There are times to go cheap (almost all times for us) and times to go for the right tool.  When you have a 600 plus lb. motor hanging in the air is not a time to go cheap –  unless you like watching your flimsy engine stand bend like a pretzel when you place a large load in its not-so-capable grasp.

OTC offers a heavy-duty Motor-Rotor repair stand that’s built to hold your big, honkin’ motor.  The part that caught our attention is its ability to hold more than just a motor; You can mount up a variety of engines, transmissions, torque converters and rear axles from trucks or tractors.  Did we mention it has a 1-ton weight capacity?

(more…)

Everyone’s done it at one time or another: just “drilling a quick hole” by sticking something on the drill press and holding it there by hand.  And just as it has weith many others (including us), eventually it’ll bite you in the, um, hand.

All sorts of clamps are available to fit the standard slots in your drill press, but we’re partial to the drill press vise; They’re easier to use, and some of them — like this one from Northern — offer the additional advantage of two-dimensional adjustable travel.

(more…)

Wanna know the difference between a professional looking framing job and what most people have hanging in their abode? Its all about the matting.

The problem is that at Toolmonger we were definitely born with the uber-cheap gene, and we refuse to pay $100 plus for a custom matte job.  That’s why we just placed an order for Logan’s 301-S compact matte cutter.  With the 301-S and just a little bit of practice, we’re gonna bring out the “inner masterpiece” in that $20 print of “dogs playing poker” we picked up at the flea market.  You can, too.

(more…)

Over the years there have been surprisingly few changes in basic fastener head design.  In fact, the last widely accepted design change was pretty much the Phillips-head design — in 1936!

In 2001, LOX decided to try and take on the industry standard, offering a new design of “fastener recess” — the part of the fastener’s head that your driver’s bit grabs to drive it.  Their “offset-square” design offers 12 points of contact. which they say lessens your need to “bear down” on the driver to keep the fastener engaged — and reduces stripping. 

Of course, never being one to believe what we hear, we put some LOX screws to the test.

(more…)

(Thursday, August 31st, 2006) Not a great night of TV, but the past few nights have been good so we’re not complaining.  Much.  At least CMT is showing more episodes of Trick My Truck, even if they keep repeating the Ultimate Tailgating one over and over.
All times are central.

• DIY Tools & Techniques: The Right Tool for the Job (DIY, 5 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Episode 38: Electric Baseboard Heaters, Moulded Pulp Containers, Video Games, Chicken (Discovery, 6 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Episode 40: Plastic Bottles and Jars, Mail, Wooden Pens (Discovery, 6:30 p.m.)
• Trick My Truck: Ultimate Tailgating Edition (CMT, 7 p.m.)
• Building the Ultimate: Digging Big (Science, 7 p.m.)
• Classic Tractor Specials: “American Show Classics.” Remembering American heritage tractors from Grey, TN (RFD-TV, 7 p.m.)
• Tools of the Trade: Road Building (National Geographic, 9 p.m.)
• Trick My Truck: Jeff Crane’s Ice Breaker  (CMT, 10 p.m.)
• Unique Whips: A Unique Dream (Speed, 11 p.m.)

Our insomniac’s suggestion: Classic Tractor Specials (RFD-TV, 3 a.m.).

We just recevied the latest copy of Make’s Tools-N-Tips email newsletter, and (as usual) it contains a few awesome finds.  For example:

Rare Earth Magnets: “Rare earth magnets are commonly used to hold or lift things, which is understandable given that they can lift more than 500 times their own weight in steel. The MAGCRAFT brand of rare earth magnets has a wide selection of strong, good-quality magnets and is available at local hardware stores and online. I found the half-inch disc magnets (NSN0702) particularly useful.”

The Plexiglass Cutter: “A plexiglass cutter is a very simple tool, essentially a sharp point with a handle. It is drawn over plexiglass to score it before breaking along the score to cut the plexi.  I love it because it is dead simple, cheap, and it works very well. It does not slip and scratch the plexi as easily as a knife. It also makes a deeper, smoother score line, and does it faster than a knife. It makes cutting plexiglass and similar materials fast and easy.”

Check out the Tools-N-Tips site at Make for more information about the above (and other) cool items, or better yet just sign up for the newsletter yourself and let them deliver it right to you.

Kick-butt dust collection system: $750.  Wiring: $150.  Plumbing: $100.  Remembering to turn it on: Priceless. 

You could always leave the vacuum running continually, which is highly annoying and would shorten the life of the vacuum motor.  Or, you could just give up and clean up manually.  Both options suck.  Literally.  The iSocket connects between your wall socket and power tool.  When it senses current flow to the tool outlet, it switches on the second outlet to automatically kick on your dust collection system.

