One of the best things about the Milwaukee M12 Li-Ion lineup is that Milwaukee recognizes that people who buy their tools have a life outside of work and adapt some of their products to it. I’m not talking beach ball inflators here, but handy gadgets like the 2349-20 Power Port. At first we thought it was a “marsh melon dispenser”* like in Star Trek V, but sadly that’s not the case. It’s a power charger that draws from the standard M12 battery on one end and feeds to USB and a 12v car-charger outlet on the other. We guess that’s just about as good.
Do you have loose outlets in your home — you know, the ones where the receptacle wiggles every time you plug or unplug a cord? More than likely the drywall guys cut the hole too big, and the ears on the receptacle don’t land on the drywall. In the past I’ve used small washers or nuts to space the outlet far enough out from the wall so the cover plate fits correctly, but I noticed these Caterpillar spacers from Buchanan (Ideal) the other day when I was walking through Home Depot and decided to give ‘em a try.
One product at the Bosch event which received close to no attention was the little SPS10 screwdriver. It lacks the show-stopping bang of the new Full Force pneumatic line — however it’s a quiet acknowledgment that the millions of ixo’s and SmartDrivers that sold in the last couple years aren’t a fluke. Palm drivers have emerged as a well-defined class of their own, and Bosch has entered this market with the SPS10.
The box says it’s aiming at the professional cordless screwdriver market. Having experience with three other units in the palm driver category — the Dremel Driver, the Skil ixo2, and the B&D SmartDriver — we decided to see how the SPS10 stacked up against one of its slightly older brethren.
For the head-to-head we pitted it against the only other competitor we had on hand that’s not owned in some way by Bosch –- the Black & Decker LI3000 SmartDriver. The LI3000 also runs in the middle of the pack of palm drivers, so it’s a good horse to pace from.
With no warning or explanation, toss one of these Striker ball lights to somebody and ask them what it is. We got quite a few entertaining answers right out of the box, everything from disco ball and mini-land mine to one horrified person who dropped it immediately and scolded us for tossing them a sex toy. It’s actually an LED light with magnets stuck all over it for providing light in odd places.
The palm-sized driver category is opening up a bit more with the addition of this pint-sized Dremel Driver. A palm driver’s diminutive size and ease of operation appeal to people who dislike turning the occasional screw but don’t plan to pay out a ton of green for it. Given Dremel’s experience with small power tools, we wanted to see if their new driver is out in front of the pack — or just late to the game with a “Me, too!” effort.
Check out our assessment of the Dremel Driver, and see how it compares to other palm drivers.
Wood filler is truly inspired stuff — not only does it allow the crafter to fix mistakes, but it also allows someone like me, who’s not the world’s greatest woodworker, to create pieces that can be displayed without shame or explanations. To paraphrase some rather famous marketing, “Filler doesn’t make the things you build; it makes the things you build less jackass.” We uncapped a tube in the Toolmonger wood shop to show you how it works.
Almost universally, a professional framer will choose a gun when there’s serious work to be done. A few old-school crews still use hammers, but when the heavy lifting’s about to begin, the guys in the know reach for a rig like this Duo-Fast 20-degree DF350S strip nailer. We got our hands on one to see what it was all about.
Finishing a wood project often takes longer than building it, so it sucks when some of these difficult-to-apply finishes don’t wear well. In the Toolmonger shop, Danish oil has become one of our favorite methods — it’s easy to apply and looks great afterward — so we decided to try Watco’s latest formulation, a cherry stain, to see if it holds up to what folks have come to expect from the line. We weren’t surprised by our results.
Circular saw blades fall into one of two categories: Either they will or will not work for what you’re doing. We needed a cheap blade to cut double-veneered 3/4″ ply and decided to find out which category Skil’s 7-1/4” sixty-tooth carbide blade fell into. Our results were pretty positive.
Up-North lore says a yeti is an elusive snow Wookiee that lives in the Himalayas — you know, the Abominable Snowman. And it’s pretty easy to lure one out into the open: Just steal a guy’s tools out the back of his truck, and sooner or later the yeti/owner will appear, screaming his fool head off. The guys at Trident Security Concepts want to arm you with a Yeti of your own, so you don’t have to become one. We got our hands on one of the screaming yellow security units to find out if it could actually help keep your gear safe or not. Guess what? In certain situations it could.
Is a savings of one mile per gallon even worth thinking about? Consumers will probably be pondering that question as they consider the XFE option when shopping for their next full-size truck. GM was kind enough to give us a little time with their new-for-2009 Silverado XFE, so we in turn tore around town with it to see if the option had nerfed the truck, or made any difference whatsoever.
Read on past the jump for our hands-on experiences and a few photos.
Think battery power and regenerative braking are only for granola-eating hippies? Think again. GM was kind enough to give us a little time with their new-for-2009 (read: available in the first half of next year) Silverado hybrid. And we tried something you can’t do with a Prius: We tooled around town with three people onboard — and a 20′ SeaRay boat out back.
But is this an option for which you’ll ante up a couple grand next year? Read on past the jump for our hands-on experiences and lots of photos.
Tired of lugging that 18V monster drill/driver around just to drive small screws and assemble stuff? Bosch’s PS20 sub-compact driver has provided an alternative for the last few years, but it’s seen little competition.
Until now. Milwaukee’s new sub-compact is similar in size and claims slightly better specs. But we needed to see it – and put it to the test in the Toolmonger shop – to believe it. Read on past the jump to see how it fared. (more…)
The medium-class 18 to 24 volt cordless drill seems to be a consumer favorite right now, especially if the drill in question is lithium-ion-powered. Craftsman’s professional 20V lands squarely in this popular price/performance zone, though we’ve found Craftsman drills to be hit-and-miss when it comes to power and quality. So we put this one to the test. Read on past the jump to find out how it fared.
It seems to us that tool guys obsessed with the latest recip or computer-controlled cutting machine often overlook jigsaws, but jigsaws offer a cheap and effective way to cut curves for woodworking projects. Even we’d been infected with the craze. So when we got off our high horse and headed to the store to pick up a quality jigsaw, we were surprised how far the modern jigsaw has progressed.
Skil’s 4690 corded jigsaw delivers a few new features that weren’t available on the unit we cut with in high school shop class. Its six amp motor plows through wood a lot faster, too. For the testing process we decided to see how the 4690 faired against a real world project: the 18-1/2′ plywood dinosaur we built a few weeks ago.
Read on to see how it — the saw, not Bob the big-ass dino — performed.
Some jobs are remote enough to make carrying an air compressor problematic — for instance replacing a few slats at the back of your wooden fence or building a shed in the back forty. That’s when the Paslode CF-325 Cordless framing nailer shines. It drives nails just like your standard pneumatic nailer — but without all the extra gear.
Read on past the jump to find out how this sucker turns butane and battery power into nail-drivin’ fury.
We posted a review of these nice new levels from Stanley just a bit ago, but here’s your chance to see first hand how we tested ‘em — and to meet the latest addition to the TM crew, JR Bluett.
