In the garage, my favorite and most used tool is a 24oz ball peen hammer. Yeah, I know it sounds stone age. But when ya work on older cars, so many things need a little "encouragement". You can tap lightly when needed or you can wail on whatever when really needed.
Case in point: leaking rear seal on 4spd auto trany on 4x4 suburban. Finally got to the seal and it's kinda buried up in the back of the trany. Has a snap ring holding it in there. Expensive machined aliminum case all around it and equally expensive output shaft thru the middle of it. No way was I going to be able to just pluck it out with my seal removal tool. But a small punch and the hammer and I had a nice hole in the middle of the seal. I slipped the hook of the seal remover into the hole and out popped the seal with nary a scratch to the case or the output shaft.
I suspect we use hammers so much, we don,t even realize we are doing it. For the record, I do carry a Swiss Army knife with me all the time.