A guy in a hangar in Phoenix showed me a trick with a zip tie and a flashlight

I was working on a stubborn comms antenna connector on a King Air, couldn't get my head in the right spot to see the locking collar. This old guy, name was Frank, walks over from the next bay. He doesn't say a word, just takes a zip tie and threads it through the loop on a small flashlight. He cinches it down so the light points straight out, then hooks the zip tie over the edge of the avionics bay. He said, 'Now you got two hands free and the light stays put.' It was so simple, but I'd been fighting with holding a light in my mouth for years. I've used that trick on probably a dozen jobs since. Anyone else have a simple tool hack for tight spaces?

2 comments

2 Comments

dakotal161mo ago

Oh man, that's the best kind of tip. It feels like there's a whole hidden world of these little fixes that experienced people just carry in their back pocket. They're never in the manual, but they save you so much time and frustration. I see it everywhere, from cooks using a towel to open a stuck jar lid to my neighbor propping up a wobbly table leg with a folded matchbook. It's all about seeing the tools you already have in a new way. That zip tie trick is a perfect example of smart, simple problem solving.

the_emma1mo agoTop Commenter

But what if it's not a hidden world? I mean, sometimes those tricks are just a band-aid for a problem that needs a real fix. Propping a table with a matchbook just means you'll forget and it'll wobble again later. Isn't there a point where a quick fix stops being clever and starts being a way to avoid doing it right?