Safety Glasses: Extremely important item to have, especially when using power tools. You should always wear your glasses when working with anything that might cause stuff to go flying. So if you fire up the dremel, rotary saw, power drill, electric sander, or start spraying paint, put on your glasses first. We don't want anyone getting hurt.

Screwdrivers: There is basically two types of screwdrivers out there: flat and Philips. We will expand this category a little bit to include other types of “drivers” such as hex, torx, and nut drivers. The most common ones you will use in modding are the flat and -Philips versions in sizes ranging from tiny to medium. You will most likely never need some of the larger ones, except maybe as pry bars.

Hex drivers, or Allen Keys, are also popular on some equipment, particularly water cooling. So it is always good to have a set around. Torx drivers, which look like a six pointed star, are common on Compaq equipment, but you won't find too many of them out there in other places.

Hammers: A carpenter will tell you that there are dozens of different types of hammers used for all kinds of different tasks. And he would be correct. However, when it comes to case modding, all we really care about is getting that square peg in the round hole, so we need a weight at the end of a stick.

Seriously, there are really two types of hammers that a modder should have in their toolbox: a standard claw hammer and a rubber mallet. They both come in handy not just in modding, but around the house in general.

Wrenches & Sockets: Anyone who has worked on cars in their lifetime probably has a collection of wrenches and sockets. To be honest, in most case modding projects there is not much of a use for the standard open end wrench. The best thing to do is for you to get an adjustable wrench and some vice grips. And while sockets are great, you will find that there is not much use for them in modding, unless you are creating a case from scratch with a lot of nuts and bolts in it.

Vice Grips & Pliers: Vice grips are one of the most amazing inventions. They are also called locking pliers because you can lock them onto whatever it is you are grabbing. Getting a few pairs in different sizes should cover just about all the needs you will have when it comes to modding. These could be put on the short list for some and may never be used by others.

In addition there are the always handy pliers. If you have vice grips you won't need to get many pliers. The “lineman pliers” which are the ones with the square point and wire cutter, are very handy, as are some Needlenose Pliers.

Clamps: While some people may argue if a clamp is a tool or not, you buy them in the hardware store in the tool corral (at least at Home Depot that's where they are) so as far as I am concerned, they are tools. Now that that is settled let's talk about clamps for a moment. What you see here is a bar clamp. It is called that because it has two ends that slide along a bar. They come in sizes ranging from 4” to 4' (or more). For most modding projects a 12” bar clamp should be good enough.

Clamps are used to hold things for you while you are using your tools, they act as an extra set of hands and are critical when cutting side panels and such. Every shop should have at least one pair of clamps.