When you think of a portable compressor you probably think of a tool that’s small and easy to move for powering your air nailer. Sure, that’s one definition of portable — but how about a compressor the size of a mobile home that can deliver 1,200 cfm at over 350 PSI!

You’re probably not going to see this trailer parked at your normal job site — it’s used primarily in the drilling field, where higher flow removes the cuttings more efficiently and higher pressure makes drilling go faster.

(more…)

Once upon a time, when pneumatic nailers were all the same — to me at least — this fine tool would’ve escaped my attention. This is a multi-blow nailer, which means there’s no depth adjustment; you simply hold the actuator until the nail is driven to the depth desired.  If you hit a knot, just hold the actuator longer.

(more…)

All2ools.com is selling the Dynafile pneumatic abrasive belt sander for the low price of $383. It looks rather funky, but it has it where it counts — did we mention it’s pneumatic?

Because its belt measures between 1/8″ and 1/2″, many tool guys reach for the Dynafile when they’re blending welds or finishing castings with small nooks and crevices that a larger abrasive tool can’t reach. Try getting into nooks and crannies with your belt sander and you’ll understand.

Dynafile 14000 [all2ools.com]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What's This?]

If you use pneumatic tools a lot, you probably know to take care of them.  But if you only use ‘em a little, you might let the maintenance slide — not worrying about water in the line, not using a good filter, not lubricating your tools — like some Toolmongers I know. If you haven’t treated your air tools right, and they don’t seem to work quite like they used to, don’t give up hope. Blaster Chemical makes an air tool conditioner spray that one retailer claims is “SO POWERFUL IT BRINGS “DEAD” AIR TOOLS BACK TO LIFE!”

(more…)

Lumax claims their PneuLuber pneumatic grease gun is the only dual-piston air-powered grease gun and that it can empty a grease tube in less than a minute.  Street pricing is about $180.  The PneuLuber features trigger-controlled variable-speed grease delivery along with an “instant” brake, both of which keep this tool from being a grease-fountain mess-maker of doom — but they also seem to indicate that speed isn’t really the point.

Fourteen ounces of grease in under one minute: Maybe I’m missing something, but, unless you’re on a race team working in the pit, is there any reason to own a high-speed grease gun? For that matter, has anyone timed the speed of a hand-powered grease gun?

A powered grease gun I can understand — on any job that uses a grease gun all day it could prevent lawsuits over handshake accidents — but how important is fast greasing? Let us know in comments.

PneuLuber Grease Gun [Lumax]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What's This?]

If time isn’t an issue with your flat tire, and if you already own an air compressor with a standard air chuck, then this $5 kit will let you repair six tires. In addition to being cheap-ass, these kits won’t send your tires out of balance enough to notice, and they provide a permanent fix.

(more…)

The average DIYer won’t need to pick up a flooring nailer more than once a decade, but if you install floors for a living, you might want to check out Primatech’s heavy-duty, automatic P240.  You can strike the large head cap from any angle to set the nail, and Primatech boasts that the compact firing valve will get the tool tip 4-1/2″ closer to the end wall, saving you a lot of manual labor and time.

I found it online for $535, only a little higher than other pneumatic flooring nailers.

P240 Flooring Nailer [Primatech]
P240 Flooring Nailer [Harvester]

Textured walls still seem to be the craze, and texturing with a sponge still seems painfully slow. If you’re tired of sponging it on, try shooting it out of this hopper gun instead. You can find less expensive hopper guns, some of which only handle paint, but the Sharpshooter I features seven different orifice sizes, a handy air-control valve, and a big trigger for less hand fatigue.

(more…)

While doing the yearly maintenance on your lawnmower like a good Toolmonger, you pull the spark plug and discover it’s covered in crud. While replacing the plug is a fine idea, you might save a little dough and a trip to the store by cleaning it and using it for another year. And though you could clean the plug with a little elbow grease, why do it the hard way when this cheap-ass pneumatic spark plug cleaner’ll do the job for you?

(more…)

Recently Hitachi announced the release of their new N5010A 1/2″ Standard Crown Stapler and N5021A 15/16” Wide Crown Stapler. Both lightweight staplers look very different from Hitachi’s alien-skinned power tools. It seems Hitachi’s pneumatics division designed these staplers to be practical for the jobsite — there’s no green rubber, just metal — and we dig it.

These staplers’ll work for a variety of tasks, ranging from light construction sheathing to roofing applications — and you’ll probably need to put the tool to a lot of those tasks, in order to justify the steep asking price. We’ve found spots online offering the new staplers for around $385, which puts them in the higher-end price bracket for staplers.

Pneumatics [Hitachi]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

The nail gun revolutionized carpentry, but at the expense of tying the carpenter to a stationary compressor. Companies have devised some ingenious solutions to this problem — but battery-powered or battery-and-gas-powered nail guns can be heavy, awkward, and costly; and CO2-powered belt packs can only drive so many nails before you have to buy a new canister. Palmgren devised another solution: a portable, tank-less compressor that weighs just 6.6 lbs including the battery, so you can carry it easily over the shoulder or around the waist.

(more…)

When you hear die grinder, you probably think of a small tool that you operate one-handed — and with most die grinders you’d be right. But the Dynabrade 8″ extension grinder could grind that perception right out of your head. The 8″ extension grinder grinds metal like your average die grinder, but the handle has grown eight inches. It gives the tool a greater reach, but more importantly it gives you more leverage, because the standard one-handed tool has become a two-handed grinding machine.

(more…)

Whether you’re an aircraft mechanic, auto mechanic, welder, or DIYer, you’ll eventually need to grind or sand some metal. But what happens when your angle grinder doesn’t offer the finesse you need for a small, intricate job? What happens when you need to get into a hard-to-reach area? Here’s a solution that takes advantage of a tool you already have — 3M’s Roloc drill-mounted grinding/sanding/finishing system.

(more…)

Bending over or working on your knees with your nail gun can be tough on your body, especially when you do it every day. Wouldn’t it be nice to drive nails while standing up? Sure Drive’s pneumatic Nail Gun Extension lets you operate almost any nail gun with a handle and a trigger from a standing position.

(more…)

These days it seems everyone has a nail gun, no matter how few nails they need to drive — even someone who’s never hefted a hammer can pick up a nailer/compressor package for the simplest of projects. But when it comes to getting nails out of lumber, we all seem to resort to the same simple tools: wrecking bars, cat’s paws, FUBARs, and brute force. Now the Nail Kicker gives you a way to reclaim lumber, without relying on just hand tools.

(more…)

Throwing water balloons is for children.  Adults launch them, usually with a rig based on surgical tubing. But for true Toolmonger overkill, you’ll need the Balloon Bazooka: a pneumatic launcher that can loft a balloon over 300 feet — or launch up to twelve balloons at once.

(more…)

L.C. Miller’s air-powered hacksaw, the Tigair, offers all the quick-cutting convenience of a reciprocating saw, without some of the recip saw’s shortcomings.  For instance, it won’t get damaged if it bogs down; it makes fine burr-free cuts with a common hacksaw blade; and you can even operate it underwater or in flammable environments.

At about 2″ wide, 6″ tall, and 16″ long, the Tigair packs a lot of power in a small package –  it runs at speeds up to 1,200 spm.  It cuts with standard high-speed hacksaw blades or modified reciprocating saw blades, and it weighs about 5-1/2 lbs, so you can maneuver it easily, even one-handed.  The Tigair requires 6-1/2 cfm at about 90psi, so you can power it with a moderately sized air compressor.  L.C. Miller doesn’t list a price, but if you’re interested you can request a quote.

The Tigair [L.C. Miller]