice: it opens to 2 inches for sink traps and hose fittings, but it still fits in a drawer and in tight spaces behind a toilet or a washing machine.

Pro tip On chrome or brass fittings, put a rag or a strip of rubber between the jaws and the part. The teeth are hard enough to leave marks.

Most small jobs in a garage start with “where’s the right screwdriver?” This one answers that for the common screw types around the house: two Phillips, two slotted, two Torx and two square bits. Pull the bit holder out and the shaft itself becomes 1/4, 5/16 and 3/8 in nut drivers, which covers hose clamps, appliance panels and a lot of sheet-metal screws.

It won’t replace a full driver set for precision work, but as the one tool that lives on a hook by the door or in the car, it covers a surprising number of jobs.

Pro tip Hose clamps on most cars and appliances take a 5/16 in or 8 mm nut driver. Removing the bit holder gives you the 5/16 in straight away, which is faster than a slotted bit that keeps slipping out.

Half of the small jobs in a garage go wrong because something moves while you work on it. A bar clamp fixes that: hold a part to the bench while you drill, keep a glued joint closed, or hold two pieces in line while you screw them together.

These are trigger clamps, so one hand holds the work while the other squeezes the clamp shut. Reverse the head and the same clamp pushes outward as a spreader, which is handy for popping apart a stuck joint. If 6 inches isn’t enough, two clamps can be joined into one with more than double the opening.

Pro tip Most glue-ups need clamping at both ends and in the middle. That’s why a 4-pack is the right start — one clamp is almost never enough.

Every garage has a hammer, but often it’s a light one from a starter kit that bounces off anything bigger than a finish nail. A 20 oz head drives framing nails with fewer swings, and the straight rip claw is the useful kind for a garage: it pulls nails, but it also slides between boards to pry them apart.

Head and handle are both steel, so there’s no wooden handle to dry out or work loose in a cold, damp garage.

Pro tip When pulling a long nail, slip a scrap of wood under the hammer head. It protects the surface and gives you more leverage once the nail is half out.

Small jobs turn into long jobs when a nut drops somewhere you can’t reach or see: behind a washing machine, between the floorboards, or into the engine bay. A magnetic pickup tool exists for exactly that moment, and putting the light on the same flexible neck means you can actually see what you’re aiming at.

The magnetic base is a small bonus. Stick it to a car body or a steel shelf and you have a light pointed at your work while both hands stay free.

Pro tip Before you start working above an engine or an open drain, stuff a rag into the gap below. It’s faster than fishing for anything, even with a magnet.