(more…)

Our coverage of Weller’s new ColdHeat soldering iron drew the ire of more than one reader.  The consensus: ColdHeat irons are unreliable, can kill sensitive circuitry, make poor solder joints, and break easily.  What to do?

Reader Eli says, “…If portable heat is what you want, the Shack has a butane one that works pretty good.  The one I got looks like a big fat red pencil.  Works forever, refills easy.”

A couple of readers also pointed out that they see no need for fancy couture safety glasses in the shop — the standard big ones are fine.  (Follow the link to read the actual comments.  They make a good point!)

Numerous readers expressed their opinions about  Black & Decker’s AutoWrench – and our testing of it.  Opinion seemed split over whether it’s a time-saver or battery-waster.  Check it out.

We also got our first piece of chastisement, which made us proud:

Reader Rob said (regarding our AutoWrench test), “I really don’t understand why this post is longer than 5 paragraphs.  Did it work?  That’s all I want to know.  I don’t care what color shirt you wore that day.”

Yep.  We’ve arrived.

It’s a leash for cabinets.

This “anti-tip” kit is made for the office person in danger of pulling a cabinet down on top of themselves, but we suggest it could be just as effective at stopping a toppling toolbox (which is probably heavier anyway).  What a great way to miss out on the source of a new “Doh!” of the Week story.

The kit attaches heavy furniture like dressers, desks, file cabinets, and chests (did we mention toolboxes) to walls to prevent accidental, or perhaps foolish, tipping onto your personage.

(more…)

You’re a titan of a man, and you drive a colossal truck – the kind of truck that can haul a ton or more in the back without breaking a sweat. The fun comes when you arrive at your destination with a metric crapload of rock in the bed and realize you have to unload it somehow.

Yeah, you could try driving really, really fast in reverse and slamming on the breaks.  Or you could just “He-Man” it by grabbing a shovel going at it.  Smart money, however,  is perhaps best laid on a Loadhandler Cargo Unloader.

(more…)

(Wednesday, August 30th, 2006) A good night of TV from Discovery and Speed. Again we get 6 episodes of How It’s Made on two networks.

A promising new Mythbusters Episode airs tonight. Is building an earthquake simulator in the Bay Area begging for trouble? The most painful episode of Mythbusters, “Exploding Jawbreaker”, reruns as well.  As a bonus for those afternoon viewers, there is also a Trick My Truck marathon on CMT from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

All times are central.

• How It’s Made: Episode 2: Compact Discs, Mozzarella Cheese, Pantyhose, Fluorescent Tubes (Discovery, 5 p.m.)
• DIY Tools & Techniques: Handy Router Accessories (DIY, 5 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Episode 38: Electric Baseboard Heaters, Moulded Pulp Containers, Video Games, Chicken (Discovery, 5:30 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Episode 43: Conga Drums, Metal Plating, Buttons (Discovery, 6 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Episode 49: Plastic Cups and Cutlery, Special Effects Makeup, Gold,  Harps (Discovery, 6:30 p.m.)
• Chop Cut Rebuild:  Hide ‘n’ Seek (Speed, 6:30 p.m.)
• MythBusters: Biscuit Bazooka (Discovery, 7 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Episode 39: Firefighter Boots, Garden Tools, Automated Machines, Gypsum Boards (Science, 8 p.m.)
• PINKS: Arizona (Speed, 8 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Episode 40: Plastic Bottles and Jars, Mail Processing, Wooden Pens (Science, 8:30 p.m.)
• PINKS: Gateway (Speed, 8:30 p.m.)
• Trick My Truck: Ultimate Tailgating Edition (CMT: 9 p.m.)
• MythBusters: Earthquake Machine (Discovery, 9 p.m.)
• Unique Whips: Heart Broken (Speed, 9:30 p.m.)
• Junk Brothers: The Banquette and the Dresser (HGTV, 10 p.m.)
• MythBusters: Exploding Jawbreaker (Discovery, 11 p.m.)
• Unique Whips: Bullet Proof (Speed, 11 p.m.)
• I Love Toy Trains: “Great Lionel Layouts.” Merle Levitt’ multi-gauge, multi-level modern era layout; Tom Snyder talks about his train layouts, part 2. (RFD-TV, 11:30 p.m.)

Our insomniac’s suggestion: It’s all on Speed tonight, PINKS (12:30 a.m.), Unique Whips (1:00 a.m.) and Chop Cut Rebuild (3:00 a.m.).

