Here’s a scenario that should resonate with practically every one of our DIY-oriented readers, especially those to whom weekends represent a glorious opportunity to Do Stuff That Needs to Be Done. To be honest, this is more akin to a genetically programmed imperative than an optional leisure-time activity: although you may not be aware of it, every cell in your body is urging you to grab a tool and fix things or make stuff.

Now let’s consider the (very few) readers who have yet to make the leap of faith to DIY nirvana. We’ll assume you’re in a quandary: whereas you neither understand nor care about tools and what they can do, you have been instructed by your partner to “fix that shower today or forget about conjugal rights for the next 20 years”. What to do?

In both cases, your best bet is to make a list of the tools and materials required for the job, then visit your favourite hardware store and ask someone for advice. Personal experience suggests that you will promptly ignore this advice and spend the next two hours wandering among the shelves, examining all manner of interesting (and occasionally inexplicable) items, and end up buying far more stuff than you need to complete your project.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Although the shower job is unlikely to require an angle grinder or a set of quality German spanners, these tools will undoubtedly come in handy at some point in the future. Do not falter. If your purchases meet with grim disapproval at home, point out that you are merely asserting your constitutional right to bear tools (hey, it’s not as if we’re advocating easy access to AK-47s).

As always, our annual Tool Guide provides you with some excellent tool-buying ideas – and here we are also addressing the partners of DIY mavens. If there’s a birthday coming, or you simply want to do a favour for someone special, this is where you’ll find the solution.

There’s more: we test your tool knowledge with a fun quiz, introduce a trio who tell us about their favourite tools, show you how to build a stylish pot-rack from scrap, and take you inside a factory that turns out some of the best-quality tools on the planet. Now go out there and fix something.

The Editors