If you’re looking for a camp shovel, rather than buying the folding variety, check out this Special Forces Shovel from Cold Steel. Sure, you can use it to dig, but you can also use it as a hatchet, an axe, a cleaver, a machete, a hammer, a paddle, and if you get bored you can throw it!

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If you’re going to carry a walking stick in the winter, why not carry one that doubles as a pick adz?  While you probably won’t be climbing any glaciers, the pick adz can come in handy chipping ice from walkways and steps.

The handle on the Japan Woodworker’s Hickory walking stick is actually a stainless steel pick adz covered in leather sheath that also serves as a cushioned hand grip. The walking stick also sports a stainless steel tip which digs in and helps you maintain your balance on icy surfaces.

The Japan Woodworkers Mr. Trekky walking stick runs $120 plus $9 shipping.

Walking Stick [Japan Woodworker]

When you practice catch-and-release, every second counts. The longer you have the fish out of water, the worse its chances of survival. You grab your forceps or other hook-remover only to figure out there’s no way you’re getting the hook out without damaging the fish. So you need to waste precious seconds to grab another tool to cut the line. If you were holding a pair of Hemocuts, you’d already have the fish back in the water.

The Hemocut is a combination of the Kelly forceps and bandage scissors. It’s marketed by two different companies for two entirely different fields. EMI manufactures and markets the Hemocuts to the medical field and William Joseph markets them to fisherman, including a few modifications like an open-finger loop and a rubber coating for a better grip in wet conditions.

The medical Hemocuts start at $6, while the ones specialized for fishing run $15.

William Joseph [Corporate Site]
HemoCut [The Fire Store]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

If you need to take some quick tree core samples to determine the rate of growth last year, one tool you could use is this Swedish-made increment hammer from Haglof. To take a sample, all you do is strike the tree perpendicular to the trunk and and pull the hammer out. You then eject the core with the steel plunger.

Made from high-quality hardened Swedish steel, the 11-1/2″ hammer takes a 0.157″ (4mm) diameter by 3/4″ long sample from either hard or soft wood trees. A 2″ graduated scale on the shaft of the hammer is graduated in increments in 1/20″ or in millimeters for taking a quick reading in the field.

With an investment of $80 you can start taking some core samples. The ejector and the hollowed tip are replaceable if you damage them and cost $18 and $20 respectively.

Increment Hammer [Haglof]
Increment Hammer [EJ Motiwalla]
Increment Hammer [BenMeadows.com]

If you just have a lawn mower, a Gas Caddy like the one pictured above might be a little overkill — but if you maintain a bunch of gas-powered equipment, you might appreciate this simple solution for transferring and storing all that fuel.

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Soon all new cars will come with tire pressure monitoring systems, and a lot of vehicles have ‘em already. Maintaining another computer and mechanical system will bring another set of challenges to professional and backyard mechanics — four sets of wireless, battery-powered sensors all spinning at highway speeds sounds like problems in the making.  GearWrench’s Tire Pressure Monitoring Kit will help you with these maintenance tasks.

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If you cringe at the price of wood at the lumber mills or, even worse, the big box stores, you might be searching for other options.  I checked out some portable sawmills;  most of these are large units where you put a log in a cradle and a manual or power bandsaw slices up the wood, and they start at about $3,000 and go up to the tens of thousands.  I’m not looking to start a one-man sawmill operation, just trying to save a few sawbucks, so I was glad to find this mill made by the Granberg Company — it works off a regular chainsaw.

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I cut my own wood, and I’ve tried splitting logs with the metal wedges, but after two of the wedges stuck in some old maple — and after some aggravation with the chain saw getting them back — saw splitting has become my preferred method.  This Ryobi Electric Log Splitter boasts four tons of splitting power, and it can split logs up to 20″ long and 12″ in diameter.

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The rare occasion that I’ve kept fish I didn’t fillet or gut, I’ve just used a spoon to scale the fish — it works, but it’s not very fast. Evidently there’s a better tool to use than a spoon: a traditional Japanese fish scaler like this one from the Japan Woodworker.

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You’re hundreds of feet above the ground or miles deep into a cave and you need to drill a hole in solid rock for an anchor — what are you going to use?  Petzl made the RocPec SDS drill holder for just these situations.

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Snow and ice dams can cause major headaches for homeowners. At least once every winter the news will show someone on their roof with a snowblower — neither Toolmonger nor the manufacturers recommend this.  Instead, you can clear that snow off your roof simply and safely with the Avalanche series of snow removal tools.

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Whether you’re up in the deer stand or on the shop floor, when your feet get cold, life is no longer fun.  You can dress as warm as you want, but sometimes it’s not enough — that’s when it’s time to slip some Cozy Feet foot warmers into your shoes.  Powered by a few AA batteries, they’ll warm your toes in seconds.

The low-voltage insert is shockproof and reaches a safe maximum temperature of 98°F.  The one-size-fits-all insert measures 4-1/2″ long by 2-7/8″ wide by 6 mils thick.

A set of inserts runs $25.

Cozy Feet [Cozy Products]
Street Pricing [Google]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

This looks like a unicycle gone bad, but it’s actually a snow-shoveling innovation called the Wovel. The Wovel simplifies your snow-removal tasks by harnessing the powers of the lever and wheel.  It’ll also help save your back since the Wovel primarily uses your arms and legs to move the snow.

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Early Tuesday morning the northern part of the country experienced a super cold snap. Reports said temperatures slid down to well under minus-twenty-five degrees in some parts of Minnesota and the Dakotas. In short, it’s not a fun time up there.

This plumber with his heavy-duty IceBreaker appeared in a Chicago newscast, reminding folks to keep the water flowing from both hot and cold sources unless you’d like a visit from him to thaw and fix the pipes.  It sounds like good advice to us. Down here in the south, where we don’t have insulated pipes, we do this whenever the temperature dips under the freeze mark.

News Report [CBS 2 Chicago]

Deep in the throes of winter, this interesting little scraper caught our eye. Normally your windshield scraper only scrapes in one direction, but this orbital ice scraper from Carrand — think Mr. Clean — lets you maximize your efforts by scraping in any direction.  Any tool that gets you out of the cold faster and into your warming car is worth a look.

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Many of the project sites we look at take a Julia Childs approach to their holiday wood projects — you know, using materials you don’t have, tools you can’t afford, and plans you couldn’t draw up even if you were a rocket scientist. So to combat this effect we put together a reindeer and accompanying sleigh that you can assemble with a few simple tools and under $15 worth of lumber — in under a day.

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Hanging Christmas lights each year can be both a chore and a danger — the less time you spend up on that ladder the better.  The Fast Trax track light system makes it easier to put up your Christmas lights and get them straight the first time.  When the holiday season ends, Fast Trax also stores your lights tangle-free.

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