You have the list. You know what goes in the bag.
What nobody tells you is which one to reach for when you are standing in front of the work. That is a different question and this is the answer to it, sorted by what you are trying to do instead of by what the tool is called.
If you do not have the tools yet, start with the ductwork tools list or the hand tools worth buying first. Come back when the bag is packed.
Cutting duct board
The serrated side of the duct board knife.
Duct board is fibrous and it wants to be chewed, not sliced. The serration works through it without tearing the face.
Buy one with the metal running the full length of the handle. The ones without it break, and they break at the worst time.
Cutting duct wrap
The razor side of the same knife. Not the serrated side.
This is the one that catches people, and it is the reason to own a knife with both edges.
Wrap is loose where board is rigid. Run serration through it and the teeth grab the strings in the insulation and pull. You end up with a torn edge that does not want to take tape, on a duct somebody is going to look at.
Two materials, two edges, one knife. Know which side is which before you reach.
Cutting sheet metal
Offset snips, and which color depends on your hands.
Red for a right handed person, green for a left handed one. That is not a preference, it is geometry.
The cut pushes the metal up. With reds in your right hand, your left hand is free on the left side of the cut to hold the duct steady. Greens put you the other way round.
Need greens and do not have them? Turn your reds backward and run them left handed. They cut the way greens do. They feel wrong in the hand, and they still work.
Putting a hole in duct for a take-off
The back of a puncturing hammer. A roofing hammer or an HVAC hammer, not a framing hammer.
A claw is useless here. You want a point that goes through metal, and you will be doing this every time a branch ties into a trunk.
Go rubber grip. Eight or ten hours of hitting metal with a steel handle finds your elbow.
Driving a drive on, and taking one off
Same hammer, two different faces. This is why one hammer covers three jobs.
- The flat side drives it on.
- The top of the head knocks it back off when duct has to come down.
- The back is the puncture point from the section above.
And if the drive will not go 2 to 3 inches by hand before the hammer comes out, stop. That piece was cut out of square and the hammer is not going to fix it.
Taking a drive off without wrecking the duct
A beater screwdriver or a straight prybar.
The point of a beater is that you are allowed to hit it. Get under the drive and work it off, and the duct face comes out of it clean.
Same tool chisels out a piece of wood that is in your way, and reaches into places that need a pounding and do not have room for a hand.
Stiffening a drive while it goes on
Lineman pliers.
Clamp behind the drive as it is being driven and it stops folding over on itself. That alone earns them a spot in the bag, and then they also strip wire, cut wire, pry, clamp, and work as hand seamers when your seamers are on the other end of the building.
Pulling a joint together
Dikes. Diagonal cutters, not a duct stretcher.
They bite and pull, and they are already in your bag.
If you do buy a stretcher, buy an offset one. The straight ones put your knuckles where the metal is.
Snap lock and s-cleats
Bulldogs. That is what they are for and there is not much more to say about it.
Bending a hanger strap clean
Snips first, then hand seamers. Two tools, in that order, and the order is the whole trick.
There is no brake on a job site. So you bite about 1/32 into both edges of the strap with your snips, at the line where the bend goes. Then you bend it with hand seamers and it folds on the line you gave it.
Word of the day: bite. A small cut into the edge of a piece, made so the metal knows where to fold. Without it the strap bends wherever it feels like and you get a bullnose, which is the fat rounded edge that tells everybody you skipped a step.
Offset seamers over straight ones, for the same reason as the stretchers. Your knuckles.
Cinching a zip tie
Banders, on a day you are doing a lot of them.
Any other day, lineman pliers. Clamp next to the base of the tie and rotate the loose end. Same result, and you did not carry a tool you use twice a month.
Screws, and the one that is always in the wrong place
A cordless impact driver for anything you can get square on.
An 11-in-1 for the one you cannot. Tight spaces, a thermostat, a screw the driver will not reach.
Get the 11 rather than the 8 or the 9, for one reason: it carries the 3/8 nut driver. You will go months without needing it and then need it badly.
The short version
- Duct board, serrated side of the knife
- Duct wrap, razor side. Serration tears it and the edge will not take tape
- Sheet metal, offset snips. Red right handed, green left, reds backward in a pinch
- Hole for a take-off, back of the puncturing hammer
- Drive on, flat side of the same hammer. Drive off, top of the head, or a beater
- Drive folding over, lineman pliers behind it
- Joint that will not close, dikes
- Snap lock and s-cleats, bulldogs
- Strap bend, bite it with snips, fold it with seamers
- Zip ties, banders on a banding day, lineman pliers otherwise
- Screws, impact where you can, 11-in-1 where you cannot
Every one of these is in the ductwork tools list if you want the buying end of it.