Another useful tool from the workshop.
Workshop-made special tools are essential for anything beyond routine maintenance but, not to dwell on the morbid, what is to become of them when we're gone? "Everyone" can recognize common hand tools, so our heirs would have no problem disposing of them at a yard sale. But, a valve lifter holder (minus the DTI) for a Vincent? Certainly, to most Vincent owners who don't already have one it would be more valuable than yet another 6 mm spanner. But, but what are the odds our heirs would recognize a DTI holder for what it is in order to label it, let alone the odds a Vincent owner would be at that yard sale?
A few years ago I bought a large collection of shop-made BSA tools from someone in town who got them from an estate of a machinist, so he was unaware of anything beyond them being for BSAs. I could recognize the function of enough of them to make the purchase worthwhile (e.g. a jig for holding DBD Gold Star heads at an angle in a mill), but most still sit unidentified in boxes. Because I discovered that even I didn't recognize the function of some of the tools I made myself years ago, I adopted the practice of using a paint pen to write identifying information on them. Still, even if a tool labeled "Vincent half-time pinion puller" were at a yard sale, what are the odds a Vincent owner would be at that sale?
Special tools are valuable to the small number of people who would need them but, when the time comes, our heirs wouldn't know what those tools are, and the right people wouldn't know they were available. That's the problem; what's the solution?