Last week we wrote about our high expectations regarding Skil’s upcoming 10.8V line — and how we suspect that a Bosch PS20-class tool with some cost-cutting changes to bring it to the masses would be an superb idea.  Well, we received the press release today with a bit more information. 

Of course, the big question is, “How much torque will it make?”  And sadly, that question remains unanswered.   Skil says test tools are still a couple weeks away, but look below the jump for some pics and specs.

(more…)

When you’re looking to mount, say, your awesome new tubing bender to the shop floor and need to drill some 3/4″ holes in the concrete, you need a rotary hammer.  Think of these things as the hammerdrill equivalent of Doom’s BFG.  And let’s face it: Anything that’ll drill a big ‘ol hole in wood and concrete is cool.

Now Metabo’s come out with a “compact” rotary hammer.  Yeah, it sounded like an oxymoron to us, too, but we can think of some situations where it’d come in handy.

(more…)

When we first saw the AutoWrench, we thought, “Pretty cool.  Looks a little flimsy.”  It’s packaging promised it’d stand up to a pretty beefy 225 ft-lbs of torque, so we had to find out for ourselves.  We constructed a simple test rig and pushed it all the way to failure.

Read on for our results complete with lots of photos and even a video — a Toolmonger first — of the first test to failure.

(more…)

(Tuesday, August 29th, 2006) Not a bad night of TV!  Classic Tractor Fever visits a tractor show – if you’ve never been to one it’s time to find your local tractor show and attend.  They’re always fun for the family.

Between Overhaulin’ and Pimp My Ride there’s certain to be plenty of automotive bling brung. The French Luggage segment on Made in America proves that you, too, can be interested in something as mundane as luggage.

All times are central.

• Machinery of the Past: McCormick Deering binder, 12 A John Deere pull type combine, Massey Harris self propelled combine, British built Field Marshall tractor (RFD-TV, 5 p.m.)
• DIY Tools & Techniques: Pneumatic (DIY, 5 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Episode 44: Grinding Wheels, Compost, Window Blinds, Milk (Discovery, 6 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Episode 29: Wheel Loaders, Vegetable Oil, Hand Tools, Cotton Swabs (Discovery, 6:30 p.m.)
• Classic Tractor Fever: “Let’s go to a Tractor Show.”, The Florida Flywheelers show featuring Massey Harris and John Deere tractors (RFD-TV, 6:30 p.m.)
• PINKS: Mustang vs Wooly Mammoth (Speed, 6:30 p.m.)
• Overhaulin’: Customs (TLC, 7 p.m.)
• Rides: Core (TLC, 8 p.m.)
• Pimp My Ride (MTV, 8 p.m.)
• Pimp My Ride (MTV, 8:30 p.m.)
• Overhaulin’: All in the Family (TLC, 9 p.m.)
• John Ratzenberger’s Made in America: Wilson Footballs, Ansul fire extinguishers, American Ironhorse motorcycles (Travel, 9 p.m.)
• Pimp My Ride (MTV, 9 p.m.)
• John Ratzenberger’s Made in America: French Luggage, Chris Craft yacht factory, USA Today (Travel, 9:30 p.m.)
• Pimp My Ride (MTV, 9:30 p.m.)
• Trade School: Farrier Science (DIY, 9:30 p.m.)
• Build Or Bust: The Detroit Designer (Speed, 10 p.m.)
• Unique Whips: It’s Electra! (Speed, 11 p.m.)

Our insomniac’s suggestion: Machinery of the Past (RFD-TV, 1 a.m.), Classic Tractor Fever (RFD-TV, 2:30 a.m.), or Build Or Bust (Speed, 3 a.m.).

Doc Brown mounted a Mr. Fusion proudly on his time machine because it converted whatever you could shove down in there into fuel for the Delorean.  The Leaf Eater by FlowTron works (sort of) the same way: It coverts whatever leaves you cram in it into fuel for your lawn.

The Leaf Eater has a heavy-duty design that quickly reduces grass cuttings, wet or dry leaves and pine needles by more than 8 to 1. Once leaves are shredded they compost faster and make an effective mulch you can add straight to your garden.

(more…)

We’d laugh, but we did almost the same thing last week:

Reader Weldo Says, “Do not wire weld in shorts, a tank top, and sandals.  Not saying I did that, but if I had, the little burns from the slag would be on their way to healing pretty well.  Man, I bet that would have hurt.”

In my case I was wearing tennis shoes.  Hey, it was only a quick weld, right?  Slag caught my shoe right in the mesh part, and by the time I managed to take it off it was gettin’ a bit toasty inside.  I was uninjured (except my pride — dancing around the shop hollering “get it off get it off get it off” doesn’t do much for that), but I did change into some leather-uppered boots.

(more…)