Wearing safety glasses with a dust mask can be a bummer. Many times you end up fogging the glasses, so you either choose to risk your eyesight by forgoing the glasses or fill your lungs with crap. There are a few safety glasses with anti-fog coatings on the market, but this set of glasses from Milwaukee goes one step further — they have a channel for ventilation between the lens and the frame that supposedly reduces fogging.

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Speaking of outlets, it’s often nice to test whether they’re live. The $25 Milwaukee 2201-20 will do that, and also give you an LED flashlight (”3x brighter than the competition”!?). This 3.5″ long, non-contact tester operates from a single AAA cell, has a voltage range from 90V to 600V (CAT III), and turns on/off via a rear push-button switch.

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Compared to the Milwaukee Cordless Detection Tool, your puny stud finder is only a toy. OK, we’re not sure about finding your keys, but it can detect rebar buried 6″ deep in concrete. It can also tell you the location and depth of wood, PEX, PVC, and metal behind gypsum, OSB, ceramic tile, and marble.

This pistol-grip cordless tool is yet another tool that uses Milwaukee’s M12 Lithium-ion battery. Gliding over surfaces on four wheels, it can differentiate between ferrous and non-ferrous metals and can even detect live wires. The white-on-black display with backlight will even show you the center and edges of studs.

If Google’s got it right you can pick up the Sub-Scanner starting at $200, but a more reasonable source like Ohio Power Tool has it listed for $310 without battery.

M12 Sub-Scanner [Milwaukee]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

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.

We got a kick out of talking to the Milwaukee accessory guys a few weeks ago while attending their product symposium. It was almost a counterculture inside the rank-and-file of the power tool reps, and we’ve seen it at almost every manufacturer. “Those tools are nothing without a good bit at the business end.” They say it without fail wherever we go and they said it over and over at the product launch for Milwaukee’s Shockwave bits.

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One of the reasons we like going to talk to the folks at Milwaukee is because we get to see all the latest tools and paw all over them, with direct access to the folks designing and building them a few feet away. Melissa here isn’t a tool rep in some booth trying to sell you snake oil — she’s a hardworking advocate of portable band saws and grinders, and her knowledge in this area is vast.

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Milwaukee is still putting the final touches on this bad boy, but that didn’t stop them from letting us play with their new compact band saw. Our homie Doug Mahoney, pictured above, models the new corded band saw doing its thing.  Yeah, it’s as badass as it looks.

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Milwaukee is currently offering a free tool with the purchase of some of the combo kits in their M12, M18, and V28 power tool lines. Depending on availability and the tool line you’re purchasing from, you can choose from such freebies as extra batteries, add-on wet/dry vacs, a Sawzall, and many more items.

This special rebate offer runs through June 30, 2009, and you can find more details on Milwaukee’s website.

Offer Details [Milwaukee]

Milwaukee unveiled their newest frontline products in the sub-compact cordless wars last week, and the M12 3/8” drill/driver was one of the first out of the gate. This offers a couple of insights:  first, this new drill is proof positive that Milwaukee has no plans to drop their M12 line;  and second, if you’ve been lamenting the limited choice of tools in this line, you’re in for a good year.

From everything we’ve heard, the big red “M” plans to roll out just shy of a dozen new tools in the M12 line alone this year. Their 3/8” drill is a great start. It features a 0 – 1,500 RPM high gear and 0 – 400 RPM low gear as well as a ripping 250 in-lbs of torque that’ll keep it in stride with the other competitors in its class.

With the rising popularity of the sub-compact lines in the market today, it seems Milwaukee’s going to bet heavy on little tools that boast large performance.  From a consumer standpoint we have to agree with that choice — we’ve reached for the high-end Li-Ion subs for the last two years, and they haven’t disappointed us yet. We can’t imagine the M12 3/8” will be any different. We got our hands on one for a short time at the recent Milwaukee event and it seemed very solid.

Pricing looks to be in the $130 – $150 range for the drill, charger, and two-battery set.  No word on what drill-only or combo kit pricing will be just yet, but we’ll keep you updated as rollouts occur.

Milwaukee M12 Line [Milwaukee Tools]

Milwaukee sent out a press release Friday introducing their new 10-1/4″ circular saw.  Not everybody is going to need a saw this large, but it’s interesting that they managed to shave 1-1/2″ pounds from the previous model, to make the new saw 17.8 pounds.

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Double-ended bits aren’t anything new, but we still like the concept — if you dull or damage one end of the bit, you just swap it end for end and keep on working.

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Buckeye Tool on Amazon is offering a great deal on this Milwaukee 12V Pipe Cutter without battery or charger, at just $100.  It cuts copper pipe up to 1″ diameter and automatically adjusts cutting size.  You can also buy it with the charger and battery if you don’t already own Milwaukee tools that use the M12 Li-ion batteries.

Pipe Cutter w/o Battery Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Pipe Cutter w/Battery Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Street Pricing [Google]

Used in conjunction with a right angle drill, these stubby spade bits from Milwaukee let you bore holes in the tightest of places.  Even if you don’t have a right angle drill, they’ll still let you bore holes straight into the studs where you had to angle the holes before.  Think about how much easier it’ll be to fish that Romex or PEX through the studs now.

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Milwaukee put out one of the coolest tools we’ve seen in 2008, the M12 Hackzall — even in the list of our favorites, this is the spoiled youngest child of the bunch. Ever since the fateful day we had to cut apart my power steering pump with one, it has claimed a place of honor in the shop.

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Chuck this tool in a demolition hammer and tenderize your steak in no time flat.  OK, so Milwaukee’s bushing tool is actually meant to prepare concrete for resurfacing — chipping up the old surface allows the new concrete to bond better.

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Milwaukee’s new M12 Lithium line includes quite a few different-looking tools, and we think this copper tubing cutter in particular might have some interesting potential.  Hardcore pros may find the specs brow-popping — with its cutter speed of 500 RPM, Milwaukee boasts that it’ll cut copper tubing up to 10X faster than conventional cutters, and it automatically adjusts to cut tubing with diameters from 3/8″ to 1″.

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When you see the Milwaukee Hackzall for the first time, you might react with confusion.  I must admit, the first time I laid eyes on it I thought there must’ve been a mishap on the assembly line somewhere.   I later came to understand that they purposely built it in this shape to be hard on tough jobs and easy on you.

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